Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks (Story 152) (1975) Review

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(More customer reviews)Remembrance of the Daleks is the only Sylvester Mcoy Dalek story and it's the best 7th Doctor they made. It involves the Doctor returning to the very Junk Yard where the program began in 1963 just a few days after his first incarnation left. For some reason, two warring factions of Daleks have traveled back to this time as well. Why are they there and what do they want... and what exactly was the Doctor doing in 1963 London back in the first episode anyway? All these questions will be answered.
It is so cool that Dr. Who is coming out on DVD with all the extras you could want. It's a pity other show DVDs such as the recent Farscape episode don't have such extras. Hopefully the forthcoming Star Trek DVDs will. Here's a list of the extras you'll get...
commentary by Sylvester McCoy & Sophie Aldred, deleted scenes, out-takes, on screen production note subtitles, multi-angle scenes, the original trailers, photo gallery
Ths commentary is pretty good. More consistent and informative than the Robots of Death Commentary but not quite as entertaining as The Five Doctors Commentary or the Caves of androzani Commentary. Sophi and Sylvester talk a lot about things that happened on the set and the careers of some of their costars in the story. Pretty interesting stuff...
On another note... if you're looking for new Dr. Who material. Look for the audio releases of the missing episodes. Look for my list "Missing Dr. Who's on Audio and Video" to find out about this. [....]Look for "The Web of Fear" for starters. "The Dalek's Master Plan" Audio Release is awsome too. Also check out Big Finnish productions for the new audio adventures of Dr. Who featuring Doctors ranging from Peter Davison to Paul Mcgann. Was this review helpful? Did you learn something new from it? Please vote Yes.

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"Remembrance of the Daleks," the final Doctor Who story to feature the titular mutant cyborgs, is a particularly notable adventure for the way it ties the plot into the very first story, "An Unearthly Child," made 25 years before. It is 1963, and the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, arrives in London with new companion Ace (Sophie Aldred), where two Dalek factions are engaged in a deadly search for the Hand of Omega. Ace quickly proves herself adept with high explosives, and while there are references to the history of the show, including some nice in-jokes, the drama is played much straighter than in McCoy's first season as the time traveler. This is Doctor Who with a decent budget; the period setting is surprisingly lavish and there are some fairly intense action sequences. The Daleks remain as menacing as ever, the plotting has an intriguing air of mystery, and McCoy injects some steel into his characterization. DVD Features:Audio Commentary:by actors Sylvester McCoy and Sophie AldredDeleted ScenesMultiple video anglesOuttakesProduction Notes:Optional caption stream

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Doctor Who: Delta and the Bannermen (Story 150) (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)Delta and the Bannermen is definitely one of the most polarizing Doctor Who serials; either you love it or hate it. Its bad reputation probably comes from being sandwiched in the middle of Sylvester McCoy's first season in the lead role, which is universally written off as 14 episodes of childish, gaudy faffing about offset by hideous dialogue, cheap production values, and, of course, the rightly infamous "demo mode on Casio keyboard" music of Keff McCulloch used for all but one of the season's episodes.
Well, Delta is probably the best episode of the otherwise calamitous 24th season of the show. The first two serials of the McCoy era did not paint the character with a good quality brush; in Time and the Rani, the Doctor went way beyond his regular eccentricity and became just plain weird and often facetious; I submit the mixed metaphors he regularly spouts throughout that episode ("Time and tide melts the snowman," "Two wrongs don't make a left turn," et al.) as evidence. Paradise Towers was probably even more silly than the preceding serial, where the acting was at its absolute worst and Keff's music was channeling Speak and Spell-era Depeche Mode by way of Madonna.
Delta is different from those two. The Doctor doesn't act overly silly here (aside from the accidental sneeze that leads into part one's cliffhanger); McCoy's performance here is great, beginning to plan out the darker, moodier Seventh Doctor of the final two seasons. There's a great character moment for him towards the end, where he is seen cradling a Stratocaster and commenting, "Love has never been known for its rationality."
And the script? For a comedic episode, it's not bad. Doctor Who has always raised ire when trying to do comedy (see the late 70's disasterpiece of BBC Christmas pantomime, The Horns of Nimon, for more information), but the comedy is offset by a great deal of character scenes and some great production values for the period (this episode was almost entirely shot on location, which probably contributes to the polished look).
But the biggest subject of debate is the massive amount of 1950's rock music used throughout all three episodes, albeit in cover versions. I don't mind it so much as others; Keff's attempts at rock are better than the actual synthesized, non-diegetic music used for most of the episode, but not by much (on a side note, Keff himself makes an onscreen appearance in part one).
You've probably heard a lot of bad things about this one if you're a fan, but I suggest you give it a chance. As I said, you either love this episode or hate it; it's Doctor Who trying to be radically different, and whether it succeeds or not is entirely your perception. However, if you're someone who longs for the "good ol' days" of Jon Pertwee, complete with horrible CSO and rubber suit monsters, then go back to The Green Death and stay far, far away from this one.
As for the DVD, it includes an early edit of part one, with extended and rearranged scenes (and lacking music and sound effects), a documentary about Doctor Who comic strips, continuities from the original 1987 transmission, and the obligatory audio commentary, among other things; typical of the excellent DVD releases you've come to expect from the BBC.

