Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror – DVD review

DOCTOR WHO

THE REIGN OF TERROR

DVD

RRP: £20.42

BBFC: PG

Released by: BBC Worldwide

Release date: 28 January 2013

"Did Webster give you a message for James Stirling or not? We shall see..."

In modern parlance, The Reign of Terror is Doctor Who’s first-ever season finale. The six-part adventure brought to a close a run of forty-two episodes from November 1963 to September 1964 (from the audience’s perspective, at least – the cast and crew went on to record another ten episodes for Season 2), bringing the Doctor (William Hartnell), Susan (Carole Ann Ford), Ian (William Russell) and Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) to 18^th century France, when the French Revolution was in full swing. This is the story’s DVD debut, and some extra-special attention has been required for a couple of episodes...

But more on that later. The historical adventures early in Doctor Who’s history have always been among my favourites (which is one of the reasons why the 1960s is without doubt my favourite era of the programme), and The Reign of Terror is no exception. Its beginning ties heavily into Ian and Barbara’s ongoing quest to return to 1960s Earth, following their abduction by the Doctor in the show’s first episode. For a while, it even looks as if the Doctor has finally succeeded in bringing them home, and the travellers prepare to part company. But of course, as anyone who knows of the Doctor’s inability to control the TARDIS (or the title of the story) could tell you from a mile off, this isn’t the Earth that Ian and Barbara know. It is instead a hugely bloody period of our history (curiously identified as the Doctor’s favourite), which appropriately forms the basis of a remarkably violent Doctor Who story.

In some respects, the plot of this story mirrors many other historical stories from around this time. Specifically, by the time the first episode is over, our protagonists have been split up and must fend for themselves. This is where the notion in these earliest historical adventures that the travellers cannot interfere with the established timeline of history becomes especially interesting – their curiosity leads them to become embroiled in the dangers of a past age, and they have to find their way back to the TARDIS without changing events. But even if the larger structure of the story is far from unique, it is the finer details of The Reign of Terror that make it especially enjoyable for me. In particular, the search for James Stirling provides a fascinating mystery to steer the story along, as does the question of whose side a number of characters are on. There’s no escaping the fact that this story should probably have been an episode or two shorter, as it does lag a bit in the middle, but the various intertwining plot threads mean this isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been.

The Reign of Terror has a major distinction to its name, as the first ever Doctor Who story to feature location filming. Brian Proudfoot doubled for Hartnell in long shots of the Doctor roaming through the countryside. I absolutely love these scenes – they have a charm to them that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s the music, or maybe it’s the locations themselves. But whatever the reason, it’s just such a delight to see Doctor Who escaping from the studio for the first time. Speaking of the music, it was composed by Stanley Myers. The Reign of Terror is Myers’ only Doctor Who credit, but he had a prolific career as a film composer. His music in this story works wonderfully – the recurring theme, first heard at the beginning of the first episode, manages to simultaneously have a military feel to it while also conveying the intrigue and mystery of the story.

Broadly speaking, the historical Doctor Who tales have coped very well with the passage of time, as they all have one element which can surely never fail: the set design and costumes. The BBC had a brilliant reputation for period dramas, and it’s easy to see why – the design work on The Reign of Terror is absolutely fantastic. Roderick Laing’s sets have wonderful variety, from the foliage of the French countryside to the dark misery of the Conciergerie Prison. Daphne Dare’s costumes are also very good, with the highlight undoubtedly being the delightfully outlandish hat which the Doctor acquires to facilitate a change of identity.

Hartnell’s performance in The Reign of Terror has a wide range. At the beginning of the story, he is very much conveying the tetchy side of the First Doctor, but then this irritability swiftly develops into intense fascination and curiosity. This two-sided element is present in both the Doctor and Hartnell’s portrayal of him, and is one of the things which makes the characterisation and interaction between the Doctor and his companions so interesting. Indeed, the tendency for the Doctor to flip back and forth between moods largely continues throughout this story – a good example is his conversation with the leader of the chain gang. There is another interesting thing to note at that point in the story – the Doctor doesn’t hesitate in committing a rather violent act himself. That said, the very brutal moment happens off-screen, and is immediately undermined by a bizarre but funny piece of comedy, quite intentionally included to make it obvious that the Doctor hasn’t actually murdered anyone.

It has to be said that Susan is quite whiny in this story. This may not all be Ford’s fault, as a lot of it appears to be down to shortcomings in her part as scripted – she spends a lot of the time either screeching about rats, or screeching about everything else. That said, Ford seems to be doing her best with the material. Aside from some slightly wooden ‘farewell’ hugs towards the beginning, there isn’t much wrong with her performance as such. It’s a pity that her part in this adventure isn’t up to much, especially following on from her far more interesting role in the previous story, The Sensorites.

Thankfully, Ian and Barbara are far more interesting here. Even though Russell was on holiday for two episodes (in which Ian only appears in pre-filmed inserts), his character gets a fairly significant plot thread to follow, and this results in Ian and Barbara going on a mission of their own later on in the story. Along the way, the interaction between Barbara and the other characters is intriguing, and we get an uneasy sense that some of the people she meets can’t be trusted…

James Cairncross gives a good performance as Lemaitre, with a fair amount of menace throughout. Later on, though, when his role should in theory become more interesting, it somehow manages to instead morph into a string of monotonous exposition. Still, there’s a nice surprise for people watching this story for the first time. Jack Cunningham plays the Jailer, and is always enjoyable to watch. The character is utterly useless, and Cunningham plays with this, switching between comedy and idiocy as required. His delivery of the line “You’ll regret that!” is positively piratical. Keith Anderson plays Robespierre, who first pops up at the beginning of the animated episode four. Anderson seems to have a lot of gusto at that point based on the audio recording. But when we switch back to live action, the character is increasingly becoming a wreck. Anderson perhaps isn’t quite as good at begging for mercy as he is at being a totally insane megalomaniac, but the latter more than compensates for the former. Just listen to how his line “Death! Always death!” distorts the off-air recording. Pure gravitas.

