Lost 'Doctor Who' story 'The Faceless Ones' has been resurrected as an animation.
The Second Doctor in The Faceless Ones
The adventure is the mostly missing eighth serial of the fourth season of the classic sci-fi show, starring Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor originally broadcast on a weekly basis from April to May 1967.
The story concerns a sinister race of identity-stealing aliens known as the Chameleons who the Doctor must find a way to defeat along with his TARDIS companions Polly (Anneke Wills), Ben Jackson (Michael Craze) and Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines).
Only two of the six episodes are held in the BBC film archives, as the other four were erased by the corporation before they realised the value of these shows. Snippets of footage and still images still exist from these episodes as well as off-air recordings of the soundtrack, making the animation of a complete serial possible once again. The six new animated episodes are being made in full colour and high definition.
The DVD will be released on March 16 and will feature photographic reconstruction of the story (including surviving footage of episodes 1 and 3), surviving film fragments from the story and five 'Easter Egg' surprises for 'Doctor Who' fans.
Another lost Second Doctor adventure - 'The Macra Terror' - was resurrected last year after all four episodes of the serial were deleted by the BBC.
The recreation of 'The Faceless Ones' is the latest animation released by BBC Studios that brings a missing 'Doctor Who' serial to life.
Animator-and-director Charles Norton - who worked on 'The Macra Terror' and 'The Power of the Daleks' - wants to continue to recreate more lost stories for fans.
He previously told BANG Showbiz: "There are certain stories that are perhaps more doable than others. 'The Crusade' is an interesting one, because it's one we're missing two episodes from ... Nothing's impossible."
BBC Worldwide is always actively searching for the other lost episodes of 'Doctor Who' with a significant find coming in 2013 when all six episodes of 'The Enemy of the World' and five instalments of 'The Web of Fear' were found by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, in a television relay station in Jos in Nigeria.