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DOCTOR WHO:EP 150 DELTA AND THE BAN - DVD Movie

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Doctor Who: Survival (Story 159) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Survival"--possibly one of the most unintentionally ironic titles in world television history, for it's with this storyline that "Doctor Who", TV's longest-running science fiction program, beloved by generation after generation across the English-speaking world, died. Not a spectacular death, either, but shot like a dog and left to expire like something the cat dragged in, a random casualty of beastly BBC infighting and survival-of-the-fittest competition with other programs. Of course, in those last months of 1989 when "Survival" originally aired, the viewing public couldn't know that this was to be the show's final breath or, as it turns out now, the beginning of its sixteen-year hibernation. Indeed, the storyline was not intended as such, and it strains unfairly under such a heavy retrospective burden. And yet as a fan I found it pretty much impossible to blinker my hindsight and just watch the story on its own terms.
I'll try to do so now, though. In and of itself "Survival" is a pretty standard example of "Doctor Who" at the time, neither a classic nor a clunker. More coherently plotted than "Ghost Light" but not as consistently interesting as "Remembrance of the Daleks", it still entertains as a reasonably sophisticated sci-fi adventure. In context, this story does fit right in with the two storylines preceding it ("Ghost Light" and "The Curse of Fenric") by focusing more on the character of the Doctor's human traveling companion Ace than on the kindly renegade Time Lord himself, here especially as this tale begins with their visit to her old home neighborhood in the run-down suburbs of London and follows her missing friends to the bizarre planet of the Cheetah People. The Doctor's almost just along for the ride here, a real role-reversal indeed. Also linking these last three stories of season 26 is the common theme of evolution, or Darwinism to be more exact--a complex link in which the ever-dynamic ever-changing burgeoning profusion of lifeforms postulated by that theory is celebrated in "Ghost Light" whereas here the moral consequences and ethical repercussions of the theory (the cold, hard law of the jungle) are roundly criticized and vilified implicitly and explicitly. Along with this there also continues a politically leftist emphasis in the show, for the writer clearly categorizes basic competitive capitalism and violence in self-defense as Darwinist negatives. Writer's prerogative, certainly, but traditionally "Doctor Who" had been so crafted as to appeal commonly to folks of various political orientations, which somehow seems a fairer and wiser policy in light of its wide viewing audience.

And the whole non-violence bit gets the writer in a double-bind at the story's climax, and in what constitutes the story's main flaw the writer can only extricate herself from this by cheating: the Doctor and the Master, both of them gradually devolving into more primitive forms, are locked in mortal combat hand to hand and tooth to claw when the Doctor finally takes the moral high ground and refuses to fight, teleporting away instead. Yeah right. This avoids both the option unpalatable to the writer of having the Doctor kill the Master in self-defense and the logical upshot of the writer's stance (unpalatable to us) in which the Doctor would passively allow the Master to kill him instead, but all at the cost of dealing the story itself a nasty wound indeed. For that matter, the ethics of leaving a guy behind and stranding him on a world that's about to explode and disintegrate seem just as questionable if not more so than a good man-to-man round of fisticuffs.
That aside, the story has a lot going for it all the same. The script is extremely well-written and some of the dialogue is positively inspired. The realistically contemporary setting adds grit and tension to the adventure and is a good contrast to the oddly surreal landscapes of the Cheetah Planet. The Cheetah People are interesting aliens though very imperfectly realized make-up-wise; something less ambitious may have been called for, since the transitional phase with the funny eyes, fangs, and claws works pretty well. But still, an unusual concept, and in "Doctor Who" it's the concepts rather than the effects that count in the final analysis. Furthermore, however one feels of Anthony Ainley's take on the Master (I'm not usually too keen myself) he gave the role his all for the better part of a decade and here managed one of his more subdued and convincing performances. And Sylvester McCoy is as dependable as ever as the Doctor. So "Survival" may not be a fitting end to the show or at least to the classic run of the show anyway, but it does afford a good few hours of speculative science fiction enjoyment and survives on that strength.