The fourth and fifth episodes of The Reign of Terror (titled The Tyrant of France and A Bargain of Necessity) are missing from the BBC’s archives. The story of how this came to be is extraordinary – the full tale of what happened can be heard on episode five’s commentary. Thankfully, as with all 106 missing episodes of Doctor Who, audio recordings of the missing episodes exist, recorded off-air by dedicated fans by placing a microphone in front of the television set. So, the conundrum facing BBC Worldwide was how to represent the episodes visually. For many years, the traditional (albeit largely unofficial) means of doing so was by running a series of still images in time to the soundtrack, but 2006 saw a new idea enter the arena. The Invasion’s two missing episodes were animated by Cosgrove Hall, but the project was colossally expensive and therefore was never repeated with the same animation team. Indeed, in the seven years since that release, no more animations have been officially released at all – until now.

On 2 June 2011, the official classic Doctor Who Twitter feed posted a tweet which sent fans across the globe into ecstasy:

REIGN OF TERROR missing episodes to be animated for DVD. Very early test graphic to be posted here tonight. Animators to be announced soon.

It was subsequently announced that the animators would be Theta-Sigma (which seems to have now renamed to Planet 55 Studios), directed by Austen Atkinson with BBC Worldwide, Big Finish and Pup Ltd (the company of Dan Hall, boss of the classic DVD range) overseeing the project.  Needless to say, the wait since then has been excruciating. But now it’s over.

The historical setting of this story has given Planet 55 the opportunity to produce set designs which are absolutely luxurious. Throughout these two episodes, there are plenty of wonderful little details to look out for: a spider scuttling around in its web, candles flickering in the background and the rays of the sun beaming down through the bars of the Conciergerie Prison, with particles of dust floating around within. Generally, the sets have been meticulously matched to the surviving episodes and any existing photographs. The exception to this is the crypt, of which not a single shred of photographic reference material exists. Apart from people who can remember the original broadcast from five decades ago, no-one knows what this set actually looked like – and if there’s no way of authentically matching the animated version to the original studio design, then why not match it to the genuine article? Planet 55 sought the advice of a Paris university, to build an idea of what the crypt would actually have looked like in real life, and then an animated interpretation was created. It looks fantastic, and the brilliant thing is that you can easily believe that the original on-screen set might have looked very similar.

I have more mixed feelings about the character designs. The designs match the style and feel of the backgrounds very well, although the lines on characters’ faces do occasionally produce a bizarre effect where they look some years older than in the live action. Also, characters’ eyes often appear unnaturally large and too shiny. Perhaps the biggest issue here, though, is their mouths. Aside from having distinctly odd teeth, synchronisation with the dialogue isn’t brilliant, and the smooth CGI mouth movement doesn’t completely gel with the slightly jerkier hand-drawn feel of the animation in general. But on the brighter side, the likenesses are still very recognisable despite the above flaws (with the possible exception of Ian, who seems a bit off somehow), and the replications of the costumes are excellent. The character movement is also superbly done, which is largely down to the process of rotoscoping – essentially drawing over real photographs or frames of footage. So, the motion of characters is very realistic and natural.

The editing of the two animated episodes certainly takes a little while to get used to. It’s a lot snappier than the surrounding episodes (and isn’t how the missing instalments would have originally appeared), but this isn’t a show-stopping problem for a lot of their duration. Although I would have found it preferable if the animation had stuck closer to original director Henric Hirsch’s camera script, the majority of the animation is nevertheless paced at a rate which I find acceptable. There are, however, two or three scenes in which the cuts do become bizarrely frenetic, sometimes cutting many times within just a few seconds. At its worst, the editing is such that a couple of shots are actually rendered impossible for the viewer to register before they cut away to something else. Some of the cuts are awkward in other ways, too – there is one scene which features a cut from a mid-shot of a character to another mid-shot of the same character at a slightly different angle. I must stress, though, that these editing faults are confined to just a few scenes. In fact, those scenes are near the beginning of the fourth episode, and the quality of the editing pretty much improves as it goes along – by the end of the fifth episode, it is substantially better. This suggests that the occasional problems might be primarily down to the learning curve for the production team, rather than any conscious directorial decision. When the editing goes awry, it does so in spectacular fashion. But on the whole, these recreated episodes are very watchable indeed, and probably the best way of bringing two missing pieces of Doctor Who’s history back to life. Short of finding the actual episodes.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Headlining the extras on this DVD is Don’t Lose Your Head, masterminded by Chris Chapman. This making-of documentary doesn’t have as many contributors as some have in the past, but that is by no means a bad thing. Russell, Ford and production assistant Tim Combe recall the making of the story, and the relatively small amount of contributors makes it a very focussed and insightful piece. It looks solely at the original production of the story, not the animation or the fact that two episodes are missing. Perhaps the most intriguing element is the mystery surrounding who directed the third episode. Hirsch collapsed under the stress of it all before this episode went before the cameras, and no-one knows for certain who directed it. The popular guess seems to be John Gorrie (this is certainly who Combe believes ended up with the job), but no-one can be certain since Gorrie has no memory of doing it. Ford also has a nice story to tell about a model from the story, which ended up in her possession until it suffered a sad fate (even if the information subtitles argue with Ford over what the model actually was). The title of this feature is great, Richard Alderson’s editing and graphics are excellent, and factoring in the quality and focus of the piece, it certainly maintains the high standard that we’ve been blessed with in the DVD range.

