Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen, The Robots of Death, and The Three Doctors Special Edition DVD reviews

“The Robots of Death,” “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” and “The Three Doctors”  have all previously been released on DVD, and these special edition double dips are akin to last month’s “The Caves of Androzani,” and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” which came out late last year. Those two titles were originally bundled together with “Doctor Who: The Movie,” and sold as a box set entitled “Revisitations 1” over in the U.K. This month’s three special editions were sold as “Revisitations 3,” and here in the States, we’ve still not gotten the content of “Revisitations 2,” although beginning next month, that’s going to change with the release of the special edition of “Carnival of Monsters,” and then the June releases of both “The Seeds of Death” and “Resurrection of the Daleks,” all of which together made up the second set in the U.K.

So beyond potentially making more money off of you, the loyal customer, what’s it all about? I’ll try to explain based on what I know. Do the powers that be intend to rerelease the entire catalogue on DVD a second time? Not to my knowledge. As I understand it, there will be no more “Revisitations” sets released in the U.K., although there will be some single story rereleases such as “Vengeance on Varos.” Is the video/audio quality an improvement? In some cases, yes, but in most cases upgrades in those areas are negligible at best, an assertion based strictly on my perception, mind you. (Much of what can visibly be done for old videotape was fixed for the original releases.) Recently, Dan Hall, the head honcho at 2 Entertain, was quoted as saying something along the lines of how his goal was to make the DVD range similar to a set of encyclopedias, and indeed, anyone who basks in the special features of the classic series DVDs will know that typically each disc offers up a substantial amount of extras that explore each story from numerous angles – commentaries, making of documentaries, vintage interviews, and so forth and so on.

From "Girls, Girls, Girls - The 1970s"

The range has been going on for such a long time (since 2001), that back when it started, the supplemental material prepared for each release wasn’t nearly as thorough as it would be today. The real problem this presents is that some of the most popular and best classic Who stories were released in those early years, so there are some big holes in the ongoing building of this video encyclopedia (the making of docs in particular go a long way toward achieving this goal). So, for the most part, what the special editions are about is providing you cool bonus features that you didn’t have before, and they are frequently really nice additions. If you don’t care about that kind of stuff, then more often than not these double dips won’t be of much interest to you...which brings me to the first special edition of the month, which is well worth picking up, even if you owned the original release and don’t care about extras, and that’s Patrick Troughton’s “The Tomb of the Cybermen.”

Surely you’re at this point familiar with VidFIRE, the process that’s applied to the Hartnell and Troughton stories so they look closer to their original, broadcast form? Well, it’s been used on all[1] of the existing released ‘60s stories except for one: “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” and that’s because the title was such an early release in the range that the process was only in its earliest testing stages. So now, finally, after all these years, VidFIRE has been used on “Tomb,” and the results are  predictably wonderful. It’s been a long, crazy ride for “Tomb”; I can still remember when this lost story was found in Hong Kong back in ’92, and subsequently released on VHS. To have discovered such a holy grail was indeed the Who equivalent of a religious experience (it’s probably the best existing Troughton story, and it may even be the best Cybermen story, period), and here we are, 20 years later, and it’s looking better than ever. Back then, on the cusp of that find, it felt like lost stories would start popping up right and left…but it was not to be. While individual episodes of various stories have since been discovered, no lost story has been found in its entirety since “Tomb” in ’92.

“The Tomb of the Cybermen” Special Edition DVD Extras: First things first: those who upgrade may want to hang on to their original release, because while most of the extras from the old disc have been ported over to the new set, not all of them have. In particular, the 30-minute “Tombwatch” documentary is gone from the new set due to rights issues. This was a piece that featured many of the story’s cast and crew gathering together after having watched “Tomb” after it was found in ’92. Also missing is a featurette entitled “Remastering for DVD,” although since that specifically addressed the work put into the first DVD release, it’s understandably excised, and the “Who’s Who” text featurette, which in this day and age of Wikipedia isn’t important anyway.

Deborah Watling as Victoria

What’s new to the encyclopedia? In addition to the commentary track from the first release (which featured Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines), there’s a new commentary track with both of those actors, as well as guest actors Bernard Holley, Shirley Cooklin, Reg Whitehead, and script editor Victor Pemberton, all moderated by Toby Hadoke. There’s a new 27-minute making of entitled “The Lost Giants,” a 15-minute piece entitled “The Curse of the Cybermen’s Tomb,” which explores the influence of mummy lore on the story, and a 32-minute featurette hosted by Matthew Sweet entitled “Cybermen Extended Edition.” This traces the history of the Cybermen from their beginning up to their reintroduction during David Tennant’s first season (a few clips from later new Who seasons dot its landscape as well, but there’s not much talk about new series Cybermen outside of the first “Rise of the Cybermen” two-parter). Even if it’s a tad incomplete, it doesn’t feel like it, and it’s a wonderful piece. There’s also a short featurette on VidFIRE, a lovely color TV commercial for Sky Ray popsicles featuring the Daleks battling a Second Doctor double, a coming soon trailer for “The Face of Evil,” and an Easter Egg on Disc One. In addition to the usual Radio Times listings in PDF form, that section of the disc also features tons (over 100 pages) of material centered around the Sky Ray popsicles, including Doctor Who’s Space Adventure Book.     

