Doctor Who: 047 The Krotons (DVD Review)

I know the title says this is a DVD review, but in addition to reviewing the DVD release, this is my first time seeing this story, so I'm going to give my normal comments about seeing the serial for the first time, as well as giving a full DVD review. First, I'm going to begin with a summary and a few comments about the season leading up to this story, which unlike, the previous season, mostly exists and has been previously released on DVD, other than this story.

Season 6 begins with The Dominators, written by the same team who wrote the two Yeti stories (under a pseudonym) and is partially an attempt to find a replacement for the Daleks, who were still off limits due to Terry Nation trying to sell a series based on them. I watched the DVD when it came out and wasn't overly impressed. The story is blase and the robots are a bit silly and not at all scary like the Daleks. :)

Following The Dominators, we have The Mind Robber, a psychological trip, somewhat reminiscent of Hartnell's The Celestial Toymaker. Frazier Hines got chicken pox during this one and was replaced in one episode and that replacement was worked into the story. :) I also watched this one when it came out on DVD, and enjoyed it.

Next up, another encounter with The Cybermen as they invade London in The Invasion. This story is one of the seminal Cybermen stories and features a scene of the Cybermen marching down the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral (almost as iconic as the Dalek coming out of the Thames in The Dalek Invasion of Earth). It also features the return of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Gordon Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart of U.N.I.T., previously seen as a colonel in the regular army in The Web of Fear, where he'd previously met the Doctor. This also marks the first appearance of U.N.I.T., which would play a large role during Pertwee's time as the Doctor. Sadly, 2 of the 8 episodes of The Invasion are missing, although the BBC animated the two remaining episodes and released the serial on DVD a few years ago. I liked this story very much and was glad to be able to watch it despite the missing episodes.

Which brings us to The Krotons, which was recently released on DVD, just in time for my little project since I hadn't previously watched this story. This is the last complete Troughton story to be released on DVD. I thought it was fairly decent: I enjoyed it better than the Dominators. ;) A mysterious alien race known as the Krotons is subjugating a lesser race called the Gonds, taking away their best and brightest people to be "companions," but actually killing them. The Doctor and Zoe manage to get to the bottom of things and break the Krotons influence over the Gonds.

This is the first submission to Doctor Who by Robert Holmes, who would have a long association with the program both as a writer and a script editor and would be responsible for many of the best stories in the classic series. This story also features Philip Madoc who has appeared many times in Doctor Who and even appeared in the second Peter Cushing film, Dalek - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.

The DVD release has a number of special features:

• Full length commentary with several of the cast and crew
• Second Time Around - a nice retrospective on Troughton's tenure as the Doctor
• Doctor Who Stories - Frazer Hines (Part 1) - from an interview with Frazer Hines originally recorded in 2003 (begging the question of when/where part 2 will be released)
• The Doctor's Strange Love - fans' point of view with writers Joseph Lidster and Simon Guerrier, which is amusing
• Photo Gallery
• Popup Production Notes
• Radio Times Listings as a PDF
• Coming Soon trailer for The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

With the 2 missing episodes from The Invasion, that starts the missing episode count for season 6 at 2. This brings Troughton's totals to 4 missing stories, 10 incomplete stories, and 57 missing episodes. Next time, The Seeds of Death Special Edition DVD Review, followed by The Space Pirates, the last Troughton serial that I haven't seen.

Doctor Who: 043 The Wheel in Space

After defeating the seaweed monster in Fury from the Deep, the Doctor and Jamie leave Victoria behind and materialize on a seemingly abandoned spaceship where they encounter a servitor robot who tries to kill them. While attempting to discover the fate of the crew, they draw near a space station used to protect passing spacecraft from asteroids and meteor storms and uncover yet another plot by the Cybermen to take over the Earth using The Wheel in Space (the space station is shaped like a wagon wheel), the final serial of season 5.

Only 2 of the 6 episodes from this story exist: episodes 3 and 6. These two episodes appear on the Lost in Time DVD set and for the remaining stories, we turn to the Joint Venture and Loose Cannon reconstructions. Loose Cannon has not officially released this reconstruction, but it was leaked onto the Internet. I have to say that this is one of the better ones from Loose Cannon. It makes very good use of animation and existing footage. I'm looking forward to an official release of this at some point.

