DOCTOR WHO – THE COLLECTION: SEASON FOURTEEN /CERT:12 / DIRECTOR: RODNEY BENNET, LENNIE MAYNE, DAVID MALONEY, PENNANT ROBERTS, MICHAEL E BRIANT / SCREENPLAY: LOUIS MARKS, BOB BAKER, DAVE MARTIN, ROBERT HOLMES, CHRIS BOUCHER / STARRING: TOM BAKER, LOUISE JAMESON, ELISABETH SLADEN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Few fans of ‘classic’ Doctor Who would argue that the show enjoyed its greatest period of popular acclaim and success in the 1970s. The arrival of Jon Pertwee (in colour) in 1970 turned the series into a brisk, colourful adventure series but when he moved on from the role at the end of 1974 it was clearly time for the series to evolve yet again. Firebrand new young producer Philip Hinchcliffe had some very specific visions for the series, moving it away from the cosy UNIT soldiers vs rubber monsters format of much of the Pertwee era and sending the Doctor back out into space again and telling darker, more challenging stories. With the mercurial Tom Baker on board as the curly-haired, boggle-eyed fourth Doctor, Hinchcliffe and his ferociously-imaginative script editor Robert Holmes forged three of the best and most enduring seasons of Doctor Who in the show’s long history. Their final season, first aired between 1976/7, is the latest run to receive the belt ‘n’ braces Blu-ray treatment by the BBC and, rewatching these terrific 26 episodes again (and being only too familiar with what was to come) it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is very much the last great series of Doctor Who and that, in the wake of Star Wars, the series was about to begin its 12-year slide into obsolescence and irrelevance.
Season 14 sees Doctor Who comfortable in its skin as proper ‘family’ television; it’s left the nursery full of screaming silver-suited monsters and aliens far behind and is now delivering stories full of deranged power-crazed villains, terrifying extra-terrestrial energy forces and murderous, elegant robots. Oh, and a rubbish giant rat scampering through a model sewer, but we’ll not dwell on that for now. Fourth Doctor Tom Baker – now in his third series – is at his best here, perfectly nailing that combination of twinkling charm and dry wit and the coldly diffident alien that characterized the first few years of his tenure. Hinchcliffe managed to reign in the actor’s more outré tendencies but the subsequent arrival of various robot dogs, Time Lady companions and generally sloppier scripts and cheaper production values allowed the actor to over-indulge himself and the subtlety and nuance of his performance was slowly lost. Here he is utterly scintillating, delivering a magnetic performance befitting an actor at the very top of his game. Long-term companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) leaves the series in the second serial and his relationship with his save new companion Leela (Louise Jameson) is somewhat more brittle (reflecting the actor’s own diffidence towards his new co-star) but he’s at his absolute best amongst the conspiratorial trappings of The Deadly Assassin, where he arrives alone on his home planet Gallifrey to find himself involved in the machinations of a much-missed old enemy. The Doctor cuts a dashing, swashbuckling figure here, especially in the surreal third episode where he fights for his life in the virtual reality world of the Time Lord Matrix.
There are two other stone-cold classics here alongside The Deadly Assassin. Robots of Death is a creepy Agatha Christie-style murder mystery set aboard a Sandminer on a hostile stormswept planet and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the swansong for the Hinchliffe/Holmes partnership, is a glorious Victorian melodrama full of memorable dialogue and unforgettable characters (and an unfortunate giant rat, replaced in this new release by a slightly better CGI alternative). Weng-Chiang remains one of the original show’s very best serials despite some questionable casting decisions and racial depictions which might now raise the odd eyebrow but certainly don’t deserve the vitriol they now receive from some hysterical over-sensitive sections of Who fandom.
The three remaining serials are workmanlike but still massively enjoyable. Masque of Mandragora, with its colourful location filming in around The Prisoner’s Portmeirion, is a slightly stodgy four-parter set in Renaissance Italy, ‘The Hand of Fear’ is largely unremarkable beyond the tearful farewell sequence for Sarah Jane and ‘The Face of Evil’ is a rather bland and colourless introduction for new girl Leela. But there’s much to enjoy even in this season’s less accomplished stories and across the entire set we’re reminded not only of how good the show was at this period in its history, but how popular it was with audiences regularly touching 11 and 12 million. Doctor Who genuinely doesn’t get much better than this.
Once again a terrific set of new special supporting features have been assembled for this Blu-ray collection alongside all the original material from already-released DVDs. Best of the bunch is an absorbing and heart-breaking 70-odd minute documentary looking at the life and career of Elisabeth Sladen who brought the beloved Sarah Jane Smith to life for generations of devotees; it’s possibly the best ‘special feature’ ever delivered on a Doctor Who title. Elsewhere Matthew Sweet spends nearly 80 minutes chatting to Philip Hinchcliffe about his time on the show, comedian and Who superfan Toby Hadoke revisits the classic 1977 Whose Doctor Who documentary (the first academic TV work to actually consider the series and its place in popular culture) and manages to track down and speak to many of its junior contributors over forty years later. This eight-disc set is dotted with other extra bits and pieces – the usual ‘Behind the Sofa’ featurettes, an interview with Weng-Chiang’s Mr Sin (actor Deep Roy), some new VFX and commentaries and new material exhumed from the archive. Picture and sound are crisp and clear for SD material buffed up for HD release and a 36-page booklet provides all the background info you could reasonably require of a 26-episode TV production from 1976. It’s a wonderful, eclectic and comprehensive release and yet again Doctor Who fans have cause to rejoice in the fact that such love, care and devotion is lavished upon the show’s back catalogue. Our only real gripe, though, remains with the BBC’s insistence that these sets should be ‘limited editions’ which means that they are sold out before they are even officially released so many fans have to miss out if they can’t afford the inflated prices asked by shameless eBay scalpers. But if you’re lucky enough to track down a set then you’re sure to agree that it deserves pride of place in your collection as a heady recollection of Doctor Who in its real imperial phase and Tom Baker at his most glorious.
