Doctor Who And The Silurians
Though Doctor Who And The Silurians is an integral part of the Beneath The Surface box set chronicling all of the Doctor’s on-screen encounters with the reptilian Silurians and Sea-Devils, this single story - an epic seven-parter spread across two DVDs - represents such a remarkable step forward in the restoration of partially “lost” Doctor Who stories that it deserves its own review.
Originally broadcast in 1970, this story was shot on color videotape - the first Doctor Who adventure to be shot that way (Pertwee’s first story, the already-released-on-DVD Spearhead From Space, was shot entirely on film) - and was sold abroad in both color and B&W. Now, here’s where it gets complicated: in the 1970s, as is generally well known, there was a purge of archived Doctor Who episodes in the BBC archives, as the Beeb just hadn’t envisioned a release-everything-in-the-vaults home video market like the one that began to make itself known in the VHS days and has become a driving market reality in the DVD age. The original color videotapes of Doctor Who And The Silurians were considered yesterday’s news. But like the scaly antagonists of the story, this installment of Who history has risen again from the ashes. (more…)