One of the most enduring and popular classic Doctor Who stories is surely “The Robots of Death” - so popular, it was chosen as one of the first three Who DVDs to be released here in the States way back on that horrible date of Sept. 11^th, 2001 (yes, that’s as true as Who’s Kennedy connection). It’s easy to see why the serial is so memorable, too, as it’s a murder mystery (albeit one set in outer space), in which its characters, one by one, get picked off, all while the viewer wonders who the killer is. As TV tropes go, you almost can’t find one more accessible and easy to understand than that. Yet that all too familiar trope could just as easily have been turned into a boring stinker. Thankfully, “The Robots of Death” rises to the occasion by sporting an alternately witty and horrifying script by Chris Boucher, one of the best guest casts the series ever assembled in one studio, and costume and set design work that’s truly out of this world.

A Host and a Voc

If you don’t like “The Robots of Death,” then you probably don’t like classic Doctor Who. The Robots themselves have become iconic Who imagery, and they were an obvious influence on the Heavenly Hosts from the 2007 Christmas special, “Voyage of the Damned” (one could even make an argument that “Voyage” was influenced by “Robots” on a number of levels). I simply cannot recommend highly enough doing a marathon of the consecutive stories “The Face of Evil,” “The Robots of Death,” and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” which is a nearly perfect unofficial classic series trilogy.

“The Robots of Death” Special Edition DVD Extras: Aside from the “Who’s Who” bit and the Howard Da Silva intros, the important stuff’s been ported over from the first release (of course, for some American fans, those Da Silva bits are gold), including the Philip Hinchcliffe/Chris Boucher commentary track, which I believe remains Boucher’s sole contribution to the DVD range. But there’s a lovely new commentary track with Tom Baker, Louise Jamseon, Pamela Salem, who plays Toos, and director Michael E. Briant. It’s worth buying this disc for this track alone, as its four participants seem to be having a wonderful time. “The Sandmine Murders” is a 32-minute making of featuring numerous people involved in the production of this serial, including Baker and Jameson (unlike “The Face of Evil” DVD, there’s plenty of Baker on this go ‘round). “Robophobia” is an hilarious 12-minute piece starring Toby Hadoke that’s one of “those” comedy bits bound to divide fans on its merits. There’s also an unsweetened scene of a Voc Robot for comparison purposes, a continuity bit, PDF Radio Times listings, and the coming soon trailer for “The Face of Evil.” While this may not seem like an extensive double dip, keep in mind that it’s a single disc release, and what is new here, is a lot of fun.

Finally we come to “The Three Doctors,” and I’ve spoken about multi-Doctor stories before (both here and here), and don’t feel the need to rehash those thoughts. Further, this is my least favorite of the multi-Doc stories, and, from a direction, design and script standpoint, may even be one of my least favorite stories of the Pertwee era. Nevertheless, how can I truly hate a story that brings together onscreen the Second and Third Doctors, as well as features the last work William Hartnell did in his life? Answer: I cannot, nor should I. “The Three Doctors” as they say, “is what it is” and I’m not here to pee all over it, and if you enjoy it, then by all means that’s your prerogative, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to try to talk you out of it. All that said, this set has a couple of really sweet new bonus features…

“The Three Doctors” Special Edition DVD Extras: As with the “Tomb” DVD, there’s a pretty good reason to hang on to your old copy of “The Three Doctors,” even if you buy this special edition, which doesn’t port over a 30-minute panel from the convention PanoptiCon ’93, which featured Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, and Nicholas Courtney. As you might imagine, this will be coveted by those who didn’t own the original release. 

