Color Restored to Classic “Doctor Who” Story

When it was originally screened in 1971, “Doctor Who”’s” ‘The Mind of Evil’ aired in full color. Since that time, the original color masters were destroyed, leaving only a black and white print of the story with only a few color clips discovered.

And while other stories from the Jon Pertwee era have seen their color restored by a merging of color information from off-air tapes and original black and white master prints, it appeared that “Mind of Evil” could be one of the third Doctor’s story that would always be in black and white.

However, with the advent of new advances in technology, it appears fans will get to see the story in color again when it comes to DVD.

At the recent “Regenerations” fan convention, it was revealed that the story will be coming to DVD at some point in the near future and it will be in color. What isn’t clear at this time is if it will be a “recolorized” release or if the story is getting the same treatment used for the upcoming DVD release of “Planet of the Daleks” episode three. That episode employed chroma dot technique that read and restored the color information from the black and white print held by the BBC.

With this restoration of color to “Evil,” the Pertwee era has only one remaining story not in its original broadcast format. That story is the seven part story, “Ambassadors of Death.” The story has some footage in color, including a couple of full episodes that weren’t destroyed during the original purge. The Restoration Team attempted to colorize the rest of the episodes a few years ago for the VHS release of the story, but costs proved too high. Some work was completed, but not for the full seven episodes. So, there may be less work to be done to get “Ambassadors” back to the way it was originally seen than needs to be done for “Mind of Evil.”

No firm date on the release for either title. However, 2|Entertain and the BBC have stated that all the remaining classic “Doctor Who” stories will be released on DVD by the end of 2012.