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This box set brings together the four classic series stories featuring Sontarans; Third Doctor story, The Time Warrior, Fourth Doctor stories, The Sontaran Experiment and The Invasion of Time, and Sixth Doctor story The Two Doctors. Four Doctors, in all, therefore, including Patrick Troughton in the latter story, tangled with them.
The Time Warrior was the story that first introduced
Sarah It is a good vehicle for Sarah Jane Smith, who is immediately shown as a strong willed woman with ideas of her own. The chemistry between her and The Doctor was strong. The omens for this last season with Jon Pertwee at the help were good. 10/10 Commentary by Elisabeth Sladen, Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks is
quite entertaining and informative. The only problem is that most
of the stories Barry and Terrance tell have been heard before by dedicated
fans, and I do think this is the sort of DVD that would only appeal
to dedicated fans. 9/10 Beginning the End – A recently made documentary featuring many of the surviving cast and crew. A great many people, including writer, Robert Holmes, and some of the cast members have passed away. Some of them are fondly remembered. There is a feeling, though, that we have heard it all before. A lot of the same things were said in this as are said in the commentary and the stories about how Elisabeth was cast are well known. The sections with Elisabeth Sladen looking very pretty on a park bench seem to serve little purpose other than making anyone over 35 wonder just when she made the deal with Professor Lazarus. And there seems absolutely no point in setting it in the grounds of Peckforton Castle where the programme was recorded. It could as easily have been done in a studio. 8/10 CGI effects. As the commentary and documentary point out, the director, Alan Bromly, was one who cut corners and went for cheap and simple effects rather than creative ones. Most especially disappointing are the landing of Linx’s ship and the blowing up of the castle. The latter is a dreadful insert of stock footage of an explosion. The new CGI effects, if selected, do justice to the story. 10/10 Continuity Compilation. EVERY time, I ask WHY they bother? These are dull, dull, and of very little interest except to hear how BBC English the announcers are. Comparing them to the people who introduce Torchwood on BBC3 is about the only use for them. 6/10 Radio Times Billings. DVD Rom. Again, why? Except nostalgia value. 8/10 The Doctor Who Annual, 1974. A cracking read. One of these days I’ll print all these out. 10/10 Production Subtitles. These are more technical than the commentary and give a deeper inside into the ‘making of’. 10/10 Photo Gallery. Some very nice pictures but a lot of them HAVE been seen before. I wonder if the people who compile these have ever heard of the Shillpages website? There isn’t much that is new to experienced web surfers. 10/10 Coming soon – Preview of the Key to Time. A rather odd fake ‘break in transmission’ is never explained. But that’s next on my shopping list. 9/10 Easter Egg. While on ‘special features’ click the left button and the “Doctor Who” logo at the top is highlighted. Click play and there is a short little featurette explaining about how many ‘firsts’ were in the episode. Sarah Jane’s first episode, first Sontaran… and a few more obscure firsts. Mostly harmless. 9/10
The extras are quite run of the mill, in fact. More could have been done.
8 out of 10
The Sontaran Experiment was a lightweight two parter originally, and was released as a budget price with only a few extras on it. 9/10 Extras Commentary is by Elisabeth Sladen, Bob Baker and Philip Hinchcliffe.
10/10 Built for War – A very good documentary featuring the history
of the Sontarans in the four stories they appear in – Time Warrior,
Sontaran 10/10 Photo gallery and Production notes as standard. 10/10 Overall, this DVD delivers for its price. The one documentary is worth watching. The DVD is interesting. It doesn’t need anything else.
