Doctor Who - The Leisure Hive
There are few Doctor Who serials more integral to the study of the show’s evolution than The Leisure Hive. This four-part story, which kicked off season 18, Tom Baker’s last year in the role and John Nathan-Turner’s first outing as the series’ producer, was easily the most dramatic shift in the style of the show since the first full-color episode aired ten years before. The extras on the DVD of The Leisure Hive seem especially aware of this fact, making this disc an outstanding combination of a memorable story and memorable featurettes.
The number of firsts achieved in The Leisure Hive’s 100-minute running time, aside from what has already been noted above, is almost incomprehensible: it also saw the first appearance of a new arrangement of the theme music (the first in the show’s history to make it to air since the original 1963 version), and the first appearance of digital effects in Doctor Who. And while those 1980 digital effects may be something that the average local TV station can outdo in 2005, one can hardly miss the abundance of digital effects in Christopher Eccleston’s latest adventures as the Doctor - it’s a significant milestone. The Leisure Hive also takes significant strides away from the humorous excesses of the latter half of the 17th season and toward a much more drama-based and speculative-science-based direction, again at Nathan-Turner’s insistence.
That Nathan-Turner himself died a few years ago, before any of these featurettes were even conceived, isn’t a hindrance, thanks to the glut of fan-made video productions that were made between 1990 and 2004. An existing interview covering a lot of the same ground as these featurettes lets John Nathan-Turner speak for himself about the changes he instituted when he took over the series; other interview subjects include director Lovett Bickford, script editor Christopher H. Bidmead, costume designer June Hudson, and even one fleeting appearance by Tom Baker himself. On the one hand, this primary feature, “A New Beginning,” is refreshing in that it offers a fond but balanced look back at the dawn of John Nathan-Turner’s reign; there’s still quite a split in fandom between those who think his ten years in the producer’s office marked Doctor Who’s renaissance and those who think that decade was one long, tragic road toward the show’s 1989 cancellation. On the other hand, “A New Beginning” also puts perhaps an unfair amount of blame on the comical excesses of late 1970s Doctor Who on script editor Douglas Adams. I’ve read several interviews where, even years later, 
Adams chafed at this suggestion, blaming both the enigmatic Tom Baker and a succession of directors overpowered by the ego of the show’s star for the show’s increasingly tongue-in-cheek tone. Then again, as Adams is one of my favorite writers, I suppose I’m biased and may well be reacting too strongly - truth is, I tend to be an apologist for both Adams and Nathan-Turner, so I’m a bit torn. Despite my misgivings about the dead not being present to defend themselves, I thought “A New Beginning” was very enjoyable and informative.
Bidmead and writer David Fisher go back and forth on the origins of the story in a featurette called “From Avalon To Argolis,” while June Hudson gets her own short featurette about her grand costume designs. BBC Radiophonic Workshop composer-in-residence Peter Howell and graphic designer Sid Sutton, tasked with, respectively, updating the audio and visual elements of the series’ main titles for the 1980s, are the focus of “Synthesizing Starfields.” This last featurette interests me enormously with regards to both men’s work, but between its zig-zagging between archival interview footage and newer material, and the already disparate nature of its interview subjects (a musician and a graphic artist?), “Synthesizing Starfields” is also a little bit maddeningly schizophrenic, though it accurately reflects how Howell and Sutton worked on their respective elements separately and yet in tandem. An archival Blue Peter visit to the Longleat Doctor Who exhibition, featuring an appearance by then-incoming producer John Nathan-Turner, rounds out the bonus features.
On board for the commentary are Lovett Bickford, Chris Bidmead and Lalla “Romana” Ward, embarking on a fond and yet sometimes sharp deconstruction of the four episodes of The Leisure Hive. Bickford and Bidmead take credit, and take their lumps, for what did and didn’t work for this first outing of the new-look Doctor Who, while Lalla Ward provides a unique perspective of contrast, having worked on both the jokier late 70s episodes and the first season of the reinvigorated 80s stories. An isolated music track is also available, though I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t point out that The Leisure Hive’s grandiose synthetic music has been available on CD for quite some time. A Dolby 5.1 Surround mix of all four episodes is also presented as an audio option, and it makes quite a departure from the original mono mix.
Everything’s been cleaned up marvelously, and after a steady diet of vintage 60s and 70s episodes on DVD, and a few late 80s stories as well, it’s interesting to see not only The Leisure Hive itself in digital form, but a suite of bonus features that effectively conveys how jaw-droppingly new it all must have seemed in late 1980 when the Doctor returned with a completely new sound and look. Part one of The Leisure Hive is as vastly different in tone, style and content from part four of The Horns Of Nimon as the 1996 TV movie or Rose are from part three of Survival. The bonus material does an outstanding job of conveying that “shock of the new,” and The Leisure Hive itself has aged rather well. Highly recommended.