There is a commentary for all six episodes of The Reign of Terror. As with many commentaries these days, a ‘revolving door’ policy is used, alternating between participants to keep things interesting. Toby Hadoke is once again on moderation duty, and does as fine a job as ever with his superhuman knowledge of the series. Across the four existing episodes, we hear at various points from Ford, Combe, Neville Smith (D’Argenson), Jeffry Wickham (Webster), Caroline Hunt (Danielle) and Patrick Marley (Soldier). So, there is a variety of information and recollections on offer, and everyone looks back on the story very fondly. Because most of the participants are not on the making-of, it doesn’t feel as though a lot of information is being repeated across both features. As for the missing episodes, The Tyrant of France has just one person on the commentary track besides Hadoke: Ronald Pickup, who played the Physician in that one episode. The animations weren’t ready at the time the commentaries for the two episodes needed to be recorded, so unlike with The Invasion, it sadly wasn’t possible to include a commentary either about the animation work or with reactions to it. (It sounds like photographic reconstructions of the episodes were used as placeholders for the commentary team.) While this is a shame in some respects, it does at least allow for a fascinating interview with Pickup about not only this episode of Doctor Who, but also his wider career. A Bargain of Necessity is my favourite commentary of the bunch – featuring missing episode experts Philip Morris and Paul Vanezis, it was recorded just a few hours before the recovery of two missing episodes of Doctor Who was announced in December 2011. As well as explaining what actually happened to the missing episodes of this story, conversation also covers why the other four episodes still exist, and what the future could hold for the missing episodes of Doctor Who in general. Utterly fascinating to listen to.

Although there sadly isn’t a proper documentary about the animation on the DVD, there are at least a couple of extras which relate specifically to Planet 55’s work. A Set Tour shows off the beautiful animation backgrounds in a specially-made sequence. Perhaps the echo effect applied to the dialogue clips is ever so slightly distracting, but this is still a great watch. On this DVD, you also get two of Paul Shields’ galleries for your money – the Animation Gallery includes the various character poses and costume designs, among other bits and pieces, and then there’s the traditional Photo Gallery of stills from the original episodes. Highlights of the latter include a glimpse at sets only seen in the lost episodes, plus a selection of colour photographs which are extremely interesting for obvious reasons.

Regular readers will know that the Production Information Subtitles are my favourite extra on any classic Doctor Who DVD (although sadly the animated episodes don't have them). The set included on this release is written by Nicholas Pegg, and as you’d expect from an historical, they’re absolutely loaded with additional information about the real-life events which inspired this serial, as well as explaining the various references in the story. Combine this with all the other information about the making of the story, the confines of its original studio, the mystery of the missing frames and the doubt within the BBC over the programme’s future, and you have yet another superb set of information subtitles.

Rounding off this DVD are the usual Radio Times billings from the time of the story’s transmission (in PDF format), along with a Coming Soon trailer. You know, that Gareth Randall chap really is an amazing video editor – this promotion for the next DVD, The Ark in Space Special Edition, is tremendously well cut, making me eager to revisit this classic Tom Baker adventure. The line it ends on is great as well.

AUDIO/VIDEO

The existing episodes of The Reign of Terror sound as good as most of the other surviving episodes of the Hartnell era. Audio restorer Mark Ayres has again done a brilliant job, but the highlight is the two missing episodes. A new off-air source has been discovered, meaning that a section previously afflicted with bleed-through of the Doctor Who theme music is now fixed (it’s quite an important scene, too), and the audio of these two episodes – while obviously not sounding as good as the other four – is generally very easy to listen to. The beginning of The Tyrant of France is still quite ropey though, but that’s simply the best recording there is.

Of course, the animations look fine, because they were made roughly fifty years after everything else. The existing episodes are a mixed bag. The first and second episodes only exist as ‘suppressed field’ film recordings made from the original master videotapes, and sadly that recording process stripped much of the resolution from the video, resulting in steppy diagonals. There is also a fair bit of flickering black levels on the first two episodes. Despite these issues inherent in the source material, they most definitely look better than on the VHS release. Things improve quite significantly with the third episode, which (along with episode six) exists as a superior ‘stored field’ recording, keeping much more of the original resolution intact. (In fact, this is the first time that the stored field version of episode three has been seen – the VHS used a suppressed field copy, as that was all the Restoration Team had access to back then.) These two episodes are a lot more stable than the first two as well. VidFIRE processing has been used to restore the appearance of interlaced video to the film recordings, and the improvement in this technology since it was first used on the story for VHS is also noticeable.

SUMMARY

Although the final story of Doctor Who’s first season is a bit too long, it’s still hugely enjoyable. All of the merits of a Doctor Who historical are present here, and the different strands of the storyline which eventually fuse together help to prevent the storyline from losing too much momentum. The return of animated missing episodes after a break which was far, far too long is most welcome indeed, and I really hope we’ll be getting some more. While the special features could have done with a little more in the way of covering the animation, the package that we do have is excellent. The superb restoration of this story to the best quality allowed by the source materials is the icing on the cake.

