Lost 'Doctor Who' story 'Galaxy 4' is being resurrected as an animation.
William Hartnell as the First Doctor
The adventure was a four-part story that opened the BBC sci-fi show’s third series back in 1965, starring the late William Hartnell as the First Doctor and future 'Blue Peter' presenter Peter Purves, at the time aged 26, and actress Maureen O’Brien, then 22, as companions Steven and Vicki respectively.
The story sees the TARDIS team arrive on an arid planet within Galaxy 4 where they encounter the beautiful but dangerous female race the Drahvins and the hideous but friendly reptilian Rills, two species who crash landed and are now in conflict with one another and are both trying to escape the planet before explodes.
The Rills also control the "Chumbleys", short non-humanoid robots which resemble three domes stacked on top of one another. They were created in a bid to repeat the popularity of the Daleks but viewers did not like them as much as the "exterminate" shouting pepper pots.
Only one episode of the quartet is held in the BBC film archives - after being discovered in a private collection in 2011 - as the other three were erased by the corporation in a cull of black and white shows due to the advent of colour television.
The full script managed to survive thanks to a fan recording original audio at the time of the broadcast and from this and the one remaining episode a team of animators is now regenerating all four installments in full colour and high definition.
The 'Galaxy 4' animation is the latest recreation of a lost 'Doctor Who' story.
Previous releases include 'The Faceless Ones', 'The Power of the Daleks' and 'The Macra Terror', all which starred Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.
Recoveries of lost episodes have been made over the years, with 97 episodes now missing from the first 253 broadcast.
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