Is The Underwater Menace the greatest Doctor Who story of all time?

Over the new year, the latest Doctor Who animation came out – Patrick Troughton’s third story, The Underwater Menace, otherwise known as “Plan 9 From Doctor Who”, has been given a prestigious DVD release and… I think it’s the greatest thing ever made. Geoffrey Orme, you sir, have written the only good Doctor Who story ever made.

Slight exaggeration.

OK, but basically, I need to talk about The Underwater Menace. Because this story is ridiculous. January 1967, and the Doctor has only recently regenerated. Audiences still don’t know if this new floppy haired recorder playing madman will last more than a year, so risky is the recast. His first story is a dark morality play about the Daleks, his second, a pure historical that introduces Jamie. The Moonbase, with its dark tone, base under siege plot, return of the Cybermen and the solidification of Two’s persona and story type going forward, is on the horizon. But first… we have four weeks of psychedelic fish dances, mad scientists, volcanoes, relgious uprisings and yes, all of this is actually a Doctor Who plot. Before Troughton’s era was fully figured out, this is the last gasp of the totally insane formula testing of the Hartnell years, figuring out what on Earth to do with this show.

The final thirteen Doctor Who missing storylines: The case for each

Go back in time to 1968 and tell someone who’s been watching and enjoying Patrick Troughton’s Doctor, that in fifty year’s time the majority of his stories will be given new life as animations. At the beginning of the month, The Evil of the Daleks were announced, and The Abominable Snowman is also on the way (it’s not been officially announced, but it’s next, trust me). That gives us 13 stories until every single Doctor Who story is available on DVD. Which is INSANE. So let’s break them all down and I’ll try and figure out the order they’re going to be made, because make no mistake, I can guarantee that all of them are going to be made –

The case for… Marco Polo

Marco Polo looks like he’s been sent to the principal’s office and the Doctor’s his very disappointed granddad.

The show’s first lost epic, Marco Polo is a sprawling seven part serial that’s been lost to legend. The narrated soundtrack exists of course, as does the novelisation, but the original tapes are missing even though the rest of the premier season is pretty much intact. Despite this serial’s popularity, I don’t think we’re getting this any time soon. For starters, animation is expensive, and there’s seven parts to handle. The Evil of The Daleks is based on Dalek models that already exist, plus it’s not purely historical with dozens of costumes and location changes. Marco Polo literally takes place over MONTHS. It’s a huge story. And with no surviving episodes or even any footage (unlike Evil), all we have are telesnaps and behind the scenes photographs to animate this vast adventure. That’s a pretty big hurdle. It’ll happen one day, but I think the animation team will want to tackle other historicals first before doing this, one of the crown jewels of missing serials.