This serial introduces a new companion, Zoe Heriot. Zoe is probably every bit as brilliant as the Doctor and provides a good foil for him. Unfortunately, poor Jamie is now "the dumb one" that they have to explain stuff to. :) I think the team of Zoe and Jamie is probably my favorite from the Second Doctor, although it might just be because most of the Troughton stories that exist feature that team. I love one of the Doctor's lines from this serial: "Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority." ;)

Apparently, the Doctor has a habit of pissing off station commanders and driving them insane. The commander in The Ice Warriors didn't go insane, but he did get pissed off at the Doctor quite early on before finally trusting him while the commander of the drilling station in Fury from the Deep and the station commander in this story both lost their minds to some degree or another. One of the DVD documentaries on The Krotons referred to this season as the "base under siege" season. ;)

With 4 of the 6 episodes of this story missing, the total count of missing episodes for season 5 comes to 27 and Troughton's totals are: 4 missing stories, 9 incomplete stories, and 55 missing episodes. Fortunately, season 6 looks a little better with only 2 incomplete stories. Next time, season 6... beginning with a summary of the serials leading up to the first story I haven't seen, The Krotons, which incidentally recently came out on DVD, so I'll give a full DVD review in addition to my normal comments. Sounds like a long post coming up... :)

Doctor Who: 059 The Daemons (DVD Review)

Another little sidestep as I catch up on my DVD watching to review the DVD release of the Jon Pertwee story The Daemons which was released earlier this year. I watched the VHS copy of this just before beginning this blog (while I was filling in the gaps of Pertwee stories I'd not seen), so it's reasonably fresh in my mind.

I'll make a few comments about the story itself, then I'll proceed to the DVD review. An archaeological dig near a town called Devil's End, a cult of black magic practitioners led by a Vicar named Magister... sounds like a case for the Doctor. :) The Daemons is considered to be one of the classic Third Doctor stories. It's a fairly decent story with lots of action, but not one of my favorite Master stories or Pertwee stories.

Pertwee's "missing" episodes are a little unique from Hartnell's and Troughton's in that while many of them were wiped, all have been recovered in some format or another. Many exist only in black and white film copies which were sold overseas to stations that didn't have color broadcasting capabilities. Such is the case for the bulk of this story. Of the five episodes, only one exists in its original 2" color videotape format. However, Pertwee's episodes were the first to be shown in the US, so some US fans videotaped the episodes onto Betamax tapes. In 1992, when the BBC was in the process of releasing video tapes of the episodes, someone got the idea of merging the luma (brightness - black and white) information from the film copy and the chroma (color) information from the Betamax tapes to produce something resembling the story as it originally aired. Along with some hand tweaking, the result was pretty decent, but not as crisp as the original episode would have been. However, it's as close as we're going to get without finding original copies of the 2" taped episodes.

There was another process that was used to restore color to an episode of Day of the Daleks, which extracted the color information from chroma dots on the black and white film copy (along with some hand tweaking). I thought this process was much more successful, but they weren't able to use it for all of the black and white copies. I presume such is the case for these as well. The episodes as presented on this DVD appear to me to be identical in quality to what appeared on the VHS release.

Stories longer than four episodes tend to get a two disc release. Since this one is five episodes long, that was the case with this one as well. The first disc contains the episodes plus:

• Feature length commentary featuring Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Richard Franklin (Captain Mike Yates), Damaris Hayman (Miss Hawthorne) and director Christopher Barry
• Pop-up Production Notes

The second disc contains just special features:

• The Devil Rides Out - a nice making of documentary that includes interviews with the cast and crew including the late Barry Letts (recorded for this DVD shortly before he died)
• Remembering Barry Letts - a tribute to Barry including interviews with the man himself as well as his family and co-workers
• Location Film - 8mm silent footage of the filming of this story
• 1992 Colorization Test - an early attempt at colorizing episode 1 as a proof of concept (an entire copy of episode 1)
• Tomorrow's World - a short clip on the 1992 restoration
• Photo Gallery
• PDF materials: Radio Times Listings
• Coming Soon trailer for the Fourth Doctor story Nightmare of Eden

If this set has any Easter Eggs, I was unable to find them. :) As I said, a fairly decent story and generally considered one of Pertwee's better stories. It's nice to finally have it on DVD as the BBC gets close to releasing all existing stories on DVD. With Death to the Daleks having been released earlier this month (review coming soon), only two Pertwee stories remain to be released on DVD: The Ambassadors of Death and The Mind of Evil. The Ambassadors of Death was supposed to have been released last year, but issues with the color restoration delayed it and it's supposed to be released in the next couple of months.

