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The Web Planet was an ambitious story in its day, with choreographers and professional dancers employed to create the butterfly-like menoptera’s dance like movements. The costumes and sets were works of art. Sadly, if any Doctor Who episode fails to stand the test of time, this one does. It feels plodding and dull and just fails to engage the interest of a modern viewer. On top of that is a soundtrack that, in the 1960s, must have seemed innovative, avante-garde, ahead of its time. Now, it feels discordant and faintly annoying. 3/10
Commentary The commentary is by William Russell (Ian) the late Verity Lambert (producer), Richard Martin, (director) and Martin Jarvis (Hilo) moderated by Gary Russell. They manage to make the commentary far more interesting than the episodes themselves, enjoying funny anecdotes, nostalgic anecdotes and remembrances of those no longer with them. Richard Martin and Verity Lambert are a mine of technical information and have never lost their love for their work on Doctor Who. It is worth listening to if you’re going to approach this DVD at all. It was, of course, made in 2005, two years before Verity Lambert’s death, and when Doctor Who has just come back on TV. Verity and Richard were very proud of that fact. Their work is not only immortal but ongoing. 8/10
Extras
7/10
9/10 The first ever Doctor Who Annual (1965) is presented as a PDF file for DVD Rom viewing. It is very old fashioned. All of the stories are text with pictures. There are no comic strips as the later annuals had. Most of the stories suffer from a lack of cannon that gets a bit annoying at times and I really HATE it when anyone calls The Doctor ‘Doctor Who’ as if that is his name and all of the stories and articles do that. But it’s a proper piece of Doctor Who history. You have to wonder what a paper copy of it is worth on Ebay – or Antiques Roadshow! 8/10 Spanish Sountrack – the option to listen to episode six in Spanish really does not add anything to the DVD extras or to the story generally. It makes no more sense in Spanish! 1/10
7/10 Photo gallery is the usual mixture of promotion pictures, production stills and design images. They’re mostly in black and white, as expected. The music is annoying. Did I mention I don’t like the 60s electronic soundtrack? 6/10 Overall, I can see that they did their best, but I just don’t like The Web Planet as a story. 4 out of 10
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The
Lair of Zarbi Supremo is an audio story read by William Russell. William
has the mature voice of a nice old granddad reading a bedtime story.
He reads well, the way people of his generation were taught to read
aloud. The story, which appeared in the very first Doctor Who Annual
in 1965, has some strange peccadilloes. The writer persistently called
The Doctor ‘Doctor Who’, his native language is described
as ‘modern English’ and there are references to The Doctor
having built the TARDIS. Clearly this dates from the time when the
cannon had not been fully established. Nobody realised that ‘Doctor
Who’ is not his real name or that English is NOT his native
language or the origins of the TARDIS. These both sound annoying to
my ear, but put in historical it’s not so bad. The story actually
is more interesting, but it is nearly an hour long. You need a bit
of stamina to listen to an audio story for that long.
Tales
of Isop is the ‘making of’ documentary. It features the
same people as the commentary and some of the anecdotes are repeated,
but there is a more directed and concise order to it all. Commentaries
are more like friends getting together to talk about old times. They
all seem so proud of the episode that I start to feel a bit guilty
that I don’t actually like it. 
Give-a-show-slides
is a presentation of a set of slides that could be used with the Chad
Valley toy slide projector. They are colourful cartoon pictures based
on the Web Planet characters. Again, what would a good quality real
set be worth at auction? One for Doctor Who history buffs.
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