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But to get to the contents of the box. The only disappointment about it is that the DVDs are not in traditional Amray cases, so they can’t be split up and put in chronological order in the collection as most of us seem to do. But it is very beautifully packaged in a case that opens up like a book with a disc on each page – the two Torchwood DVD box sets also work that way. And the contents are on the whole, good. One of the real gems of the collection is actually the set of eight audio adventures which fill in the gaps in what we know about Davros. I had been doubtful about these at first, but when I listened to them I was pretty much gripped. Although the audio adventures are on disc 8, the booklet that comes with the box set gives a timeline that puts each of the audio adventures in context with the TV stories, so I think I will review this box set in chronological order that way.
Disc 8 – Audio Adventures – I, Davros. These four linked stories tell Davros’s back story prior to Genesis of the Daleks. They begin with him as a teenage boy on the war torn and battle-scarred planet of Skaro and end with him as the war-torn and battle scared half man who has been corrupted enough to create the Daleks.
I, Davros, Purity sees the thirty year old Davros forced into the army and going on a dangerous mission into Thal territory where he begins to guess the future of Skaro. I, Davros, Corruption, takes up the story after Davros has joined the Scientific Elite and begun to experiment with genetic mutations. I, Davros, Guilt is Davros’s triumph over all who would stand in the way of his ambitions and his thirst for success, and the creation of his first Dalek from a Thal prisoner he experimented on. 10 out of 10
Disc One and Two Genesis of the Daleks.
Genesis of the Daleks is universally accepted as the No. 1 Doctor Who story of them all. There’s even a sticker on the DVD box to say so. And rightly so. It is a morality tale of unsurpassed quality. More than 30 years on the moment when The Doctor, played by Tom Baker holds the two wires in his hands and debates his right to commit genocide is remembered by anyone who ever saw it. I recall it being used in a debate about the right to kill in my university days, It is a story that has stood the test of time for many reasons. Firstly a good plot with very little padding. Secondly excellent performances from all the regular and guest cast. Thirdly, not too much dependence on 1970s special effects that tend to look cheesy in hindsight. And perhaps lastly because it is a Dalek story and they’re so often a winner. 10/10
Commentary There is an excellent, informative and entertaining commentary by Tom Baker, Elizabeth Sladen, Peter Myles and David Maloney. Tom and Elizabeth still have chemistry even now, though non-Doctor Who fans may find Tom’s sense of humour startling. Fans are used to it by now. Elizabeth is very good at anecdotes about the making of the episode. David Maloney talks more about the set design and problems with lighting and filming and how they were overcome. 9/10
Extras Genesis of a Classic - Excellent documentary with input from many of the cast and crew. Only one let down. The sections with Roy Skelton doing Dalek voices. This stops being funny by the third insert. By the sixth you want to exterminate him. 8/10 The Dalek Tapes. A second documentary, this time looking at each of the Dalek stories up to the end of the classic series. Very well put together, especially in those missing stories of the Troughton era where they had very little material to go on. 10/10 Continuity announcements. A series of end and start credits from the original broadcast and subsequent repeats. Interesting in so far as they show how continuity announcements have changed over the decades but otherwise nothing special. 4/10 Blue Peter – an item from March 1975 featuring a collection of very good models made by a 16 year old viewer. As with all Blue Peter material, very patronising to the viewer, and in this case, patronising to the model maker, who is not even on the show, only his models. They ARE very good models, though. For that reason alone, watch this. Possibly with the sound off so you can’t hear those annoying presenters. 3/10 Radio Times billings. (DVD ROM) selection of illustrations, articles
and listings for Genesis of The Daleks. Strictly for Whovians. 4/10 The Doctor Who Annual 1976 (DVD ROM) A wonderful trip down memory lane for anyone who’s mum threw it out years ago with the other ‘junk’. 10/10 Photo Gallery – several new and unseen photos from the recording of the episode/ 10/10 Production Subtitles – full of extra titbits of information for the extreme Doctor Who fan. 10/10 10 out of 10
Disc Three – Destiny of the Daleks Destiny of the Daleks was Tom Baker’s second meeting with Davros. He and Lalla land on a ruined and abandoned Skaro where they find Davros in suspended animation, covered in cobwebs. The Daleks are also looking for him, and so are the Movellians, an android race who have been at war with the Daleks and have reached a stalemate because they both think too logically. They need The Doctor to break the stalemate for them. It all ends in tears – for Davros, anyway. He is put into a cryogenic prison. 10/10
