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The Visitation is a mix of period drama and alien invasion, a formula employed more than once before. It has a marvellous guest appearance by veteran comic actor Michael Robbins as the roguish thespian cum highwayman Richard Mace and the doom of the sonic screwdriver among its high points as well as rich location settings. The plot labours sometimes, and it doesn’t quite rate among the most memorable stories of the era, but nor is it immediately forgettable. Plus The Doctor takes the blame for the Great Fire of London. 8/10
Commentary The commentary is quite busy with five people involved – Peter Davison (The Doctor) Peter Moffatt, director, and the three companions, Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) and Janet Fielding (Tegan). This is slightly too many people. Those with strong personalities have more to say than others. The two peters are very knowledgeable about their subject. Janet Fielding is a confident speaker and presents herself well. The other two are heard less. The tone of the commentary is light. It is very much friends getting together for a reunion and remembering working together on this episode. Technical information about the making of the episode, anecdotes from filming are all there among the fun. Quite the most revealing thing is that Michael Robbins (known for the 1970s comedy On The Buses) thought that working on Doctor Who – a children’s show – was beneath his acting talents, which seems rather pretentious of him. 10/10
Extras Directing Who – Peter Moffatt looks back on his tenure as a Doctor Who director, starting with State of Decay and covering much of Peter Davison’s reign as The Doctor. Since Moffatt has now passed away, it is very much a treasure for classic Doctor Who fans, being a record of a well-loved director in his own words. 10/10
7/10
7/10 Writing a Final Visitation looks at the story from script writer Eric Saward’s point of view. This was his debut story, and it changed from original concept to final script. He explains many of the decisions, including some he probably should have objected to like the changing of the Tereleptil figure in the design stage. He also tells a variation of his reason for getting rid of the sonic screwdriver. All in all, though, Eric is not the most interesting man to listen to, and it is real Doctor Who fan stuff to watch. 7/10 Music Only Option – I’m with Peter Moffatt on this one. I’m not even sure I like Paddy’s score for the story, so why I would sit through four episodes just with the music and no dialogue I am not sure. But the option is there. 8/10 Photo Gallery – is quite disappointing. There are too many images of Doctor and companions, Doctor and guest stars, Doctor and aliens, posing for snapshots, all of which are static and dull pictures for their family albums and no interest to us. 6/10
Overall, a run of the mill DVD with average extras. The commentary is pleasant to listen to but nothing else stands out. 8 out of 10
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Scoring
the Visitation – Paddy Kingsland discusses his musical score
for The Visitation with Mark Ayres. Paddy, of course, is from the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop and is associated with electronic music,
making him an odd choice to score an historical story. Mark Ayres
sometimes has more to say than him. Kingland says ‘yes’
in response to long questions from Mark far too often and even when
he does talk more there is a sense of two composers talking to each
other without consideration of non-musical viewers.
Film
trims are unedited shots and pieces of dialogue left out of the final
cut and sequences seen on the monitors in the episodes. Apparently
these are the most interesting of them. This frankly makes me wonder
about the least interesting ones, as it isn’t the most riveting
stuff sometimes. Mostly it is a warning that the easily bored shouldn’t
go into TV making. The repetition of scenes will drive them nuts.
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