Revisitations 2: Electric Boogaloo
Doctor Who: Revisitations 2 on DVD
I’ve probably said this before, but I sometimes wonder if 2Entertain, as well as being in the business of selling DVDs, are also part of an OCD research group that’s attempting to find out the upper limit of what Doctor Who fans will put up with before they say “Enough!”. This latest release will probably push more fans than usual up to the edge of their compulsive completism.
There was a quite a kerfuffle when the first Revisitations collection was released, with some people violently against the basic concept of re-releasing stories when the range was still incomplete. Regardless of your view, it’s hard to deny that Revisitations 1 was an excellent package: it featured two of the most popular stories ever, the pivotal 1996 TV Movie, some of the best extras in the range and (for those who could tell) an improvement in picture quality. A combination of story importance, great accompanying material and the fact the original releases were released back in the early days of restoration techniques fully justified the release.
By comparison, coming up with an argument for the release of Revisitations 2 is a bit more of a problem, as is, more importantly, finding a convincing reason to shell out £30 for it. The collection includes The Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters and Resurrection of the Daleks. Now while I have happy memories of The Seeds of Death from its early video release, and I love Carnival of Monsters, neither of them are regarded as imperishable classics. And Resurrection of the Daleks isn’t even liked by its own writer. Apparently all three have had better transfers (Seeds has been re-Vidfired), and there is indeed a general improvement in picture quality, but I struggled to find fault with the original DVDs that are already on my shelf. Similarly, there are new commentaries which are perfectly fine but I can’t believe any but the hardiest fans were lying awake at night pining for the commentaries that never were. The only real argument for buying a set like this is if the extra features make it essential. So are they worth it?
The Seeds of Death
The Lords of the Red Planet is a straightforward film about the making of The Seeds of Death which also includes a brief overview of Brian Hayles’ career. As you’d expect from a Steve Broster film, it’s a diligent overview of the relevant facts, but an awful lot of time is spent discussing the abortive script (The Lords of the Red Planet) for which Hayles was originally commissioned before the production team had a change of heart. For what seems like forever, presenter Richard Bignell describes at length the intricate twists and turns of the lost story: “Veltrena the queen elect is murdered by Zaadur but the Doctor teams up with a Saurian Ice Warrior called Aslor…”. It’s like being cornered at a convention by a mad fan who’s heavily into Dungeons and Dragons. If the intention was to make us all more grateful for The Seeds of Death then it worked brilliantly.
Monsters That Came Back For More is a very entertaining piece by Thomas Guerrier that attempts to analyse just why some monsters are more popular than others. Nick Briggs and Peter Ware are on good form in this, and there’s a fun moment when they individually try to list the returning monsters in order of popularity, and keep missing out some of the more important ones.
Monster Masterclass is an extremely brief interview with director Michael Ferguson who explains the best way to film Doctor Who monsters in order to make them look scary.
While there’s nothing wrong with any of these features, they hardly add up to a compelling reason for a re-release, even if the picture has been slightly improved on the main feature.
Carnival of Monsters
Destroy All Monsters is another good feature from Chris Chapman who invariably livens up even the most basic extras with his visual panache. This is a serviceable ‘making of’ documentary framed by a pastiche of a B-Movie trailer complete with dramatic voiceover. It includes some old anecdotes, such as Pertwee’s attempt to steal the ship’s compass (Dicks: “Jon tended to be a shade light-fingered”) alongside Katy Manning’s chicken impressions and her description of “Jon and I crawling around up each other’s bottoms” which is an image probably best left unexplored until the BluRay extra Doctor Who Babylon which is scheduled for release in 2041. The weirdest thing about this feature concerns the use of dead dogs, but we’re assured that no animals were harmed during the making of Carnival of Monsters. I can’t quite see Barry Letts killing an animal for entertainment although he was rumoured to be second unit cameraman on Cannibal Holocaust.
On Target – Ian Marter is another entry in this series by Marcus Hearn. Inevitably, because of Marter’s early death, it’s a rather sad piece, and the various contributors (including Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney and Tom Baker) clearly still miss him and find it hard to talk about his untimely end. But the feature certainly also manages to convey the importance of Marter’s early Target novelisations and how so many children (like me) gleefully read and re-read The Sontaran Experiment while thinking “I don’t remember that bit!”. All in all it’s a very worthy tribute to a much-loved man and writer.
The A-Z of Gadgets and Gizmos is perfect for its audience. Sadly, its audience appears to primary school children who on the whole don’t tend to buy £30 DVD boxsets of ancient television. It seems to be aimed at kids who have been mainlining tartrazine for three hours, and made by adults who sustain themselves only on handfuls of Tangfastic liberally rolled in cocaine. Either that or it’s another Brendan Sheppard spectacular.
Mary Celeste – Another interesting and well-made piece by Stella “Magna Carta” Broster, but I can’t help wondering why it appears here rather than on The Chase DVD.
Commentary – Toby Hadoke moderates Cheryl Hall, Jenny McCracken, Terrance Dicks, Brian Hodgson and Peter Halliday. I particularly enjoyed this and its a great accompaniment to the old commentary which featured Barry Letts, Katy Manning and a helium-sucking demented baby.
This is a much more substantial offering than for The Seeds of Death, but aside from Destroy All Monsters and the commentary, the other extras have only tenuous links to the main story.
Anyway, enough of my grumpiness and over to Neil. I’m sure he’ll be much more positive. Ah.
Resurrection of the Daleks
John has been advised not to watch Resurrection of the Daleks for at least another 29 months and so it’s been left to me to pick at its bloated corpse.
