Doctor Who - Vengeance On Varos
The sixth Doctor and Peri take on the slimy, slug-like Sil in this two-part 1985 adventure. The DVD, not quite as feature-filled as some past BBC releases, does boast one very compelling feature: quite possibly the funniest audio commentary track I’ve ever heard on a DVD (and that includes my previous favorite for that category, Kentucky Fried Movie). Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, and Nabil “Sil” Shaban all but do a Mystery Science Theater 3000 number throughout the entire 90 minutes, with everything from wondering what Tony Blair would do if subjected to the pain-inducing public voting process as seen in the episode, to simply saying “Oh dear…not 
much you can say here!” when a couple of diaper-clad “mutants” (who turn out to be nothing more than otherwise perfectly normal looking - and likely desperate - actors) appear toward the end of the story. Much is made of how prescient Varos was, anticipating the Big Brother style of reality TV, and Baker and Shaban throw in verbal riffs on everything from The Weakest Link to Big Brother. The audio commentary is the killer app for this particular title, and I heartily recommend listening to it - it’s fall-out-of-your-chair funny.
Sadly, gone for this volume is the text trivia commentary, replaced by a subtitle track which parrots the audio commentary. It makes for some mighty funny screen shots, as seen below, but I’d very much like to keep the text trivia.
The video and audio quality is outstanding, and Vengeance On Varos has never looked better. Thus far, this is the only Colin Baker-era story to have been committed to digital video, but if for no other reason than the commentary alone, I look forward to future titles from that phase of the series.
