Doctor Who: The Time Meddler
A largely comedic four-parter which benefits greatly from the comic timing of both series star William Hartnell and guest star Peter Butterworth (later of the Carry On films), The Time Meddler is an interesting choice for a DVD release. This story, aired in 1965, was the first to show us that there were other people in the universe who had a TARDIS - and therefore presumably other people who came from the same place as the Doctor…wherever that happened to be (Gallifrey and its Time Lords wouldn’t be invented until the very last story of the 1960s). In that respect, The Time Meddler is important to the mythology of Doctor Who. It was also the last story to be produced by Verity Lambert, who had overseen the series since its launch. She was handing the reins over to a successor who she felt would bring new life into the show, and heading off to pastures new. She participated in the commentary for this DVD release of The Time Meddler, though of course there was no way to know that she would pass away before that DVD hit the shelves.
Accordingly, much of this single-disc release’s somewhat slim slate of bonus features are given over to a tribute to the late Ms. Lambert. A detailed text obituary is presented, along with a selection of behind-the-scenes photos spanning her entire career. One senses that perhaps a more lengthy tribute is probably in the offing for a future Hartnell-era release, featuring on-camera comments from surviving members of the cast and crew, but for now this is a nice send-off.
Also participating in the commentary are Peter Purves, who had - at the time of The Time Meddler’s production - had just signed on for a regular stint aboard the TARDIS as spaceman Steven 
Taylor, script editor Donald Tosh, set designer Berry Newberry, and moderator Clayton Hickman, who keeps things from flagging without sounding as though he’s actively stoking the fire. The participants all have vivid memories of the colorful personalities associated with Meddler, whether they’re discussing William Hartnell’s occasional line flubs, the emerging brilliance of young director Douglas Camfield, and in a few cases, even the less cooperative members of the cast; Hickman’s presence as moderator simply helps to guide things along smoothly.
There’s a brief feature on the restoration of The Time Meddler which reveals an absolutely jaw-dropping fact: one scene was so damaged in the surviving film prints that CGI was used to fill in. This may not seem like a big deal, since we’ve had optional CG effects for such ’60s stories as The Dalek Invasion Of Earth, but in this case it’s surprising because we’re talking about a CG William Hartnell created by “tweening” frames of the scene in question that were still in good shape. And I literally couldn’t see the difference - I thought it was retouched live action footage. Somewhere in here, there’s a little voice screaming in the back of my head about completely reconstructing missing episodes in a manner far more impressive than The Invasion’s cartoony fillers, but I can’t even begin to imagine the price tag on that - and in any case, “tweening” missing or hopelessly damaged frames is an entirely different animal from recreating an entire show from scratch.
The only other major bonus feature here is “Stripped For Action”, an examination of the first Doctor’s voyages in comic strip form. It’s presented nicely, with a great deal of visual appeal, but somehow this piece - despite the authoritative presence of interviewees such as John Ainsworth and Jeremy Bentham - just never really completely grabs my interest.
Overall, it’s a nice package, with outstandingly-restored content, that once again proves that even “feature-light” Doctor Who DVD releases have more effort put into them than the DVD packages for modern major studio fare.