:: theLogBook.com DVD Reviews ::

A relatively large box set mixing new material with earlier existing releases (and a few box set exclusives to force the completists’ hand - don’t you hate that crap?), the Davros box set chronicles the multiple rises and falls of the fictional creator of the Daleks throughout his appearances in classic Doctor Who. I think I’ve mentioned before that one can tell which elements of the classic series are about to resurface in the current series by paying close attention to the classic box sets, and there are numerous rumors which seem to point in the direction of reacquainting oneself with the Davros mythology being a good idea. Here, then, is every story of classic Doctor Who in which the maniacal, Dalek-wheelchair-bound genius appeared, in one convenient package…at least for U.K. fans. (more…)

“Don’t ask. I have no idea,” says Sarah “Nyssa” Sutton at one point in the audio commentary for the 1982 four-parter Time-Flight, and later Peter Davison himself admits, “You’re right. I have no idea what’s going on.” Such is the fate of one of the more convoluted early adventures from Davison’s era of Doctor Who, which was released alongside Arc Of Infinity - another story which can’t really be considered a fan favorite. The two back-to-back stories represent the end of the 19th season and the beginning of the 20th, and I think there’s a reason these two examples of how not to top the most-popular-classic-Who-episode polls are already on DVD. It was surprising enough to see Timelash make it to DVD, but a dual release (or, in the U.K.’s case, an actual box set) of not-fondly-remembered material is even more surprising. (more…)

When this sixth Doctor story was announced as an upcoming DVD release, many a fan doubtless scratched their heads and asked “Why!?” After all, even as early as its original broadcast, Timelash had acquired a stellar reputation…for being one of the first volleys in what some fans considered the nadir of ’80s Doctor Who, a period encompassing The Trial Of A Time Lord, the firing of Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy’s uneven first season. As it turns out, BBC Video knew exactly what it was doing in giving this story a DVD release, for all of that makes for meaty bonus features.

The central featurette on this relatively “light” release is appropriately titled “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly”, and it pulls very few punches in analyzing Timelash’s successes (using young H.G. Wells as a character) and failures (some of Doctor Who’s lowest production values of the Colin Baker era, an occasionally incoherent script, and an admittedly hammy guest shot by Paul Darrow of Blake’s 7 fame). (more…)

As many fan historians have pointed out, The Time Warrior was the beginning of the end of an era for Doctor Who, and it’s that theme which drives the bonus material on this DVD featuring the first appearances of the lovely Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and the decidedly less lovely Sontaran warrior (the late Kevin Lindsay). Other DVDs had already used Sarah’s character as a theme (Hand Of Fear, her final appearance as a regular on the show) and Sontarans too (The Sontaran Experiment, which we already reviewed here), so aside of the particulars of this story’s production, the winding down of Jon Pertwee’s stint as the Doctor is a natural theme. (more…)

As the last adventure of the original series proper - separated from the first episode of the new series by fifteen years and the one-off TV movie starring Paul McGann - it almost seems like the DVD release of Survival has a lot of ground to cover, and a responsibility to bring the show’s story from the making of Survival itself up to - at the very least - the beginning of production on Christopher Eccleston’s first episode as the Doctor. And perhaps surprisingly, this 2-DVD set covers quite a bit (but not all) of that ground. (more…)

The final story in John Nathan-Turner’s ambitious trilogy designed to revive the character of the Master, and the third and final story included in the New Beginnings DVD box set, Castrovalva also brings the Doctor a new face for the first time in seven years - Peter Davison. It’s not much of a surprise to see that Castrovalva’s DVD bonus features revolve around the newcomers to the show, which, at this point in its history, meant…everybody. (more…)

With its historic place in Doctor Who legend as Tom Baker’s last turn as the incumbent Doctor, Logopolis is almost guaranteed to have killer bonus features.

The main featurette, A New Body At Last (actually named after a quote from the previous story, The Keeper Of Traken), takes a surprisingly no-holds-barred, no-punches-pulled look at Baker’s exit from the TARDIS. Baker himself, writer Christopher Bidmead, co-stars Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton and Adrian Gibbs, and numerous others deliver a warts-and-all retelling of both the making of this particular adventure, and of Baker’s decision to leave the show permanently. (more…)

The most low-key story in a trilogy of adventures that had major ramifications for the series, The Keeper Of Traken saw the reintroduction of the Master - making only his second appearance since the death of Roger Delgado, the first actor to play the role - as a surprise twist at the end of part four. Traken is also notable for being the singular outing for Tom Baker’s Doctor and Matthew Waterhouse’s Adric as the TARDIS crew. (Though Logopolis also starts out with this pairing, by the end of that story’s second episode more companions have been introduced to the mix.) (more…)

Unlike everything outside of the Lost In Time box sets released a few years ago, The Invasion is a unique DVD release in that it’s a story with entire missing episodes. Parts one and four of this eight-part, ahead-of-its-time humdinger of a Cybermen story are missing from the BBC’s archives. Having worked with animation studio Cosgrove Hall (of Danger Mouse fame) on the web-based 2003 adventure Scream Of The Shalka, the BBC engaged their services once more with a much more difficult assignment. This time, Cosgrove Hall would be replacing two entire 25-minute episodes of a well-regarded classic Doctor Who serial…and though the two episodes were missing, enough reference material survived (to say nothing of the other six parts of the story) that die-hard fans would know what the missing segments should look like. Even for one of the most renowned animation studios in the UK, this was a high-profile, high-pressure assignment - especially since one of the missing episodes was the opening chapter of this story and would therefore be the very first thing seen on the DVD. (more…)

Promoted as the test subject for an upcoming line of somewhat more streamlined (in terms of bonus features) classic Doctor Who DVDs, The Sontaran Experiment is pretty unique - it’s the only two-part story in Tom Baker’s era, and one of the only ones featuring location work shot on video instead of film. (The entire story is shot on location, so while much is made of this point by students of the show’s history, I’m not entirely sure that it really mattered, since it would’ve been either all-video or all-film anyway.) With only two 25-minute episodes, this Experiment is not unlike the Sontarans themselves: short, to the point, and with little in the way of frills. (more…)