Doctor Who review: Mission to the Unknown is an incredibly faithful recreation
By James Aggas
The original episode might be lost, but the brand new recreation of Mission to the Unknown gives you the best possible glimpse of this piece of Doctor Who history.
On Wednesday, something very special was broadcast on YouTube. Mission to the Unknown – a complete recreation of a lost Doctor Who episode – was released, 54 years exactly after the broadcast of the original episode.
This isn’t something that could be done with most stories, but Mission to the Unknown has always been a little bit special. For one thing, it’s one of the only stories in the Classic Series that was told in just a single episode. (Although it should be noted that it’s really a huge prelude to The Daleks’ Master Plan.) For another, neither the Doctor nor his companions appear in the episode itself, so recasting new actors in all the roles is less of an issue.
Made by students at the University of Central Lancashire, the project has seen a huge amount of support from Peter Purves, who played companion Steven Taylor; Edward de Souza, who played Marc Cory in the original episode, and even the BBC, who have released the episode on the official Doctor Who YouTube channel.
You can see the episode in full below. Like most classic series episodes, it’s only twenty-five minutes long, so it’s well worth a watch when you have the time for it.
An authentic recreation
After finally watching the episode, it’s actually easy to see why this has been given so much support. I’m a big fan of both Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks’ Master Plan, so I was both cautious and excited about this project. While I’m hardly old enough to have seen the original episode, audio recordings have survived, at least. So the script and sound effects I know essentially inside and out.
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It’s clear that this new recreation of Mission to the Unknown has been extremely faithful to the original episode. The style and production just scream “Sixties Who“. Everything from the sets, to the effects, to even the black and white look convince extremely well. There are no cheats here – no easy CGI has been used, and the script has been used exactly it was in the original episode. It’s incredibly authentic.
The episode even has Nicholas Briggs voicing the Daleks. Even here, it’s clear that he’s going for something authentic to that era, using simply a ring modulator with nothing extra added.
This recreation has captured the darkness and the tone of the original story exactly right. A project that’s been made with a lot of love, this is a great way to discover or re-discover a piece of Doctor Who history in an exciting new way. An extremely impressive piece of work.
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Have you seen the new recreation of Mission to the Unknown? What are your thoughts? Are you familiar with the original episode? Let us know in the comments below.