Commentary Commentary is by Lalla Ward, David Gooderson who played Davros, and Ken Grieve, Director. Lalla Ward’s namedropping about all the geniuses she knows through her husband, Richard Dawkins, is irritating. Her tribute to Douglas Adams who is one of those geniuses is touching. Grieve talks a great deal about the special effects, especially comparing them with the modern TV series, but justifying them by the limited budget. There is a real snobbery about the classic series among some of the cast and crew, putting their product up on a pedestal above the new series which also gets irritating. 9/10
Extras
10/10 Ken Grieve talks about directing this episode. He mentions first that he had been a cameraman and that he directed from a cameraman’s viewpoint. His slow Scots accent is sometimes hard work to listen to, but he’s not bad. He talks competently about his own art, and about people like Douglas Adams and Graham Williams who he worked with. The story about him and Douglas going to Paris was repeated on the commentary, but no harm for that. 10/10
2/10 Prime Computer adverts – a series of advertisements for Australian TV were made by Tom Baker and Lalla Ward as The Doctor and Romana. The computers look incredibly old these days, but they were cutting edge in 1980. 6/10 8 out of 10
Disc Four – Resurrection of The Daleks Resurrection of The Daleks is Peter Davison’s big Dalek story. He and his companions are dragged to Earth by a time corridor that has been created by the Daleks and their Human slaves in a bid to find Davros, who is a prisoner aboard a Human run space prison. It is noted for being incredibly violent with deaths from the first scene to the last. It is for that reason that Tegan chose to leave The Doctor when the adventure was over and they returned to contemporary Earth. 10/10
Commentary Commentary is by Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Matthew Robinson who directed this story. Peter and Janet talk well and slightly outdo Matthew. Matthew does talk quite well about various technical issues and the location filming, and also his working relationship with John Nathan Turner, the larger and life producer. 10/10
Extras
10/10 Breakfast Time is a very sadly dated programme. Janet Fielding and John Nathan Turner get asked the usual predictable questions from Guy Michalmore, a bit of a chinless wonder in a pastel sweater, and Sally Magnusson with a Princess Di hairdo. Both did their best to sound like they didn’t want to go back to bed. There is also a filmed insert with Brian Hodgson who actually looks like he is wearing a dressing gown and Malcolm Clarke who did the music for the episode. It all seems rather a waste of everyone’s time. 7/10 Extended and deleted scenes start with one long one aboard the ship with the copy policeman dressing down his subordinates. It is followed by a long scene between the medic and the new officer about station morale, neither of which are significantly different from the final versions. There is a scene with The Doctor and Stein in the TARDIS and a longer version of the scene where Stein turns traitor. A scene with Turlough and Tegan with Colonel Archer follows. A longer scene where The Doctor has Davros at gunpoint goes on a bit too long. There are two long, unfinished scene with the Daleks spouting foam and Davros realising his doom. 8/10 The BBC Trailer shows how very different the trailers were back then, with a clipped BBC narrator over the scenes from the episode. Very different from the Cinema quality trailers we have now. 5/10 TARDIS Cam No.4 – Does anyone know what these strange little model shot sequences are and why they keep getting put on the DVDs? 4/10 9 out of 10
Revelation of the Daleks is a strange, macabre story set on Necros, where bodies supposedly buried in cryogenic store are used for food protein while the heads of the deceased are transformed into Daleks. A weird DJ who plays for the dead, a strange bunch of morticians and Davros all make for a surreal episode. 8/10
Commentary Commentary is by Graeme Harper, Nicola Bryan, Eric Saward and Terry Molloy, which is slightly too many people for a coherent audio commentary. Graeme and Eric both talk very well from their technical viewpoint. Nicola is good for an anecdote about the filming. Terry Molloy talks about approaching Davros as the third actor to play the role. It is a pity Colin Baker wasn’t there as well, as he is always a very good raconteur. 9/10
8/10 Behind the scenes is the highlights from 80 minutes of compiled rushes of the studio sessions from Revelation of the Daleks. Some of it is good. Some of it is dull and repetitive, but that reflects what studio filming is like, really. There is an interesting use of split screen to show two cameras on the same scene. 8/10 Deleted scenes are a bit pointless. There is one long one involving Tasembaker giving Lilt and Takis a dressing down, a very short bit of the death of the DJ, and some corridor scenes with Daleks shooting people. 6/10 Photo Gallery is not bad. Best of all is the sneak pic of Terry Molloy in Davros mask and jeans that pops up after the credits. 8/10 Continuity announcements are, as usual, rather pointless. They announce that Match of the Day is on later, and the Exhibitions are open at Blackpool and Longleat. And that’s about it. 1/10
8 out of 10
Disc 8 – Audio Adventures – Davros, The Juggernauts, The Davros Mission
The Juggernauts finds Mel working for a Professor who turns out to be none other than Davros, who has revived a dangerous mechanical lifeform called Mechanoids in order to fight those disloyal to him. Thanks to the Sixth Doctor’s intervention he fails and is captured. The Davros Mission does not feature The Doctor at all, but is a story about Davros facing trial by the Daleks and being taunted in his cell by a Thal wearing an invisibility suit who makes him face his own demons.