7 OUT OF 10

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Doctor Who: The Legacy Collection – DVD review

DOCTOR WHO

THE LEGACY COLLECTION

DVD
RRP: £30.63
BBFC: PG

Released by: BBC Worldwide

Release date: 7 January 2013

"K9, you can come along, but no tangling with any Krargs – unless, of course, you have to tangle with any Krargs"

A great number of Doctor Who stories have been cancelled before they entered production, but there is just one where shooting was stopped in its tracks part-way through: Shada. It is this story which the first two discs of The Legacy Collection, the first Doctor Who DVD release of 2013, are dedicated to. Intended to end Season Seventeen in 1980, the story fell victim to industrial action and was never completed.

If writer and script editor Douglas Adams had his way, he wouldn’t have written it in the first place. Adams had two story ideas in mind, one in which the Doctor retires, and the other involving cricket (more details on those in this DVD’s subtitle production notes). But producer Graham Williams put his foot down on both, so Adams came up with a cunning plan. If he didn’t write anything else, with the deadline rapidly approaching, Williams would have to give in! Except, he didn’t. There was no way he was going to give either of Adams’ ideas the green light, so the writer ended up having to script Shada in a matter of days. As he once said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

The story revolves around the most dangerous book in the universe, which was brought from Gallifrey to Cambridge by retired Time Lord, Professor Chronotis (Denis Carey). What we have of Shada is all of the location filming, plus one of the three planned studio recording blocks. Looking at the material that was shot, this would have been a story very much of its era, with a whole host of gags – some of them inserted by the cast (in particular, Tom Baker), and the others… well, with Adams writing, what do you expect? The location work in and around Cambridge and its university – where Adams himself studied – is luxurious (with Baker getting the chance to both punt on the River Cam and engage in a manic bicycle chase sequence), and certainly the best of what was recorded, with a certain relaxing charm to it. Thankfully, a small portion of the location footage was used to represent the Fourth Doctor in the 1983 twentieth anniversary special The Five Doctors, after Baker declined to take part. It was during the shooting of the location scenes, though, that problems started to arise. The long chase scene was originally intended to take place at night, but a strike was called, meaning that the lighting crew were unable to work. So, the sequence was hastily re-worked for daytime shooting. The combination of the location material and the fully completed first studio block means that the first two or three episodes are fairly well represented, but the second half of the story is where the gaps get larger and larger.

The real question is this: as a story, is Shada actually any good? The beginning sets up a grand tale of exploration into the secrets of the Time Lords, but as it progresses, it does seem as though the story thins out – not just in terms of the footage that exists, but also of the amount of incident in the plot. But we’ll never truly be able to tell what Shada would have been like if it had been completed in 1979, although it undoubtedly receives more attention now that it ever would have done if it had been finished (Adams himself didn’t think much of his own story, due to the constraints under which it was written). In the material that we do have, though, the cast is on fine form. Series regulars Tom Baker and Lalla Ward had great on-screen chemistry by this point, and this goes hand-in-hand with Adams’ dialogue. At this time, Baker was playing the Doctor as an outwardly whimsical character, with moments of intense gravitas and power. While this often leads him to go slightly too over-the-top in Season Seventeen, the balance is much better in Shada. The exchanges between the Doctor, Romana and Chronotis positively sparkle, and are just delightfully silly. But when the Doctor discovers exactly which Gallifreyan book the Professor has lost, Baker’s performance changes in a heartbeat.

Ward adores anything and everything with Adams’ name on it, and has often cited having her name in the same credits sequence as him as a highlight of her career. So, it’s no great surprise that she is clearly revelling in Adams’ script. Romana frequently managed to escape the cliché of the Doctor Who companion, because being a Time Lord, she was at an equal intellectual level to the Doctor himself. Indeed, there is a scene later on in Shada in which Romana effectively comes up with the solution to the entire story, and it’s played by Baker and Ward with wit and affection. In Season Seventeen, K9 was played not by John Leeson, but by David Brierley. While Brierley’s performance is very far away from the voice we commonly associate with the robot dog, it has a character all of its own (and was explained away in-universe by K9 contracting laryngitis). K9 takes a while to get in on the action in Shada, but after he finally trundles out of the TARDIS, he is the centrepiece of some amusing moments, in addition to being the preacher of exposition that he usually is. Brierley actually returned in 1992 to voice K9 in one film scene which hadn’t been dubbed when Shada was abandoned, and it does seem as though his laryngitis gets worse in that one scene…

Denis Carey makes Professor Chronotis one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who characters. Chronotis could be seen to reflect the Doctor himself in this season of the programme – he largely appears to be a bumbling, forgetful old man, but while his air of eccentricity never leaves him, he proves in certain scenes that he is far more alert and clever than he appears. Carey plays the part with such dynamism, mystery and enthusiasm that he is fascinating to watch in the scenes that exist. It’s marvellous that all of the scenes in Chronotis’ rooms were completed. One good thing that came out of the cancellation of Shada was that Carey was then able to appear in another Doctor Who story the following year, as the eponymous Keeper of Traken. Chris Parsons (Daniel Hill) and Clare Keightley (Victoria Burgoyne) are frustrating as characters, because there’s a lot of untapped potential there. Unfortunately, they seem to be here only to serve functional purposes in moving the plot along. There’s no real character depth to them, and the presence of the Professor (who does have interesting layers as a character) only makes this all the more obvious. When Gareth Roberts novelised the story in 2012, he fixed this problem and added a romantic touch to the relationship between Chris and Clare. Watching the original 1979 production, it feels very much like the same romance should be there, but it isn’t. When writing his novelisation, Roberts said that it looked like Adams intended to flesh out the two characters, but he had run out of time before he could do so. Watching what there is of Shada, I can only agree. Chris and Clare are interesting as ‘almost-companions’, but they could and should have been a lot more interesting in their own right. Fortunately, Hill and Burgoyne do their best with the material they have – Hill plays Chris with a brilliant awkwardness, and Burgoyne counters this with a simultaneous sense of fondness and annoyance towards him.