Doctor Who: 038 The Abominable Snowmen

After the Cybermen have been put back into deep freeze, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria take off in the TARDIS once more and materialize in Tibet. The Doctor discovers he's near a monastery that he's visited before, many years in the past. He has a ghanta - a holy bell, given to him for safe keeping on his previous visit during some kind of crisis (although his previous adventure there remains somewhat of a mystery). He intends to return this ghanta to the monks. When he arrives at the monastery, he has a reunion with an old friend and a meets some new enemies. Thus begins The Abominable Snowmen, the first of two adventures this season featuring a new monster, the Yeti.

Apparently season 5 of Doctor Who was an excellent time to be a tall actor working in Britain. With two appearances by the Cybermen, two appearances by the Yeti, and an appearance by the Ice Warriors (another new monster), five of the seven stories this season utilized tall actors (although The Tomb of the Cybermen was technically filmed during the filming block for season 4). The Yeti and Ice Warriors were created for this season since the Daleks were off-limits due to Terry Nation trying to sell a pilot for a Dalek series.

I was really looking forward to seeing this story: the Yeti are another one of the classic monsters (next to the Daleks, Cybermen, and Ice Warriors). Sadly, both stories in this season featuring them only have one surviving episode each. Despite being fondly remembered by fans, they don't really appear again after this season other than a cameo in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors. Thankfully, again, we have a full set of telesnaps and the audio track for the missing episodes, so reconstructions are possible. I watched the Loose Cannon reconstruction, although there is apparently an Elaphe reconstruction out there as well. As with some of the more recent Loose Cannon reconstructions, there is computer animation of the Yeti in various places. Some of it works and some doesn't, but it helps to keep the story moving. :)

To be honest, I was a little disappointed by this story after hearing all the hype over the Yeti. I'd already heard spoilers, so I knew what they were going into it: perhaps that was also a factor. It wasn't a bad story and it had its good parts, but it was just sort of middle of the road to me. Perhaps the fans' fascination with the Yeti comes from their second appearance in The Web of Fear. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing the rest of the episodes in this story, though. It was good, just not fabulous. :)

With 5 of the 6 episodes of this serial missing, this starts our running tally for season 5 and brings Troughton's overall totals to 33 missing episodes, 3 missing serials, and 5 incomplete serials. Next time, the TARDIS crew lands on Earth during the Second Ice Age and encounters The Ice Warriors from Mars.

Doctor Who: 037 The Tomb of the Cybermen (Special Edition DVD Review)

Season 4 saw Victoria's father killed on Skaro during the "final" defeat of the Daleks in The Evil of the Daleks. With Victoria's father dead, she has nowhere to go, so she joins the TARDIS crew at the end of that story. As season 5 begins (Patrick Troughton's second season and his first full season), they materialize on the planet Telos, the final resting place of the Cybermen, just as an archaeological dig discovers The Tomb of the Cybermen.

The Tomb of the Cybermen technically isn't a missing story, and since I saw it when it was released on DVD in 2001, it's a little bit of a sidestep from my "project" to fill in the gaps in the televised stories I've seen. I figured it was appropriate since I've bought but not yet watched the Special Edition DVD which recently came out and it's the next story in my sequence. Besides, I've watched every Troughton story since he took over as the Doctor because they've been missing or incomplete, so why stop now? :)


While it isn't missing, it was wiped along with all of the other material that is missing, and the story of its return is one of the more interesting. When the BBC put out the call looking for missing episodes, most of the ones that were returned were returned fairly quickly (from other departments in the BBC, from overseas affiliates, etc.). The ones that trickled in after that tended to be single episodes held by private collectors. This particular story was returned in its entirety in 1992 from a television station in Hong Kong. The BBC was already releasing VHS tapes of episodes by this point, so they did a rush job on this and released it on VHS in 1992 as a film transfer with minimal cleanup and repair (based on the available technology of the time). In 2001, it was released on DVD with much more extensive restoration (using the more advanced technology available in 2001). I've not seen the VHS release, but there is a featurette on the 2001 DVD release called simply "Remastering for DVD" which compares the two releases. There is also an easter egg on this 2001 release that shows a scene from Episode 3 processed with a fledgling version of what is now known as VidFIRE (although there seems to be no explanation for what this clip is).