Also excised is the “Who’s Who” bit, but everything else from the old disc seems to be intact. There’s no new commentary on this disc, which is unsurprising given how many of the important people involved in the making of this story are no longer with us; two of the participants (Nicholas Courtney and Barry Letts) from the old commentary track have even passed since its recording. New to this edition is a 23-minute making of entitled “Happy Birthday to Who,” and a 14-minute piece called “Was Doctor Who Rubbish?,” which is a defense against detractors of the classic series, that I thought was really rather excellent, even given its brief running time. “Girls, Girls, Girls – The 1970s” is a 21-minute piece that on first glance looks like it will be a letdown. After all, how can we have this discussion without Elisabeth Sladen? (Including either of the Romanas sure wouldn’t have hurt, either.) However, Caroline John, Katy Manning and Louise Jameson have a fantastic, funny, revealing conversation comparing and contrasting their respective times on the series. This featurette’s a keeper, folks. There are also Radio Times Listings in PDF format (which, as you might imagine, are rather nice for this particular tale), and once again, that same trailer for “The Face of Evil.”

And since I didn’t throw out these old standbys, which should, by this point, go without saying, all three of these DVDs feature the usual production notes subtitle option as well as photo galleries.


[1] I've been reminded by a reader that, for technical reasons, “The Time Meddler” was not able to have the VidFIRE process applied to it.

Doctor Who: The Face of Evil DVD review

As I’ve written before, there are certain Doctor Who stories about which I simply cannot be objective, and 1977’s “The Face of Evil” may be at the top of that list. It’s easily Top Ten Who for me, but I’ve discovered time and again that few have the same kind of admiration for it that I do. Screw it. Right here, right now - let’s give “The Face of Evil” its proper due. It’s just as tight and smart as the rest of Season Fourteen, of which it’s a major, important component, and it goes a long way toward cementing that block of stories as very possibly the best straight run of the classic series.

Having said goodbye to Sarah Jane two stories prior in “The Hand of Fear,” and having recently engaged in an epic battle against a decaying Master on their home planet of Gallifrey in “The Deadly Assassin,” the Doctor (Tom Baker) is now roaming the universe solo and seemingly carefree. The TARDIS lands on an unnamed planet, in a dense, alien looking jungle. There the Time Lord encounters two opposing factions: tribal warriors known as the Sevateem, and the restrained technology-based Tesh. Their mutual hatred and distrust is spurred on by their god, Xoanon. After he’s repeatedly recognized as “The Evil One,” the Doctor soon learns that he’s been here before, and the situation is something only he can fix. Along the way he forms a close bond with a Sevateem woman known as Leela (Louise Jameson)…

It couldn’t have been an easy task to find someone to take the place of Sarah Jane Smith, and, in fact, Tom Baker wasn’t keen on having a companion at all. Despite the fact that Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe were able to make the Doctor operating solo work in “The Deadly Assassin,” his first scene in “The Face of Evil,” in which he talks directly to the camera, sort of proves the necessity of a companion. It’s a novel, mildly funny moment for sure, but not something the series could’ve relied on over the long haul. Luckily he bumps into the savage Leela not long after arriving. She’s been banished from her tribe for speaking out against their god Xoanon, and claiming that it doesn’t exist.

Right off the bat Leela grabs attention, and not just because of her revealing costume and stunningly natural looks. I’m not entirely sure if the character’s ever been given her proper due, probably for a couple reasons, such as the fact that she was a companion for only a season and a half, and also because when she wasn’t written by Chris Boucher or Robert Holmes (between the pair they wrote five of her nine stories), she wasn’t written to her true potential. However, if one is to judge Leela on those five stories alone, she comes out looking like one of the most dynamic and engaging companions in the history of the show, partly because she was so unlike any of the others (although a case could probably be made that she shares a fair amount of traits with Jamie McCrimmon before her), but also because of her violent, primal behavior, and the Doctor’s reactions to that behavior. Likewise, Jameson seems very sure of herself coming out of the gate (even though she admits that she was anything but), and it would have been so easy for this character to have been a misfire, especially if the wrong actress had been cast in the part.

Jameson's knack for the role aside, Leela is given such a perfect introductory storyline – one that ideally serves the essence of the character - that it’s difficult to imagine it having gone any other way. “The Face of Evil” is about the triumph of science and reason over religion and superstition, which mirrors the journey Leela takes with the Doctor over the course of their travels. I’ve said before that these types of stories are amongst my very favorite in Doctor Who, because they reflect my own world view, and “Face” was the strongest piece of science fiction I’d experienced (at the age of 13) that explored these ideas, and therefore it has stuck with me ever since.

I’d already seen “Pyramids of Mars,” “Planet of Evil,” and “The Masque of Mandragora” (the latter shares some of the philosophy of “Face,” but the method of storytelling isn’t as intricate) and several other “classic” classic Who stories that preceded it, but “Face” is the one that, after having viewed it, cemented my lifelong relationship with the series. In speaking about this particular serial, I can think of no higher testimonial than the idea that while I enjoyed the bejeezus out of “The Brain of Morbius” (and would also place it in my Top Ten) it was “The Face of Evil” that taught me that this show really was about something beyond battling monsters and aliens (possibly because this serial doesn't really feature either).