There is one character, though, who suffers hugely from the missing scenes: the villain of the piece, Skagra (Christopher Neame). It’s quite possible that he would have been a very interesting enemy if Shada had been completed, but annoyingly, the vast majority of the scenes which might well have elevated Neame to greatness are among those which weren’t committed to tape. This includes the revelation of what Skagra’s grand plan actually is (which is relegated to Baker’s narration here), so the footage that exists of Skagra essentially consists of him walking around in the campest costume in the cosmos, with lots of people asking “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”, without a satisfactory reply ever being received. There’s just no context to anything that’s going on, and while this is obviously true for the whole story to an extent, Skagra suffers most profoundly of all.

The version of Shada that is included on this box set is the same one that was first released on VHS in 1992, with in-vision links and voiceover by Tom Baker (written by John Nathan-Turner, producer of Doctor Who for almost all of the 1980s and the man at the helm of the 1992 video release) to attempt to bridge the gaps. This has never been a hugely satisfactory way to watch the story, though. The opening introduction is certainly a fun, witty example of Baker at his best (“Beat you, cock!”), but the narration of the missing scenes has a problem from the beginning, which only gets worse as the story progresses. Namely, the links are often no-where near detailed enough. They just about allow the first half of the story to be followed (the first episode has the same running time as a full episode, in fact) but in the second half (as the existing material rapidly diminishes, and the balance tips so that the narration has the responsibility of telling most of the story) it gets to the point where huge chunks of dialogue and action are condensed into links which are usually too short to do the material justice. When the climactic showdown arrives, which went entirely unrecorded in 1979, it’s very difficult to properly comprehend – what would have been a very visual set-piece is instead converted into a series of very fast descriptions. Another example of a part of the story which suffers is the cliffhanger to Part Three, which is a fantastic piece of writing by Adams in the script, but is condensed into just a few words in the narration.

At the time of the story’s cancellation, not only was a lot of material left unrecorded, but even the existing footage wasn’t truly finished. Perhaps the most notable example is the music, which would originally have been provided by the series’ regular composer, Dudley Simpson (for whom, like Williams and Adams, Shada would have been his Doctor Who swansong). However, when the production stopped, Simpson hadn’t composed so much as a single note. For the 1992 VHS, Nathan-Turner employed the services of Keff McCulloch, who arranged the version of the theme tune used during Sylvester McCoy’s era, as well as providing the incidental music for a number of stories during that period. McCulloch’s music for Shada attempts to reference the style of Simpson, and has always been very divisive among fans. Although it certainly takes a while to get used to music of the McCoy era’s style on a Tom Baker story, I personally feel that McCulloch’s score is actually quite sympathetic to the era that Shada would have been a part of. If anything, the electronic sounds used to realise the score are what sometimes let it down – they are often too ‘late 1980s synth’. You could say that McCulloch was playing all the right notes, but not necessarily with the right instruments…

The film sequences were edited back in 1979, so this material is presented exactly as it would have been if the story was finished and transmitted. The studio recordings, though, were left as an unedited jumble of multiple takes and recording breaks, so the assembly of those was done from scratch for the 1992 release. It’s possible that there are better takes in existence than those used here (there’s the odd fluffed line), but what we’ve got is all we’ve ever seen. Only some of the effects were finished originally; others had to be made in 1992 by Ace Editing. These non-original effects are of varying quality. The sphere keyed into the film segments is among the better of them (although you can tell at times that it’s a still image being moved around the frame, because of the pixelation that appears when the sphere is seen very close-up, it nevertheless evokes the CSO feel that it would have had originally in many shots), but the mocked-up model shots using cut-outs of freeze-frames are often utterly dire and not remotely convincing. They’re okay when they just consist of a still photograph, but once any movement or compositing is attempted, they usually become completely risible.

There must be an overriding reason why no version of Shada other than that already released on VHS could be put out on DVD, but the re-use of such a poor attempt to tell the story can’t help but come as a disappointment. (I’ve always thought that animation would be the best way to present the missing sections – whether that be Ian Levine's production or a new one by BBC Worldwide themselves – but failing that, a presentation using CGI/photographs/composited images and extracts from the AudioGO audiobook would be an interesting idea.) When the VHS came out in 1992, included in the box was a script book. Although they weren’t actually the latest versions of the scripts, they at least allowed the missing parts of the story to be followed in a manner far more satisfactory than the video itself managed. Sadly, no such thing accompanies this DVD – it would have been nice to see a PDF of either the same scripts or (preferably) the latest editions included. The information subtitles partially do the job, but more on that a little later. Theoretically, since the restoration of this story was carried out by going back to the original film and videotape elements, it would have been possible to take the opportunity to spruce up the non-original effects. It would have been interesting to see this done, but the 1992 effects have been recreated instead.