All of these are excellent stuff, frightening, dark and quite terrifying. They add a new dimension to the Davros story. 10/10 Disc Six - Remembrance of The Daleks
Remembrance Of The Daleks was first broadcast in the autumn of 1988,
twenty-five years after the first ever episode of Doctor Who. Although
Silver Nemesis was the actual anniversary episode, this one had all
of the cultural references that harked back to those early days. It
was set in East London in the autumn of 1963. Most of the action took
place around a junkyard in Totters Lane and a school called Coal Hill,
and there The story calls upon past knowledge of the Daleks, Davros, and of the Time Lords, too, although it isn’t hard for a new viewer to grasp that the Daleks and the Time Lords have been enemies for a long time, or that Davros is out of his mind. The underlying theme of racial purity, seen in not only the Dalek hatred of all that is not pure Dalek, but also Mr. Ratcliffe’s Neo-Nazi organisation, and Mike and his mother with their sort of social racism that is even worse because it is so much harder to eradicate. Of the many Dalek stories it rates among the best. There are a few issues about the plot that could have been tidied up, such as a little confusion about where Coal Hill School actually is (NOT in Totters Lane!) but nothing serious. The pity is that Rachel and her assistant Allison couldn’t be used more. They made for good characters with much more to them than we were allowed to see. 10/10
Commentary The Commentary is by Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. Generally speaking the best commentaries are those with some member of the production crew as well as the actors, but Sylvester and Sophie are both so well spoken and enthusiastic that this works just as well. Sylvester has all the technical information anyone could ask for and all kinds of anecdotes about Daleks with balls under their skirts instead of the traditional wheels and the trouble the film crew caused letting off explosions in London at a time when the capital was on alert because of IRA activity. Sophie talks about this, her first full companion episode very enthusiastically. 10/10
Extras Back to School is one of the added extras that weren’t in the
original box set release. It is a documentary in which the major players
return to the locations where they filmed Remembrance. The credits
are done in the style of the Grange Hill credits, recognising that
Michael Sheard had a leading role in both series, and also 10/10 Remembrances is a shorter documentary about the way this episode meta referenced the first Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child, setting it in Totters Lane, Coal Hill and other locations, and that really cheeky bit where the announcer on the TV announces a programme called ‘Doctor….’ Cast and crew also talk of their early Doctor Who memories. 10/10 Deleted and Extended Scenes. - Mostly these were taken out to make
the episodes fit the time slots for broadcasting. Replacing them in
an extended version would be interesting as there was at least one
scene which would have added to the understanding of the story. They
are introduced by Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy. The first is
a longer discussion between Allison and Rachel about the alien nature
of The Doctor. This is followed by a scene of The Doctor and Ace arriving
at Coal Hill school in the van and a longer version of The Doctor
and stand in café manager, John, in the sugar debate. Sylvester
introduces a longer scene between the Headmaster and Mike in the churchyard.
