"were firmly told that the reconstruction must be exceptionally basic"

TV A blast from the past. The Doctor Who Restoration Team website has been updated with material about the final set of dvd releases including Web of Fear, Enemy of the World and The Underwater Menace. The explanation for why the final release's "recons" were of such basic quality is pleasingly honest from their end:

"Rather than animate the missing episodes, the instruction that came to us via our commissioning editor was that they were to be presented as an inexplicably basic telesnap and off-air soundtrack reconstruction. Although we offered to prepare reconstructions to the standard of that featured on The Web of Fear for no extra cost, we were firmly told that the reconstruction must be exceptionally basic - no recreated opening titles or credits, no composite shots, no moves to add life to the storytelling, and all the telesnaps had to be presented one after another in the order they were shot and without repetition. A very odd commercial decision which were are at a loss to understand."

Well yes, indeed, and we're yet to actually have an explanation about that. If the team offered to do the work at a higher standard for free because of a love of the franchise, why would they be told not to bother?

The results are horrible.  There's a moment in the last episode where over four minutes of action play out without any sense of what's going on across a telesnap which doesn't really show what's happening.

About the only reason I can think of is if they have in mind some kind of sales correlation in which a perfectly watchable recon negates the need for someone to buy the audio version with narration but they still feel the need to put something on the dvd.  Sigh.