Perhaps I’ve gotten too serious here, and forgotten to explain that “The Face of Evil” is also loads of fun. All the little hallmarks that define the era are present here. Baker is in prime form, working his way back and forth between deadly serious and whimsically humorous. One of the most priceless, memorable moments occurs when he threatens to kill a Sevateem tribesman with a jelly baby. He’s aided by a truly spectacular guest cast, all of whom seem to totally believe in the world they’re playing in. The Sevateem in particular are smartly written, most notably Leslie Schofield’s duplicitous Calib and David Garfield’s high priest Neeva, who goes through a dramatically calculated breakdown upon realizing that his entire belief system is a sham. This is the sort of sensitivity Boucher – here, a first time Who writer – imbues the proceedings with; most Who scribes before him would’ve glossed over such an angle.

The psychically endowed Tesh don’t get nearly as much screentime, as they aren’t introduced until Episode Three, but they are undeniably strange and creepy, partly because of the fact that never once do we see a female Tesh. Further complicating this issue is the claim by the captain of the Tesh guard, Jabel (Leon Eagles), that they “deny the flesh so that our minds may find communion with Xoanon.” And yet somehow, as a race, they’ve been reproducing for survival for numerous generations. These are the kind of weirdoes who very likely keep their women locked away and out of sight, to be used only for procreation. Granted, none of this is seen or even hinted at onscreen, but on this viewing of “Face,” my mind began to ponder such issues, and that’s where I arrived. Judging them on their fashion choices, however, one might think that the Tesh have escaped en masse from the Emerald City, which was another unsettling fictitious arena lorded over by a false god.   

The working title of the serial was “The Day God Went Mad,” and many a fan, myself included, has bemoaned the fact that it wasn’t used. It would have been a fucking fantastic title, and indeed, had it been used, the perception of this story would be entirely different today. It would not be thought of as just “Leela’s first story” or as the filler in between “The Deadly Assassin” and “The Robots of Death.”  Yet let’s not entirely discount what makes the title they did use almost as cool, and that’s the fact that the face in question is that of the Doctor’s, and there are numerous moments in this story where Tom Baker’s visage and voice are used as chilling emblems of darkness, and it totally works. It’s difficult to imagine the gimmick working with most of the other actors to have played the Doctor, such is the strangeness of Baker’s face (although by all means, it’d be a debate worth having).

Sometimes it's tough to know where to stop talking in a DVD review, especially for a story that I’m as enthusiastic about as this one. Many people reading this will not have seen this serial, and the way it operates and unfolds is too clever to ruin by line listing everything there is to adore about it. (Honestly, I feel as though I’ve only scratched its surface; I didn’t even talk about the spectacular design work or the atmospheric film sequences.) Last month of “The Caves of Androzani” I said “there surely cannot be any safer Doctor Who DVD purchase this year.” On a logical, critical level I stand by that, but on a personal, emotional level, “The Face of Evil” trumps even the might of “Androzani.”

DVD Extras: Perhaps rather appropriately, the extras here are very Louise Jameson heavy, playing almost as homage to Leela. On the other hand, Tom Baker is completely absent from the proceedings as is, unfortunately, Chris Boucher…well, mostly absent. A revolving commentary track moderated by Toby Hadoke features Jameson and Hinchcliffe as well as actors Schofield, Garfield, Mike Elles (Gentek) and Harry F. Fielder, who has a small role as a Sevateem assassin in Part One, as well as film cameraman John McGlashan. Hadoke, it turns out, has been in contact with Boucher and periodically reads e-mails from him, so the writer is at least there in spirit.

There’s also a making of entitled “Into the Wild,” which runs for 25 minutes as well as nine minutes of leftover film footage. “Tomorrow’s Times – The Fourth Doctor” is another in the ongoing series that takes a look at press reaction to the show. Given that the Baker era lasted for seven seasons, at a mere 14 minutes, this particular installment feels a bit on the brief side. “Doctor Who Stories: Louise Jameson” is a 17-minute interview with the actress from 2003, and there’s also a short vintage interview with her with Noel Edmonds from Swap Shop. A Denys Fisher Toy commercial is a cool little tidbit, and there’s also a tremendously impressive trailer for next month’s release of “The Daemons,” which any Who fan will tell you has been a long time coming. Finally, there’s the usual photo gallery, production notes subtitles option, and PDF material that includes Radio Times listings, loads of advertising tie-ins for a product called Ty-Phoo Tea, and an extensive collection of comics, stories and articles from a vintage magazine called The Amazing World of Doctor Who, which was part of the Ty-Phoo promotion.