Revisitations 2 is a Box set released by the BBC; the second
in a series of sets which contains three stories at a time which try
to remedy some of the early Doctor Who DVD releases that may have
been released with inferior quality sound/picture or a lack of
special features. The first set provided The Talons of Weng
Chiang, The Caves of Androzani, and the 1996
telemovie.
Whilst the first set remedied some lacklustre releases of two very
popular stories (and the 1996 telemovie), this set has some frankly
puzzling inclusions - “The Seeds of Death”, “Carnival of
Monsters“ and “Resurrection of the Daleks”. One of which
(The Seeds of Death) already came in a deluxe two disk
special edition. When you think of the much loved stories that are
crying out for the royal treatment like “Spearhead from Space”
or “The Robots of Death” it makes you wonder what they’re
putting in the tea at the BBC centre. Not to mention that there are
many stories from the classic series that have yet to be released at
all. So is this just a cynical grab for cash?
This being a re-release it lives and dies by its Audio/Video quality
and the special features, but let’s have a quick look at the stories
it contains:
The Seeds of Death is a Second Doctor outing involving the
once popular Ice Warriors; Martins who live on ice cold Mars and
always have their eyes on Earth as a summer home. This six-parter
sees their second outing as Who monsters and their plan to use T-Mat
(the new all pervasive human transport teleportation system to send
spores that release a fungus that will suck all the oxygen from the
atmosphere thus making it uninhabitable for humans and nice for
Ice-Warriors, somehow.) The script isn’t bad, the sets and costumes
try really hard and the set up for the invasion is quite good, the
idea that the invention of the teleport quickly made all other forms
of transport obsolete is great and the kind of speculative sci-fi
that we just don’t see much anymore. The Ice Warriors themselves
exhibit an air of quiet menace but copious amounts of foam standing
in for spores gets a little ridiculous after a while.
Carnival of Monsters sees Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor landing
his TARDIS in what appears to be 19th centaury earth on
board a steamer headed for the Bahamas, but all is not what it
seems. The TARDIS has in fact materialised inside a “scope” an
electronic zoo that miniaturises and transmits the exploits of its
inhabitants for the entertainment of paying customers. The scope
itself is sitting in customs on the planet Inter Minor where
political machinations threaten the Doctor and all the inhabitants
of the scope. This is a good story, not brilliant, but good. Some
strong dialogue and interesting performances from actors such as Ian
Marter; who went on to play Harry Sullivan opposite the Forth
Doctor’s first appearance in Doctor Who.
In
Resurrection of the Daleks the Daleks have become the victims
of a virus that only targets their kind. In an effort to cure
themselves, they try to spring Davros from space prison but he has
plans of his own and the Fifth Doctor has to stop him... well I
suppose he doesn’t have to but if he didn’t at least try it would be
fairly boring. If you can ignore bad music and very silly hats this
Fifth Doctor offering has a lot going for it. Plenty of action, a
decent storyline, some fine twists and genuine horror in places
(Dalek gas really makes a mess of you) all add up to not only one of
the best Dalek story since Genesis of the Daleks but one of
the better Fifth Doctor stories full stop.
* Video/Audio/Special Features
As
I said, since these have been released previously, the Audio/Video
transfer had better be a lot better and the Special Features had
better be pretty special.
Well the problem is that try as I might I can’t see much difference
between any of the original releases and the new editions. If they
have been remastered since they were released then even a side by
side doesn’t show the difference. Only Resurrection of the
Daleks shows any difference at all; where it gets a slightly
wider frame than its original release. As for audio,
Resurrection of the Daleks has a surprisingly good 5.1 mix of
the audio, but then so does my original copy. The option to isolate
the music score is available on Resurrection of the Daleks
but frankly the only reason to isolate this score would be to punish
it (and I won’t let you rejoin the others till you’ve stopped being
so 80’s). Other than that it’s business as usual.
But what about documentaries? Surely there are some cool new ones?
Well cool is debatable, but there is some extra stuff on Seeds of
Death,
Lords of the Red Planet looks at the creation of the
Ice-warriors and the filming of the Seeds of Death and is one
of those documentaries on the making of a Doctor Who episode where
they really struggle to find anything of interest to say, so much so
that an entire segment is devoted to whether or not a woman ran her
bicycle into the back of a police car during filming. There’s a
Monster Master class with director Michael Fergison, a documentary
on recurring monsters with special features slut Nick Briggs and
Peter Ware. Other than that you get the same commentary, the same
documentary SSSoooowwwinng the Seeedsss about the design of
the Ice-Warriors, the same photo gallery and for some reason a
different TARDIS Cam (whoot! Wait. Does anyone actually look forward
to TARDIS Cam?) The baffling inclusion of “The Last Dalek” on
the original release has been rectified and that’s slightly more
fittingly on Resurrection of the Daleks.
The Carnival of Monsters fares rather better as its original
release was fairly thin, with only commentary, a behind the scenes
feature from 1972 on CSO, extended and deleted scenes and the
obligatory TARDIS Cam. Now we get a second commentary by cast
members, a different edit of episode two, a different ending to the
story, the same CSO documentary, a new making of documentary
featuring Katey Manning, Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks, a
documentary on Ian Marter featuring Tom Baker and Liz Sladen and a
strangely out of place documentary on the Marie Celeste which while
interesting, makes for rather baffling viewing.
Resurrection does it best. Two commentaries, the original two
part version, a four part version, cast interviews, extended scenes,
and a period interview with Janet Fielding and John Nathan Turner
that warns against the perils of 80’s fashion. That Last Dalek
feature that’s been kicking around for ages now finally finds a
logical place is there and a fairly good and honest retrospective
looking at Peter Davidson’s tenure as the Doctor, hosted by David
Tennant with the requisite amount of John Nathan Turner bashing.
Another TARDIS Cam and “Walrus” a Dalek vignette without
explanation and possibly the most pointless five minutes of anything
that I have ever watched. Easter Eggs and the radio times listing
rounds out a fairly comprehensive list of additions.
Conclusion:
So
is it all worth it?
Well if you have the original releases, then frankly, no. It’s
possible that I might have re-bought Resurrection of the Daleks
based on the strength of its features but not the others and I’m
sure as hell not buying three stories that I already have for the
one documentary I really want. However, if your new to Who
or just don’t have these stories then JB already has this set marked
at $55 and that represents pretty good value.
Audio Quality:
Seeds
of Death:
2/5
Carnival of Monsters:
2.5/5
Resurrection of the Daleks:
4/5
Video Quality
Seeds
of Death:
2.5/5
Carnival of Monsters:
3/5
Resurrection of the Daleks:
3.5/5
