Not one of the Doctor's best but still worthy of animated reconstruction

The Doctor (William Hartnell) and companions Steven (Peter Purves) and Dodo (Jackie Lane) materialise in a distant future and discover a world divided: barbaric, fur-wearing 'savages' living on the periphery of a sealed, idyllic city of artists and thinkers. Needless to say...there's trouble in paradise. The tale's 'message' is unsubtle and a bit preachy (contrary to what some fans espouse, vintage 'Who' could be just as 'progressive' as its post-post millennium re-boot), and the ending is somewhat trite and predictable. I always liked Hartnell's tetchy, supercilious take on the Timelord's persona and was pleased that this 1966 four-parter was given the animation-recreation treatment. Like the other reincarnations, the original audio (including the occasional flubbed line) is played over a simplistic animated revisioning of the story based on surviving fragments and stills (but I suspect that the 'special effects', such magnitude of the future city and the fights with the 'light-guns' were not as dramatic as the animation suggests). The plot revolves around social stratification and injustice, and based on the supplementary material provided with the DVD, would have been extremely controversial if the original vision had been lensed (the serial was to be entitled 'The White Savages' and to entail, what would have been in the 1960s (and maybe now), a race-reversed power imbalance...intrigued? - find a copy of Heinlein's 'Farnham's Freehold (but don't blame me)). Not a A-level First Doctor outing but essential viewing for Whovian completists (as is the supplementary material).

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