When 2|entertain began releasing the Special Edition DVD's, the original intention was to revisit some of the early DVD releases which had very few special features, and add additional commentaries and featurettes to better match the current DVD releases. I'm not sure if this generally includes new transfers of the episodes or not. After the first few Special Edition DVD's, 2|entertain began polling the fans to see which stories they would like to see re-released and given the Special Edition treatment. This is how The Tomb of the Cybermen was chosen to be re-released as a Special Edition DVD. As well as the additional material included, all of the episodes were remastered and processed through VidFire. The result is as spectacular when compared with the 2001 DVD release as that release is when compared with the VHS release! The episodes are crystal clear and are probably crisper than they would have been if you'd watched it on TV in 1967!


Apart from the new transfer, there are a lot of special features on this set, much of it new, but most of the material from the 2001 release is retained. Let's start with a list of features from the 2001 DVD:

• Feature-length commentary by Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling
• Title Sequence Tests
• Late Night Line-Up - Behind-the-Scenes at BBC Visual Effects (where the existing clips of The Abominable Snowmen episode 4 came from)
• Photo Gallery
• The Final End - recreation of the battle from The Evil of the Daleks, the previous story (also included on the Lost in Time DVD set)
• Tombwatch - A panel with cast and crew recorded at BAFTA in 1992
• Remastering for DVD - Documentary on the restoration of the story for the 2001 release including comparisons with the 1994 VHS release.
• Introduction by director Morris Barry
• Pop-up Production Notes
• Who's Who - a feature on several of the early DVD's that shows brief bios of the actors
• Easter Egg featuring an Unused Title Sequence
• Easter Egg featuring an a scene of the Doctor and Victoria from Episode 3 which has been processed by an early version of VidFIRE

Features included on the 2012 Special Edition DVD are:

• Disc 1 (almost identical to the 2001 release extras, minus the Tombwatch and Remastering for DVD featurettes also the Photo Gallery has been updated and moved to Disc 2):
• Two feature-length commentaries: the one from 2001 plus a newly-recorded one with several of the actors (including Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling) plus the script editor.
• Title Sequence Tests (same as the 2001 release)
• Late Night Line-Up - Behind-the-Scenes at BBC Visual Effects (same as the 2001 release)
• The Final End - recreation of the battle from The Evil of the Daleks, the previous story (also included on the Lost in Time DVD set and the 2001 release)
• Introduction by director Morris Barry (same as the 2001 release)
• Pop-up Production Notes (probably the same as the 2001 release)
• Easter Egg featuring an Unused Title Sequence (same as the 2001 release, but in a different location)
• Not technically an Easter Egg, but the Episode Selection option on Disc 1 features audio from a trailer for the next serial, The Abominable Snowmen.
• Disc 2:
• The Lost Giants - Making of documentary
• The Curse of the Cybermen's Tomb - a retrospective on the Egyptian origins of the story, most notably Howard Carter and Tutankhamun
• Cybermen - Extended Edition - an irreverent "history" of the Cybermen from their first appearance in The Tenth Planet all the way through their appearances in the revived series
• The Magic of VidFIRE - Documentary on the restoration for the Special Edition. This seems to have replaced the "Remastering for DVD" documentary on the original release as that featurette was specific to the 2001 release.
• Sky Ray Advert - Advertisement for popsicles which featured a Doctor Who giveaway
• Photo Gallery (completely updated to the style used on recent DVD of a slideshow with audio backing)
• PDF Materials - Radio Times Listings, Walls Sky Ray promotion (the giveaways shown in the advertisement)
• Easter Egg featuring the CGI backgrounds used in The Lost Giants documentary

The Tomb of the Cybermen is a very good story and the Cybermen continue to be menacing. It's fantastic that we have this story in its entirety as it is the earliest complete Cybermen story. The Special Edition treatment really works for this story. Even if you already own the 2001 release, it's worth picking up this release as well.

Now, back to the missing episodes, starting with The Abominable Snowmen, another of the classic monsters of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: 036 The Evil of the Daleks

At the end of the previous serial, The Faceless Ones, the Doctor and Jamie discover the TARDIS has been stolen after saying farewell to Ben and Polly in 1966 London. The Evil of the Daleks, picks up right at that point as the Doctor and Jamie chase after a lorrie carrying the TARDIS away from Gatwick Airport. Thus begins the final serial in season 4.