I suppose the first thing to note about this story is that it’s now presented in its original two-part broadcast version, so no more sleepless nights for literally dozens of you. But don’t fret: if you want to watch the four-part edit, before the Winter Olympics got in the way, then this is still available too. Personally, you couldn’t pay me to watch either; I detest Resurrection of the Daleks regardless of how many cliffhangers are involved. Thankfully, we are only reviewing the extras today, which is a bloody good job because there are only so many ways I can complain about the inadequacies of Rodney Bewes or laser guns that sound as if they’ve been designed by Billy Ocean.
But speaking of cynical negativity leads me nicely to the flagship extra for this story, Come In Number Five, an hour-long retrospective of the 5th Doctor’s era. Or should that be error?
If you are expecting a celebratory journey through the Peter Davison years, forget it. If, on the other hand, you subscribe to the view that 1980s Doctor Who was a bit shit, entirely thanks to its insane, egomaniacal producer, then you’ll lap it up.
Personally, I’ve witnessed enough back room bickering on all the other behind the scenes documentaries in this range to last me several lifetimes; I had to sit through a 40-minute lecture on how JNT f**ked-up Kinda last month. OK, I get it. He was rubbish. And I’m not suggesting you sweep his incompetence under the carpet either – I’m not a JNT apologist by any stretch of the imagination – but where is the joy in this documentary? Where is the passion? And, even more importantly, where is Eric Saward’s sense of humour?
Towards the end of an overwhelmingly apologetic trawl through the Davison years (apparently The Caves of Androzani isn’t too bad; at a push), David Tennant (who at one point battles for screen space with a leaf) claims that Peter Davison was his Doctor. Why? Was it Peter Davison’s unique vulnerability? Was it the epic scope of his stories? Or was it simply an accident of birth? Who knows.
Even when they do address Peter’s performance – three minutes from the end – it takes a relative outsider like Steven Moffat to come anywhere close to defining what made the 5th Doctor’s era so magical; Saward, on the other hand, can’t resist putting the boot in one final time, claiming – even in retrospect – that Davison wasn’t really right for the part.
Instead of treating this retrospective as an excuse for yet more behind the scenes production-based bitch-fests, couldn’t we have seen some fans (professional or otherwise, I don’t care) reminiscing about the Davison era? Time Flight must have its fans, surely? Or perhaps some new viewers might have something interesting and valuable to add? Did we really have to dredge up the “revelation” that the Myrka looked a bit rubbish or they had to turn the lights off at 10pm? In short, this felt like a wasted opportunity.
The Tomorrow Times format is lamentable. Perhaps they are striving for a Points of View vibe but whereas Points of View is filmed in a relaxed manner in a wam studio environment (yes, even in the mid-80s), this looks as if it’s been filmed in a prison cell. In fact, it exudes all the warmth and charm of an Al Qaeda hostage video and Frasier Hines looks like he might be decapitated at any moment. This is a shame because the content is actually quite interesting and the incredibly smarmy Colin Baker impression is well worth the wait.
Far more engaging is Casting Far and Wide, which involves Toby Hadoke interviewing a number of actors who worked on Resurrection to examine the impact – if any – it had on their careers. Including interviews with both the infamous, like Leslie Grantham, and the obscure, like William Sleigh, who lasts a full fifteen seconds before he’s killed in the story, this is a charming, elucidating and very original extra, even if Toby’s wrap-up will force you to think evil thoughts; you’ll wish you had the power to banish him to another planet by the time he’s reached the final end.
Another new extra is the enigmatically titled Walrus. There are no walruses in it. It does, however, provide some genuinely spooky foreshadowing for the Welsh series. Isn’t it?
The icing on the cake is a new commentary for the two-part edit featuring Terry Molloy, Eric Saward and visual effects designer Peter Wragg. It’s moderated by Nick Pegg and it features Saward telling jokes and slapping colleagues on the back with his usual bonhomie. Probably. I haven’t had enough time to listen to it. But let’s be honest, if the quality of Terry Molloy’s anecdotes is the deciding factor in whether you purchase this boxset or not then either you are a) Terry Molloy or b) lying.
Finally, all the extras from the original DVD release have been ported over to this new set. This includes a documentary called On Location (this dates the extra to a time when you didn’t have to come up with a silly pun for its title), a clip of Breakfast Time where JNT pimps his Companions tome in front of a very tired looking Janet Fielding, some extended and deleted scenes, a trailer, a TARDIS Cam, so you can revisit a time when ten-second model shots were the closest thing we got to new Doctor Who), a commentary with Davison, Fielding and director, Matthew Robinson (which, if memory serves, includes extended sequences where Robinson berates his colleagues for not appreciating his brilliance), the usual PDF gubbins, some excellent production notes and a new trailer for Planet of the Spiders. I hope they do that story justice and we don’t have to buy it all over again in a few years time.
Sadly, one thing that hasn’t been ported over from the original release is the limited edition rubberised jacket, but you can’t have everything I suppose.
In summary, Revisitations 2 is something of a mixed blessing. While it’s nice to have some decent extras on Carnival and marginally better picture quality on Seeds this is hardly an essential purchase. If you are currently feeling the pinch and you can live with the non-transmitted version of Resurrection sitting on your shelves for a little while longer, I’d wait until it reaches the sales. Although if we all do that the entire range might collapse before they get to Invasion of the Dinosaurs. So, for that reason alone, you’ll probably want to pre-order it.
Revisitations 2 is released on Monday 28th March in the UK.