10 out of 10
I remember the Invasion of Time in very fine detail from the 1970s because I had got a tape recorder not long before and made an audio copy of it, which I listened to all summer. So I knew it more or less by heart from audio. It is a classic story, only the second to really feature Gallifrey and the Time Lords. The Doctor gets to be president, and seems to betray his world - unthinkable! The Sontarans try to take Gallifrey. And we see some very odd bits of the TARDIS. Downside, it is overlong and the plot does go a bit awry around the last two episodes. 9/10
Commentary Commentary is by Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Anthony Reid and Matt Irvine – actor, voice actor, writer and effects director respectively. It is a mixture of reminiscences about the filming and quite interesting technical detail about the making of the episode. Matt is occasionally scathing about modern CGI methods which he clearly regards as ‘easy’ and not true craftsmanship. Leeson was interesting once he stopped doing K9 impressions. Reid was amusing when telling the tale of ‘David Agnew’. There is an interesting discussion in the last episode about whether The Doctor should have used what amounts to a WMD when he puts together the Demat gun. 9/10
Disc Two Out of Time – A documentary about how this six parter was written at the eleventh hour when a script failed to materialise and utilised the sets and costumes from an earlier story, Deadly Assassin and an old set of monsters, the Sontarans. With soundbites from key actors like Louise Jameson, Chris Tranchell and Milton Johns. Quite interesting if you haven’t heard most of it on the Commentary. 8/10 Deleted scenes – mostly extra walking around the corridors of the TARDIS by The Doctor, Castellan and Sontarans. 7/10 The Rise and Fall of Gallifrey is a short history, mostly by Terrance Dicks, of how Gallifrey has been portrayed over the yeas, from War Games to Arc of Infinity. It is a pity they didn’t deal in more detail with the post Time War and the tenth Doctor’s memories of home as seen in Sound of Drums, and it would have been nice if it was longer. 9/10 The Elusive David Agnew is a short spoof in which Anthony Reid and an anonymous speaker talk about how difficult it was to pin down the writer, David Agnew. Everyone admired him, but nobody knew where to find him. The truth was, of course, that in an emergency when a commissioned script failed. Anthony Reid and Graham Williams stepped in and wrote it Invasion of Time under the false name of David Agnew. 9/10
7/10 Radio Times Listings – Again, WHY? 0/10 Coming Soon – features the K9 Tales – Invisible Enemy and K9 and Company. 6/10 Continuities – Please, WHY. What is the point? I am still looking
for some reason why they put these things on the disc. 0/10 I am quite dismayed by this ‘two disc’ episode. I see no reason why it has to be on two discs. The extras are not particularly long or detailed and even though the actual story is six parts I don’t believe for one minute that fills the available space on a DVD disc. It just makes it a darn nuisance having to swap discs.
8 out of 10
The Two Doctors stands out in my memory as a rather strange piece. The juxtopostion of the Sixth and Second Doctors with Peri and Jamie as companions, the Sontarans, the cannibalistic Androgums and the Spanish setting were unusual. So was the combination of almost slapstick comedy and absolute tragedy with at least two very needless deaths – the old lady at the Hacienda and poor old Oscar, to say nothing of the massacre of the Sontarans and The Doctor himself killing Shockeye in quite cold blood. It is an atypical story even for the Sixth Doctor era which is marked by quite shocking storylines. 8/10
Commentary
9/10
A Fix With Sontarans This was a ten minutes sketch involving the Sixth Doctor. Tegan, played by Janet Fielding, and a boy called Garreth Jenkins who wrote to Jimmy Saville asking him to fix it for him to be in Doctor Who. It’s not as bad as it sounds. It could be better. The scariest thing in it is Jimmy Saville. I have always found him alarming. Pure nostalgia value. 8/10
Disc Two Behind The Sofa - Robert Holmes and Doctor Who. A documentary celebrating the life and works of Robert Holmes, one of the longest standing scriptwriters for Doctor Who. It features Terrence Dicks, Eric Saward and Phillip Hinchcliffe among other people who look back on Robert’s life. The great controversy over the Autons in their two 1970s stories is touched upon, the Sontarans, Ark in Space, and the classic gothic episodes of the Tom Baker era. All of the participants spoke fondly of Robert and remembered his death sadly. It is a detailed and interesting commentary, well worth listening to if you are a fan of Classic Doctor Who. 10/10 Under the Studio Lights is footage of the making of the sequence in Dastari’s office. It demonstrates the sometimes tedious work of repeating scenes for take after take with fluffed lines and various other problems forever frustrating the effort. Who’d be a floor manager? 9/10 Under the sun is footage of The Doctor’s meeting with Oscar and his friend, repeated several times. Much the same as Under The Studio Lights but with Spanish sunshine and insects. 9/10 40th Anniversary Celebration is a video with a revamped version of the Doctor Who theme, celebrating 40 years of the show with clips. It’s an interesting piece, but I’ve seen it many times before on other DVDs. They seem to use it as a filler 8/10 Adventures in Time and Spain is a documentary by Gary Downie, production assistant and assistant director on the Two Doctors, returning to Spain to look at the locations. He takes us through all of the locations and tell anecdotes about it. Some of the anecdotes are long and a bit tedious, but he did his best. 9/10 Wavelength is a schools radio show with Andy Peebles that goes behind the scenes of The Two Doctors in an annoying, patronising way that even outdoes Blue Peter. Waste of space. 0/10 Photo Gallery – some nice, colourful pictures. 9/10 Yet again, I think this could have all gone on one disc. It really is a nuisance having to swap them over to see so very little content on the other disc. 8 out of 10
Overall, 8 out of 10.