SPECIAL FEATURES

In 2003, a webcast of Shada was made available on the BBC Red Button and then online. It used an audio adaptation of the story by Big Finish, and Flash “animation” to tell the complete story. Tom Baker declined to participate, so Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor was used instead. The main problem, though, comes with the rest of the casting. Apart from Lalla Ward as Romana, not a single other actor from the original production of Shada features in the audio version. Andrew Sachs replaces Christopher Neame, James Fox replaces Denis Carey and Sean Biggerstaff replaces Daniel Hill, to name just a few. Somehow, this interpretation of Shada just seems lifeless compared to the original (even in its incomplete state), and it’s too far removed from the TV version for my taste. This adaptation makes an intriguing attempt to fit within the wider Doctor Who timeline, by using the events of The Five Doctors to effectively delete most of the original from history, thus giving the later incarnation of the Doctor a reason to go and complete the adventure he was supposed to have all those years ago.

The animation is hugely limited; there is no mouth movement, and it’s essentially an animated storyboard. Many of the drawings are hugely simplistic, and often there isn’t a background at all, just a block of solid colour. The webcast is understandably still in Flash format here, meaning that it needs to be played on a computer – there is a very good Flash interface, built by James Goss and Steve Roberts, which runs in a web browser (all the content is stored on the DVD, so nothing is retrieved from the internet, meaning that the quality is better than the version hosted on the BBC’s website). In general, because this Shada is so devoid of everything that makes the original so enjoyable (and of any authenticity), I’m not the greatest fan of it, although it is currently the only means of watching the complete story of Shada.

My favourite feature on every Doctor Who DVD is the Production Information Subtitles. With information about the making, cast, crew and context of the stories in question, they are always fascinating to read. Shada’s set of subtitles (written by Nicholas Pegg) features a wealth of facts about both the 1979 and 1992 productions. Complimenting Now and Then nicely, we learn about the geography of the filming locations (and where it does and doesn’t match reality), and we are told where sound effects are missing from the 1992 presentation. Speaking of which, the subtitles include information about the various ideas which were floating around of how to present Shada prior to 1992. But the least said about the script’s term for the sphere’s actions, the better…

The production and collapse of Shada is detailed in Taken Out of Time. The documentary is mainly shot on-location at the University of Cambridge, and it’s a real delight to see various members of cast and crew returning to the most prominent of Shada’s filming locations. Daniel Hill makes a fascinating contribution; discussing his uneasy experience cycling through the streets of Cambridge, you can look back at the footage afterwards and see exactly what he meant, including one moment which was especially hazardous. Then there’s his revelation of the nickname he had for director’s assistant Olivia Bazalgette, who subsequently married Hill, and they remain a happy couple to this day. Bazalgette herself appears, recounting her first meeting with Hill, as well as many details about the location filming. Sadly, director Pennant Roberts died in 2010, but he contributes to Taken Out of Time through interview footage from 2005.

Given the circumstances surrounding Shada, the director’s perspective and recollections are arguably the most fascinating of all, so producer/director Chris Chapman's use of the archive interview with Roberts is most welcome. Production assistant Ralph Wilton has very fond memories of Roberts, speaking of how the director was determined not to let production on Shada go under, and kept morale up within the cast and crew. Assistant designer Les McCallum is on-hand to talk about how the Cambridge location inspired and provided reference for the design of some of the studio sets, and this is especially interesting where the set in question was never recorded on. Tom Baker is in the documentary, but his interview wasn’t shot in Cambridge. Instead, he was interviewed – quite literally – in his own back garden. There are many comic highlights to his contribution here (such as a dig at BBC after-parties), but also a very interesting take on the story’s cancellation. Baker’s description of the first studio lock-out as “the seeds of doom” is a very concise but effective summary of the situation. Taken Out of Time is a documentary that I had been looking forward to seeing for a long time, and it doesn’t disappoint. Indeed, it’s one of the best features of the entire box set.

Now and Then – a look at the locations used in the story, and how they appear today – is interesting and insightful, just like all of the entries in Richard Bignell's series. One of the best things about this series is always the dissolves between the original Doctor Who location material and modern footage, often with excellent accuracy in aligning the two shots. Needless to say, given the amount of location work in Shada, a wide variety of locations around Cambridge are explored. It’s striking that the locations have hardly changed much in over three decades since the filming took place. It is always good to see a Now and Then feature appear on a DVD. Never failing to be highly comprehensive, they are essential viewing for anyone interested in the filming locations of Doctor Who. Just make sure that you mind that cow pat.

Strike! Strike! Strike!, presented by Shaun Ley and produced by James Goss, takes a broader look at industrial action. Whereas the circumstances surrounding Shada are covered extensively elsewhere in The Legacy Collection, this documentary primarily examines how Doctor Who has both been affected by strikes and used them in its storylines, with some additional context from elsewhere in television included for good measure. It’s surprising and amazing to hear how, decades ago, the slightest thing could tip staff over the edge and lead to a strike – a case in point is an occasion when William Hartnell offended his dresser. Also covered is the situation which forced 1970’s Spearhead from Space out of the studio and entirely onto location, with 16mm colour film. As well as the more obvious incorporation of industrial action and protests into some Doctor Who stories (such as The Krotons and The Green Death), there are also some more subtle examples, at least one of which isn’t meant entirely seriously. This feature uses the same style of ‘shadow puppet’ graphics as the Doctor Who Stories series, which are beautifully designed by Michael Dinsdale. Because this feature covers a far broader scope in the same running time as the main Shada documentary, it doesn’t have time to go into as much detail on each topic. So, it isn’t quite as engaging as Taken Out of Time. However, there are some very interesting points included here, about the earlier (and far more volatile) days of television production.