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The Doctor takes Ace back to her hometown of Perivale, only to find that something is very, very wrong. Many of Ace's old friends and neighbors have disappeared while domestic pets become victims of unseen killers. Will the hunter become the hunted when only the fittest survive? (Episodes 1-3, 72 mins)DVD Features:Audio CommentaryDVD ROM FeaturesDeleted ScenesDocumentariesMusic Only TrackOtherOuttakesPhoto galleryProduction Notes

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Doctor Who: Battlefield (Story 156) (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)Amazon dose not give the "RELEASES IN DETAIL's" like they should. So from website of the go to man on all Doctor Who DVD's (and hell, even VHS)Steve Manfred. Here are the detail's for "Battlefield".
[...]
Doctor Who: Battlefield starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace, and guest starring Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. 2 discs.
On Disc 1:
- All four 25-minute episodes (the original 1989 versions) with full restoration treatment.
- Graphical menus, episode and scene selection features, and subtitles for the hearing impaired.
- Optional commentary track with actors Sophie Aldred, Nicholas Courtney, and Angela Bruce(Brigadier Winifred Bambera), Writer Ben Aaronovitch, and Script Editor Andrew Cartmel.
- Information Text subtitles option. Displays pop-up production trivia throughout the story.
- Isolated Music option. Plays the story with only the music soundtrack playing by itself.
- "Storm Over Avallion" 23-minute featurette about the making of the story, featuring interviews with Actors Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Angela Bruce, Nicholas Courtney, and Jean Marsh (Morgaine), Writer Ben Aaronovitch, Script Editor Andrew Cartmel, and Director Michael Kerrigan.
- "Past and Future King" 12-minute featurette about the writing of this story, featuring interviews with Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Angela Bruce, and Michael Kerrigan.
- "Watertank" 7-minute featurette that goes into detail about the near-fatal accident that occurred during the scene of Ace trapped in the flooding spacecraft airlock when the glass in the tank she was in cracked open.
- Studio Recording. 19 minutes of raw footage from the studio floor during the original studio recording session for this story.
- "From Kingdom to Queen" 8-minute interview with Jean Marsh charting her 1965, 1966, and 1989 appearances in Doctor Who.
- Radio Times Listings. PDF files for your computer containing the original Radio Times TV listings for this story, as well as some contemporaneous articles about it they ran.
On Disc 2:
- Battlefield Special Edition.
A 95-minute movie-format version of the story, with numerous deleted scenes edited back into the action, other reediting of the action and the music, boosted CGI effects,and a Dolby 5.1 sound mix. Comes with graphical menus, scene selection menu,and subtitles for the hearing impaired.
- Season 26 Trailer A 1:30 trailer for the entire 26th season that was shown to the press in 1989.


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The Doctor and Ace join forces with UNIT and his old friend the Brigadier against Morgaine (Jean Marsh) and Mordred, Arthurian villains who recognize the Doctor as Merlin.
DVD Features:FeaturetteInterviewsPhoto gallery

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Doctor Who: Ghost Light (Story 157) Review

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(More customer reviews)This adventure reminds me of a good painting - no matter how many times you see it you always find something new.
Possibly the most densely-plotted Dr Who story ever written, virtually every word has some deeper meaning or significiance. The Doctor/Ace double-act was one of the strongest Doctor/companion teams ever in the series - what other Doctor would take his companion back in time to make her face her worst nightmare? In this case it's a Victorian mansion which will one day become the haunted house Ace entered as a teenager. The sets are lavish and look like they were made for a high-budget period drama, the music is superbly brooding and the dialogue is powerful. With its themes on evolution, its gritty realism and its well-written characters, this is up there with the best of the '70s Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee stories.