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Jane Smith to Doctor Who. It was also the first truly historical story
for some time. They had fallen out of favour in the colour age. It
was the first story to feature Sontarans, an enemy who would pop up
again many times. Too many times for some people. It is a plausible
story at least. If you allow for the inherent implausibility of a
series about a time travelling alien and his Human friends. The underlying
squabble between Irongron and his neighbours is something that happened
in the general era hinted at in the storyline. Irongron as a man who
would do a deal with a man from the stars for advantage over his enemies
is a perfect baddy. The guns Linx introduces to a world which has
not yet discovered gunpowder make for an interesting historical paradox
as explained by The Doctor. Give them guns now and they will have
nuclear power before they are sophisticated enough to use it wisely.
It is exactly the issue raised by the First Doctor in the very first
episode when Ian and Barbara discover the truth about the TARDIS.
Field
Marshall Styre of the Sontaran Intelligence is torturing humans to
find out how much resistance there would be to a takeover of Earth
and its solar system. Since Earth is actually deserted at present,
the term Sontaran Intelligence is a bit of an oxymoron. But the old
themes of torture, of betrayal and heroism are explored in this story
very well. There are some good moments even though the plot could
probably do with a bit of tidying up. It looks rushed, and really
it was, being a fill in story between Ark in Space and Genesis of
the Daleks. It is a good vehicle for Tom Baker as the relatively new
Doctor, this being only his third story. 
There
are a number of interesting anecdotes, the funniest being the one
about Kevin Lindsay, eating his lunch on Dartmoor in full Sontaran
costume, scaring an innocent walker and her dog. The saddest is the
fact that Kevin died not long after recording this story and was in
ill health during he production. Also rather harrowing is the description
of how Tom Baker broke his collar bone during the making of the episode
and a long wait to hear from the hospital about whether he could go
on. Strangest story is about Elisabeth sending her dresser back to
the hotel early each night to grab the hot water before anyone else
and the two of them sharing the bath. A lot of live journal Elisabeth
Sladen fans would enjoy that image. 
Experiment,
Invasion of Time, Two Doctors and also the Horror of Fang Rock that
featured their enemy, the Rutans. Features interviews and clips. They
even managed to say something worthwhile about the Jim'll Fix It scene
that most of us had forgotten about by now!
Photo
Gallery isn’t bad, though I think it could have been a bit more
detailed and some of the photos are of the backs of heads in crowd
scenes. 
Commentary
is by Frazer Hines (Jamie), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Jacqueline Pearce
(Chessene), director Peter Moffatt and Colin Baker. Colin and Jaqueline
carry it for much of the way, being the most ebullient of the group.
Peter Moffatt doesn’t sound all that well on the audio, and
it is hardly a surprise that he died not long after completing this.
Apart from talking about the heat of location work in Spain at length,
the most significant subject under discussion is the level of violence
in this story. All the actors and Moffatt seem to have reservations
about that. Colin Baker sums it up as only an actor can as the last
credits roll. “If we shadows have offended, think but this,
and all is mended. That you have but slumbered here, while these visions
did appear, and this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.”
Mary Whitehouse would not be so easy to dismiss it as merely make
believe, of course. 
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