Again, sadly, most of this story is missing. Of the 7 episodes in this serial, only episode 2 exists, which happens to be Vicki's first on-screen appearance. Thankfully, a full set of telesnaps and audio tracks allow this story to be reconstructed. As with The Faceless Ones, I had four reconstructions to watch: the Loose Cannon reconstruction, the Joint Venture reconstruction, the Elaphe reconstruction, and an unidentified reconstruction that uses white subtitles (probably by the same party who produced the unidentified one from The Faceless Ones... this one spells Theodore Maxtible's character name as "Theodroe" in the credits). The existing episode 2 is included on the Lost in Time DVD set. As in previous reconstructions, The Loose Cannon one is probably the best overall. While some of the animation in it is a little crude, it's impressive for a fan production and helps keep the action moving.

The Doctor and Jamie manage to follow the TARDIS' trail to a Victorian antiques dealer named Edward Waterfield. While attempting to discover what Waterfield has done with the TARDIS, they are gassed and wake up in a Victorian manor house in 1866 where they uncover and foil yet another plot by the Daleks to conquer the Human race: a dastardly plan to reputedly isolate "The Human Factor", the traits that have enabled Humans to beat the Daleks time and again, so the Daleks can create super-Daleks with human qualities in order to defeat humanity. The Daleks hold the TARDIS hostage on Skaro in return for the Doctor's co-operation in isolating "The Human Factor". What the Daleks are really after, however, is "The Dalek Factor" which counteracts "The Human Factor" and will imbue humans with Dalek-like qualities (not too unlike the Robomen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, except that they were actually being controlled by the Daleks). The Daleks plan to use the Doctor to spread "The Dalek Factor" through all of time and space so they can conquer humanity. In the end, the Daleks are defeated as the Doctor uses their plan against them and instead infects the Daleks with "The Human Factor", giving them freewill and the ability to question orders.

This is not a typical Dalek story where the Daleks come charging in and EXTERMINATE everyone. I'm wondering if this might be because this serial was written by David Whitaker, not Terry Nation. The first several episodes are more about Edward Waterfield, his daughter Victoria (who will replace Ben and Polly as the Doctor's new companion) and the owner of the house, Theodore Maxtible. I found myself liking the Victorian setting as well as Edward Waterfield, even though I had heard he didn't make it through this story. The last couple of episodes are set on Skaro and feature the first appearance of the Dalek Emperor.

Personally, I thought "The Human Factor" and "The Dalek Factor" were a little silly as plot points, but the story generally worked pretty well. As I mentioned, I was much more into the Victorian setting where most of the story takes place. In the final battle with the Daleks, Edward Waterfield is killed and the Doctor tells Jamie that Victoria will have to come with them. The final battle let the season go out literally with a blast. :) While the final scenes don't exist as aired, there is 8mm footage that the special effects team filmed while making the final scenes, so that footage gives an indication of what the final battle might have looked like on-screen. A reconstruction of this scene appears on both the Lost in Time set and on the DVD for the next serial, The Tomb of the Cybermen.

At the end of this serial, the Doctor makes a comment that perhaps this will be the final time they would see the Daleks. This was supposedly the final Dalek story on Doctor Who as Terry Nation was attempting to get a Dalek series off the ground based on a pilot he wrote. That series never materialized, and the Daleks did eventually return to battle the Doctor many times.

I enjoyed this story and would certainly like to see more episodes found. With 6 of the 7 episodes of this serial missing, our total missing episode count for season 4 goes up to 33 and our total for Troughton goes up to 28. I'm also going to begin including stats of the number of incomplete and missing serials to this tally: Hartnell stands at 6 missing and 6 incomplete while Troughton is at 3 missing and 4 incomplete at the end of season 4 (which doesn't have a single complete serial for either Hartnell or Troughton). Next time, the earliest complete Troughton serial and the start of season 5, The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Doctor Who: Region 1 DVD releases for The Krotons and Death to the Daleks

The region 1 DVD release date for the Doctor Who stories "The Krotons" and "Death to the Daleks" has been announced as July 10, 2012.

"The Krotons is the last complete Patrick Troughton story to be released on DVD. Only the incomplete "The Ice Warriors" and the recently discovered episode of "The Underwater Menace" haven't been released on DVD yet.

Hopefully I will make it to "The Krotons" before the July 10 release date. :)