First And Last Master Retconned Into Classic Doctor Who DVD Release

As hard as it is to believe, there was once a time when Doctor Who wasn't very well regarded by the BBC. Filmed on a budget that couldn't quite stretch to a shoestring, the shows were thought of as disposable time-fillers that nobody would want to rewatch.

It was only when the third or fourth Doctor came around that the BBC began properly storing the shows that they might be remastered in the future. Many of the episodes before that time had been taped effectively taped over or otherwise lost.

When the rebooted series took off and millions of new fans were showing an interest in the classic show, the BBC started to remaster the older shows for DVD and streaming releases.

These missing stories became holy grails for the corporation, and anything relating to them was sought that they might piece together something watchable. Eventually, audio recordings of the shows were paired with newly animated versions of the missing episodes to help fill the gaps.

The Faceless Ones, a lost tale from the Second Doctor is one of these animated remasters, and the animators have taken it upon themselves to add a few easter eggs here and there for long-time fans to catch. A scene at a police station contains a little foreshadowing that couldn't possibly have been in the original. There are Wanted posters on the wall that show both the earliest (Roger Delgado) version of The Master and his latest (Sacha Dhawan) incarnation.

First broadcast in 1966, this marks the first time the character appears on screen in the show before Delgado's introduction in 1971's Terror Of The Autons, and a full 54 years before Sacha Dhawan took the role in Spyfall.

The animated remaster of The Faceless Ones will be released on 16 March 2020.