Narrated by Louise Jameson, written by Simon Guerrier and produced by Thomas Guerrier, Being a Girl is a captivating feature, in which Samira Ahmed and Emma Price examine the history of women in Doctor Who. At the beginning in 1963, in a ground-breaking turn of events, Verity Lambert found herself in the producer’s chair. However, this was offset by the clichéd characterisation of Susan Foreman, who seemed to twist her ankle at every turn. It’s interesting to look at how the representation of women has evolved throughout the series’ history. By the time Leela turned up in the second half of the 1970s, things were beginning to change, with the female companions getting meatier and more equal roles in the storylines. Follow that through to the present day, and the role of the companion has totally turned around – they are no longer characters that are mainly there to scream, injure themselves, ask questions and make tea. Ahmed and Price particularly praise the character of River Song; although the character is deeply flawed, strong female qualities are most definitely there, and this is what is picked up on here. Sadly, though, this feature doesn’t cover everybody. For example, the second incarnation of Romana is skipped over, and only appears in clips without much direct relevance to what the interviewees are saying at that time – this is a shame given that it is this version of Romana who appears in Shada. A nice touch is that the clips all appear within a vintage television, with the appropriate title sequence defocused in the background. Perhaps it would have been nice if the television itself changed to the sort that was on the market at the time of each story in question, rather than remaining a very old model even for the most modern of clips (meaning that these newer clips are cropped to 4:3). But despite this handful of flaws, Being a Girl is most definitely a highlight of this release (although it might have been more suited to disc three).

As with every other classic Doctor Who DVD, a Photo Gallery assembled by Paul Shields is included. At nearly five minutes, a variety of images is included here. Some of them are familiar, others far less so. We get at least one glimpse of a set that is never seen in the recorded footage, along with plenty of images from the location filming (in particular, the scene on the River Cam). This feature also provides the opportunity to hear a selection of McCulloch’s music from the 1992 release of Shada in isolation.

Gareth Randall's Coming Soon trailer is for the First Doctor story The Reign of Terror. Sadly, the trailer doesn’t feature any clips from the two animated missing episodes, as it was made before they were ready. But it still whets the appetite for this rather special DVD…

"You may well think that, but I couldn't possibly comment"

In 1993, there was no regular Doctor Who on television. The series had ended four years earlier in 1989, and Paul McGann’s sole outing in the TV Movie was still three years away. Initial plans for a major direct-to-video special called The Dark Dimension to celebrate the programme’s thirtieth anniversary had collapsed (and what appeared instead was Dimensions in Time, a highly questionable EastEnders crossover skit within Children in Need). But then, out of the dark wilderness came something amazing. 30 Years in the TARDIS was a documentary covering the (then) entirety of the programme’s history, and it is an extended version – More than 30 Years in the TARDIS – which appears for the first time on DVD on the third and final disc of this box set, following its VHS release in 1994.

Covering over three decades of Doctor Who in just under eighty-eight minutes must have been a mind-boggling challenge for director Kevin Davies, but the format which the finished programme has is, quite simply, genius. It opens with a young boy (played by Josh Maguire) running through London, re-enacting many iconic scenes from Doctor Who (mixed with the original clips) along the way. This use of dramatic re-creations is absolutely inspired, and one of the reasons why this documentary is such a love-letter to the series.

Narrated by Nicholas Courtney, More than 30 Years in the TARDIS is divided into three segments, each designed to look at different aspects of Doctor Who (and the cliffhangers bridging these are marvellous). There is certainly a lot to explore – all of the following are touched upon at some point: the missing episodes, the origins of the series, the enemies of the Doctor, the companions, fashion sense (or a lack of)… There’s so much included, it’s difficult to put it into words. Lots of archival treats are included too, including a number of contemporary adverts – placed within ‘commercial breaks’ – involving Doctor Who. My favourites have to be the Prime Computer ones (other calculators the size of a room are available, though).

The striking thing is how much everybody involved (except Mary Whitehouse) totally loves the programme. Nicholas Courtney fondly remembers the UNIT heyday of “five rounds rapid”, Verity Lambert recalls the genesis of the Doctor and Toyah Wilcox expresses her love for those sexy Cybermen. Oh yes.

This documentary is now twenty years old, but as an overview of the eras of the first seven Doctors, it is still top of the range. There is probably a lot of unused material sitting in Davies’ attic, and it would have been great to see some of it (either in a re-edit of the main programme, or in a DVD extra), but even in its existing 1994 form, it’s solid gold.