Sophie introduces a reworked version of the scene in the boarding
house where Ace is left behind. And there is a scene that was 10/10
10/10 Multi-Angle Scenes. Two significant scenes are shot from two different angles and can be viewed in their alternatives. Really I am not quite sure what the point of that is, but it is interesting to see how the shots were filmed and put together in the final version. 7/10 Music Only Option – The music from Doctor Who is always interesting to listen to as a separate track. 10/10 BBC1 trailers for the first two episodes. An attempt at making enticing trailers. This mainly goes to prove that Doctor Who NEEDED to pull in viewers in these declining years when it was up against strong ITV opposition. 5/10 Photo Gallery – some very interesting pictures from the episodes. 6/10 9 out of 10.
Terror Firma is a very disturbing Eighth Doctor story in which Davros has taken over Earth and turned all of humanity into Daleks, apart from a small group of survivors in Folkestone. 10/10
Disc Seven - Davros Connections This is an in depth documentary detailing the rise and fall of Davros as seen in the TV episodes and the audio stories. It included the Big Finish team, as well as Terry Molloy, David Gooderson and others. It is very well produced and worth watching for a history of one of the nastiest enemies The Doctor ever faced. 10/10
Overall, this is a very good package. I am impressed by it. Very little lets it down apart from the price. The RRP is TOO high even for such a good package.
10 out of 10 |
I,
Davros, Innocence sees the Kaled boy forced to choose his destiny
as his father is murdered and his mother distances herself from him,
Terror
Nation – a documentary celebrating the work of Terry Nation,
creator of the Daleks, with Barry Letts, Terrence Dicks, Richard Martin,
Nick Briggs, and some audio recordings of Terry Nation himself and
some old footage of interviews with him. A very good profile of the
man whose name is synonymous with Daleks.
Trails
and Continuity – This ne included a rather clever little promo
in which The Doctor is summoned from his TARDIS into a strange, pink
world to be told he is going to meet the Daleks soon. It ends with
him putting up a sign saying ‘Do not disturb until September
1st.
On
Location is a series of interviews with John Nathan Turner, Eric Saward
and Matthew Robinson on location at Shad Thames, which was, in 1983,
derelict docklands and is now a revamped tourist attraction. Matthew
is very interesting as he shows the viewer where he did some of the
more spectacular scenes. The fact that he used to be a cameraman is
very obvious in the way he describes everything. John Nathan Turner
died very soon after completing the interviews in this sequence.
Revelation
Exhumed is a documentary about the making of and the ethos behind
Revelation of the Daleks, with contributions from Graeme Harper and
Eric Saward as well as Clive Swift and other cast and crew members.
They reveal that it is based on a novel by Evelyn Waugh called The
Loved Ones, which satirises the American way of conducting funerals
in the 1930s. This is the basis of Revelation, not a naturalistic
drama, but a 1930s surreal comedy. They all understand that. Some
of the critics at the time and later, seem to have forgotten that.
Davros
sees the Sixth Doctor collaborating with Davros on a benevolent project
for the TAI Corporation. But it isn’t long before Davros is
double crossing everyone again. 
were
a whole lot of really great self-references, like The Doctor dropping
in to pick up the casket he had left in the undertakers where he had
left it when he was an old man with white hair and arranging for it
to be buried by a blind vicar who noted that his voice had changed.
Even more cheeky is the moment when the announcer on the TV in the
boarding house announces the new science fiction tv programme “Doctor…..”
the
school location. Cast and crew talk enthusiastically about one of
the most enduring of the McCoy era stories. The crew were fulsome
about the money they spent on the episode. There is a very good section
about Tip Tipping, the stuntman who worked on this, among other Doctor
Who stories, and who died not long afterwards. There were also tributes
paid to Dursley McLinden, who died terribly young, and Michael Sheard.
completely
cut in which Mike’s bigotry is revealed a little further. Sylvester
introduces The Doctor with his gadget and a longer scene with The
Doctor mending Ace’s sprained ankle. Sophie again introduces
a long scene in the Dalek mother ship that is very clearly incomplete
and a deleted effects scene of the girl and the Daleks with their
shuttle craft. Sylvester introduces a long scene with The Doctor,
Gilmore, Rachel and Allison and a camera. Sophie introduces the most
famous deleted scene in which The Doctor hints at being far more than
another Time Lord. Finally, there is a deleted scene with The Doctor
setting out to defeat the black Dalek. 
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