A THIRD box-set revisiting some of the classic Doctor Who adventures of the past, now expertly remastered.
In this five-disc set, we have Tomb of the Cybermen with Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor, The Three Doctors with Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor (and featuring Troughton and William Hartnell as the Second and First Doctors; and finally, The Robots of Death, with Tom Baker as Doctor number four.
In the first story, from 1967; the Doctor, Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling) are on Telos, the Cybermen’s home world, when an archaeologist discovers a tomb where the last remaining Cybermen are stored.
When they are revived, it takes all of the Doctor’s skill to fight them again.
Fast forward to the end of1972 and the tenth anniversary special bringing together all three Doctors so far (although due to the ill health of Hartnell, the First Doctor only appears on the TARDIS’ viewscreen).
A mysterious force is draining the energy of the Time Lords, and they recruit the Doctor to try and help them.
Realising that one Doctor isn’t enough, they bring in his two former selves, and along with UNIT, it is discovered that Omega, also a Time Lord is behind it.
At the end of the story, as a thank you, the Time Lords restore the secret of the TARDIS to the Doctor, freeing him to travel in time and space again.
The final story from 1977, has the TARDIS materialising on a huge sandminer, where the humans are served by robots.
But what happens when the robots turn bad?
The Doctor and Leela (Louise Jameson) help the rapidly diminishing human crew to investigate.
As well as the three excellent adventures, there is a host of extras featuring ‘making of’s’, various TV interviews and the like.
One of the interviews is a very rare TV appearance by Patrick Troughton, who shied away from the public eye.
A fascinating extra, is a look at the work of VidFIRE, the process which ‘cleans up’ the old films into a form better suited to DVD.
It compares the picture quality of the picture on the VHS video release with the quality of the first DVD release ten years ago, and the advances made to present today’s version.
With the quality of television pictures back in the sixties, it means that the versions we see now are actually far better than we have ever seen them.
Catalogue Number: BBCDVD3003.
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