Doctor Who has gone through many formats and universes, but it's never been animated apart from a few missing episodes on the DVDs. (There was an attempt back in the day with Nelvana.) But now it turns out that the BBC flirted with creating an animated Who pretty recently, and one artist has shared some pitch art.
According to DC/Wildstorm artist Dan Norton, this was art that he created to pitch the show at the BBC's request. And it would have featured all eleven Doctors, which seems like a terrible idea. The thing that generally makes Doctor Who work is its simplicity — the changes of Doctor over the years help keep it fresh, but trying to have more than one Doctor at a time seems like it'll just create a giant muddle.
Norton posted these images on his Deviant Art page, and wrote:
Yeah man, we were so close… Had a few revisions creatively that were requested and so we retooled. It was going to be epic man. End of the day, BBC didn’t want anything to distract from production of the tv show. Well, what was close to happening didn’t. Since the BBC eventually passed on, you will be rewarded with! This is the pitch poster I had only 7 hours to do. Starting to with first Doctor, the series would have touched on all the versions and filled in some gaps.
Check out the artwork below — I love the giant scale of the Cyberman, and the anime-influenced characters, including a boy companion from the 1920s and a modern-day girl companion. But the notion of a smorgasbord of Doctors, or cycling through all the Doctors in one slate of episodes, seems like it would never win over casual viewers. And the looks of some of the Doctors are a bit too cute for my liking.
[via Bleeding Cool]