SPECIAL FEATURES

None of the special features on this disc relate directly to More than 30 Years in the TARDIS. Instead, the final disc of The Legacy Collection serves as a ‘mopping up exercise’ of extras left over from elsewhere. Top billing goes to Remembering Nicholas Courtney, a hugely touching and poignant piece about the late Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart actor. It mostly consists of footage from an incomplete interview with Courtney, spanning his entire life and career. But he became too unwell to finish the interview, and subsequently passed away in 2011. The footage that was recorded sees the light of day here, now turned into an obituary piece by Ed Stradling. The gaps in the interview are luckily filled using other archival interview footage. The interviewer is Michael McManus, a close friend of Courtney and co-author of his 2005 autobiography, Still Getting Away with It. It has to be said that Courtney does understandably look a little frail in this final interview, with makes it all the more emotional to watch. But equally, it’s a joyous reflection on the life story of Courtney. When a certain guest turns up, it’s a genuinely surprising moment (even though I’d seen a photo of it months before, but it had slipped my memory), and a very happy one at that. There are plenty of clips from some of Courtney’s non-Who roles, as well as highlights from his appearances as the Brigadier across many years. To call this an obituary perhaps makes it sound too morbid, so it might be better to call it a tribute – and what a tribute it is, to the life and work of one of the greatest legends of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who Stories – Peter Purves is the latest entry in the ongoing series, using interview footage from 2003’s The Story of Doctor Who. Purves recalls his salary when working on Doctor Who and his handful of location filming experiences, and it seems that he still has very accurate memories of this part of his career. As with Yentob’s contribution to More than 30 Years in the TARDIS, it’s interesting to hear Purves speculating about the possible return of Doctor Who (which was two years away), and how it would need to be different from the old days. He also speaks of his preference for the historical stories rather than the ones with monsters, and it seems that Purves especially dislikes Daleks. He then talks about his time on Blue Peter, which continued his association with Doctor Who – particularly amusing is a clip about the creation of sound effects. Although this series of interviews is obviously out of date regarding the lack of any new stories on television at that time, it remains interesting to watch, and Purves’ entry is no exception.

The Lambert Tapes – Part One is essentially a pilot for the Doctor Who Stories series, taken from Verity Lambert’s interview for The Story of Doctor Who. Considering it as a part of that series for the purposes of this review, it is one of the most captivating instalments that I’ve yet seen, as Lambert discusses her experience jumping from being a production assistant at ABC Television to the first female producer at the BBC. It is fascinating to hear her story of walking into her first producers’ meeting at the BBC, and how she felt working with some of Doctor Who’s earliest directors. The usual graphics work by Michael Dinsdale is not present here, as this was made before Doctor Who Stories got going as a regular feature, and the usual music is replaced by a slowed-down version of the original Doctor Who theme tune, which works surprisingly well.

James Goss' Those Deadly Divas is a good idea, but bizarrely executed in some respects. Featuring Kate O’Mara, Camille Coduri, Tracy Ann Oberman, Clayton Hickman and Gareth Roberts, it’s a look at the power-hungry females who have appeared in Doctor Who over the years. From the Rani to Captain Wrack, Krau Timmin to Tegan as the Mara, there are lots of brilliant characters discussed, but in places the construction seems a bit odd. The feature is divided into a number of sections, when it doesn’t really need to be – the character-by-character approach would have sufficed on its own, without dividing it further into numerous strange categories that don’t actually mean a great deal. Then there’s the intrusive singing by the Wire (The Idiot’s Lantern) at the beginning of each new section, which grates after a while. But the interviewees have some excellent things to say, and O’Mara makes every syllable she utters interesting. The shadow puppet graphics feature again as well (but in a very different style), which is always a winner.

Another Photo Gallery from Paul Shields is featured, with a selection of photos from the production of More than 30 Years in the TARDIS. This is the first time that such a gallery has ever been produced for anything that isn’t a Doctor Who story, and there are some fantastic shots included, ranging from Jon Pertwee in the Whomobile to a Draconian in make-up. Some of Mark Ayres’ brilliant music from the documentary is used to score the gallery.

Included in the form of a PDF file is a cutting from an issue of Radio Times, listing 30 Years in the TARDIS within that day’s programming schedule. It’s always fun to read these, but it’s perhaps a shame that the opportunity wasn’t taken to present the ones that weren’t included with stories from much earlier in the DVD range.

Finally, there is an Easter Egg to be found somewhere on the menus of this disc – a lovely clip which links with another special feature…

AUDIO/VIDEO

Everything sounds fine on both Shada and More than 30 Years in the TARDIS. The music in the former has come out of Mark Ayres' restoration process sounding less tinny than it did on VHS, which is most welcome, and there are no issues to report.

The transformation in Shada’s visual quality for this release is outstanding. The whole thing has been rebuilt from the studio recordings and 16mm film negatives, and it looks marvellous as a result. The studio sections look a lot cleaner than they did before, but the real revelation is the film material. Originally, it looked horrendous (look at the clips in Taken Out of Time), but no more. Colours are amazingly vibrant, and from a technical perspective, it now almost looks as though it could have been filmed yesterday.

More than 30 Years in the TARDIS, on the other hand, hasn’t been touched from a restoration viewpoint, due to technical limitations in the way it was shot in the first place. It is taken directly from BBC Worldwide’s master, and doesn’t look too bad, but darker scenes are a bit noisy and there are occasional video dropouts throughout. The clips in the documentary are likewise un-restored, and while some may bemoan this, I personally like to see the state these episodes were in prior to their DVD releases. (Ordering up all the tapes of the restored versions would have been a logistical nightmare anyway, not to mention the many hours that would have been needed to reinstate the clips frame-accurately.)

SUMMARY

It’s a shame that Shada is still stuck in its 1992 form, which does feel rather substandard now amid the rest of the DVD range, but More than 30 Years in the TARDIS is a stunningly good documentary to this day. The Legacy Collection is one of the strangest DVD releases I’ve ever seen, primarily because of how miscellaneous it is, but the standard of the special features is generally very high. This is the starting line of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary year, and while it is massively flawed in terms of the presentation of the only story on-board, the documentaries (both new and twenty years old) are worth the price of admission.

6 OUT OF 10

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