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London, 1983. An old house mysteriously burns to the ground. One hundred years earlier, the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace arrive at a sinister mansion, where they discover that Ace's past and the house's future are inextricably linked. (Episodes 1-3, 71 mins)DVD Features:Audio CommentaryDeleted ScenesExtended takesFeaturetteInterviewsMusic Only TrackOtherProduction Notes

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Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric (Story 158) (1975) Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Curse of Fenric" tries so hard to be a quintessential Doctor Who story. Pseudo-historical tales are a hallmark of the show, and this one is set at a British naval base during World War II but features an extraterrestrial (extradimensional?) threat very much true to form. Like some of the most beloved classics especially from the early seasons of Tom Baker, "Fenric" takes classic and cliche motifs from known horror movies and translates them into a science fiction idiom, in this case any number of "living dead" type movies like "Evil Dead II" or "Prince of Darkness" (to name the ones I've actually seen, not being a big fan of horror films myself): the emergence into our world of a demonic being through some sort of activating text and/or ritual, his bringing an army of zombies or vampires to bear against the heroes, surrounding them in a frail safehold and besieging them there, and yes, we even have the poor ill-fated priest who ineffectually waves a Bible or cross at the creepies only to be promptly overtaken by them. "Fenric" also features an ecological undertone similar to many of the greats from Jon Pertwee's time (especially "Inferno") as the zombies are in fact a badly mutated version of humanity from some polluted industrial meltdown of a future. Then too there's a Cold War fable a la "The Armageddon Factor" (among others) as the Russian and British soldiers decide to stop their clandestine maneuvers against each other so as to fight their common enemy, evil itself (originally airing in 1989, this may well be one of the last of its kind). Why, with the final chess game between Fenric and the Doctor, there's even a whiff of "The Celestial Toymaker" from way back.
And yet it all comes across as trying too hard. Knowing in retrospect that this is the next-to-last story in the show's classic run it may be too easy to say this, but it almost seems as if the producer and his staff are attempting to jumpstart the waning popularity of Doctor Who by haphazardly throwing in everything that ever worked--missing the basics in the process. First of all, they left out the heart: The spirit of fun and adventure just seems to be missing, and the combination of quintessential elements seems artificial and contrived rather than natural and creative. Second of all, they forgot the brain: once again as with "Ghost Light" a fledgling writer is doing his best but not apparently getting the direction and feedback he needs from the script editor. As a whole the story is far more coherent, thank goodness, but there are still far too many fuzzy points, plotline tangles, and sheer implausibilities for a final draft--and overall the horror-to-sci-fi translation is incomplete and unripe, with too many things a trifle too supernatural and unscientific for the Doctor Who fictional universe. Finally, they lost their courage: the story bends over backwards painfully to cast the Soviet soldiers in a good light while vilifying the Brits--to the degree that it winds up as an embarrassing display of self-persecution. If only they'd had a wonderful wizard to consult with on these matters.
Still, for all that, "The Curse of Fenric" is reasonably enjoyable and entertaining, and it has its moments. This is the BBC, so the historical sets and costumes are top-notch. Having the believably clunky British decryption computer summon forth Fenric by spitting out an English translation of his cursed verses from Norse is clever. McCoy does great as the Doctor, and at one point rambles off a quick summary of what must be Time Lord Theology (and Theodicy) which is rather interesting and convincingly abstract. The way he bumbles in and somehow makes himself at home in a top secret naval base really is classic Doctor Who, utterly uncontrived. And the story as a whole nicely and intriguingly thematizes faith and doubt, giving it more multilayered texture than the average monster movie. All of this makes "Fenric" worth watching despite its flawed nature, but none of it justifies making this a double-DVD set by including a director's cut version of the same story over again.

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The Doctor and Ace are put to the ultimate test when the TARDIS materializes in Second World War England at a top-secret naval base. The army church, built on Viking graves, bears inscriptions calling for the wolves of Fenric to return for their treasure. Thereafter, evil will reign. Even as the Doctor translates the inscription, hideous corpses rise up from the sea, and the evil Fenric is now free to summon his wolves to a killing rampage.DVD Features:Audio CommentaryExtended takesFeaturetteInterviewsMusic Only TrackOtherPhoto galleryProduction Notes

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