Last month, "The Savages" was announced as the next Doctor Who story to be animated. This made me think about two things.
First, how many missing stories have been animated so far, especially in recent years. Since "The Macra Terror" was released in 2019, we've seen at least one missing Doctor Who story given the animated treatment each year. Animated missing episodes had been released before then, but not nearly as regularly. So this announcement was a nice reminder of how lucky '60s era fans are these days.
The second thing I realized was how often William Hartnell's episodes had been animated compared to Patrick Troughton's. While each era certainly has noticeable gaps, "The Savages" is only the fifth Hartnell serial to be animated. Compared to the eleven animated stories featuring Troughton, that's a huge difference.
This made me think about why some stories have been animated and some haven't. For example, a key reason why Troughton stories have been focused on more is that there are fewer historicals in this era. Some pure historicals have been considered too expensive to animate because of how good those original productions were.
But which stories are we likely to see animated next over the coming years? Which ones might never be animated? Let's take a look, starting with the unlikeliest.