Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Robotech – Love Live Alive / Cert: 12 / Director: Gregory Snegoff / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Cam Clarke, Wendee Lee, Frank Catalano / Release Date: January 27th

The Robotech franchise has always been a bit of an odd fish, given that the bulk of its footage comes from three entirely unrelated anime TV series that have been skilfully stitched together. This long and epic tale of humanity’s struggle against hostile alien forces through the use of really cool transforming fighter jets has been with us since the mid-’80s. However, we’ve not seen anything new for quite a long time, which means that the latest offering, Robotech: Love Live Alive has a lot to live up to.

The movie is, in true Robotech style, a re-editing of another show, Mospaeda: Love, Live, Alive, as well as clips from Robotech: The New Generation. The original material has been heavily altered, with bridging sequences digitally added. The result is a very, very messy clip-show. The Robotech mythos is difficult to navigate at the best of times, being partially a very shouty soap opera and mostly a retro-science fiction adventure story with big explosions and not much else. Compressing a much larger story into 90-minute feature means that the entire affair is barely coherent, and it is difficult to care about these poorly dubbed, poorly animated characters and their cliché-ridden adventures.

The DVD extras only serve to highlight how poorly treated the Robotech franchise has been handled. In addition to deleted scenes and a “making of” documentary, a lot of the original Mospaeda footage is included, and we get a glimpse of how special a lot of this was back in it’s day. If you’re a hardcore Robotech fan, you know the story already and will find little of interest here. Casual fans will simply become bored and confused. Love Live Alive serves as a reminder that this franchise has long since gone past its sell-by-date and serious effort would be required to make it even half as good as the fans remember.

Extras: “Making of” documentary / Mospaeda / Animatics / Deleted scenes / Gallery

Review: Knights of Badassdom / Cert: TBC / Director: Joe Lynch / Screenplay: Kevin Dreyfuss, Matt Wall / Starring: Peter Dinklage, Steve Zahn, Summer Glau, Ryan Kwanten / Release Date: February 11th (US), TBC (UK)

Two “kings” and their followers – consisting of groups with names like Gnomeland Security and Fair Leather Friends – have their yearly fantasy role-playing gathering in a Washington state forest in order to undertake quests and prepare for the all-out battle at the Fields of Evermore with foam and rubber weapons. Sulking Joe (Kwanten) – a proven battlefield warrior and legend in the Middle Ages LARPers (Live Action Role Playing) community – has recently been dumped by his girlfriend for not taking responsibility with his life, and decides he’s had enough fantasy play, but his friends Hung (Dinklage) and Eric (Zahn) include him anyway for the big weekend event.

Joe decides this might be the best thing for him after all to get his ex out of his system as he meets the sexy Gwen (Glau), but he is now reduced from his previous high standing to the rank of apprentice due to a rivalry that has seriously backfired on him. Meanwhile, things take a turn for the fantastical when a wizard accidentally unleashes a soul-devouring succubus in the form of Joe’s ex-girlfriend.

Knights of Badassdom is a missed opportunity. It starts out great, but it doesn’t know what it wants to be, and it soon becomes an odd mix of wild comedy, serious drama and horror elements. It’s like you’re watching Monty Python’s Holy Grail, then you blink and it’s the Ivanhoe meets Evil Dead.

Dinklage is the most likeable of the characters, but his screen time is limited. Summer Glau is easy on the eye and delivers a solid performance. Zahn has a few funny moments, but he wears you down after awhile. As for Kwanten as our reluctant hero, he is disappointingly wide of the mark, as is director Joe Lynch. Frankly, Bert I. Gordon did it better with The Magic Sword in 1962.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Frost / Cert: 15 / Director: Reynir Lyngdal / Screenplay: Jon Atil Jonasson / Starring: Bjorn Thors, Anna Gunndis, Helgi Bjornsson, Valur Freyr Einarsson / Release Date: February 10th

Given that Iceland’s most distributed film of all time is 2009’s Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre, it’s no surprise that RWWM’s producers Julius Kemp and Ingvar Thordarson are trying to recreate that film’s success with another horror feature, working with director Lyngdal to bring us Frost.

The story here centres on Agla (Gunndis) and Gunnar (Thors), a couple who find themselves stranded, alone and spooked, atop a glacier. Agla is a researcher and, along with some colleagues, has been carrying out work on the glacier, whilst Gunnar is her filmmaker partner who has come to visit her. Events take a sinister turn when erratic flashing lights appear in the sky and strange, aggressive rumblings emanate from the treacherous depths below them. Things only get creepier when they finally manage to find some of Anna’s colleagues, who happen to have blood pouring from their noses and are acting a tad peculiar.

Unfortunately, what is a visually stunning film – it was filmed on an actual glacier, y’know? – with an interesting premise is often let down by a flat story and the found footage shooting technique at its worst. It’s fair to say that the way Frost is shot assaults your sense, but not in a good way. Rather than feeling uneasy, on edge and awaiting slow, peek-through-your-fingers reveals, the viewer is more likely to experience extreme motion-sickness thanks to the distinct absence of terra firma.

Whilst the film does start promisingly enough, the filmmakers seem as lost as those on screen. Even though Frost clocks in at around the 1 hour 15 minute mark, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d been dragged in for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy; it just seems drawn out, dull and energy-sapping.

In terms of positives, as mentioned, some of the scenery is beautiful to look at, and there’s a nice score to accompany the sombre mood of the picture. The performances are also decent enough, particularly from Gunndis and Thors as the film’s leads, but you just feel as if they’re fighting an uphill battle.

If you like uninspired, uneventful, nicely-set films that seem to spend the majority of their time using shaky cam shots of lost Norwegians shouting “hello?”, then Frost may be for you. For everyone else, there are a lot better movies out there, Renny Harlin’s The Dyatlov Pass Incident for one.

Extras: Making Of

Review: Bates Motel – Season 1 / Cert: 18 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Freddie Highmore, Vera Farmiga, Max Thieriot, Olivia Cooke, Nicola Peltz / Release Date: February 3rd

Ever wondered how Norman Bates came to be? If you’re intrigued by the creepy taxidermist in the Psycho films, Bates Motel is for you. Not all great stories and characters need an explanation or reason behind them; sometimes the mystique and vague nature is part of the charm of a movie or character. Is Norman Bates one of those characters? Initially, Starburst would have answered a firm “Yes!” But watching Bates Motel’s elaboration on Norman’s childhood, it’s impossible not to be drawn in by the impressive storytelling, the strong character development, and some truly wonderful performances from the principal cast.

We’re introduced to Norman (Highmore) at a time after the death of his father and when his mother, Norma (Farmiga), decides it’s time to move on to a new life in a new town. Deciding to settle in White Pine Bay, the family Bates wind up the new owners of a rather familiar-looking motel. With the pair in trouble from the get-go, it would seem that they can never just go smoothly for Norma and her son. Adding to the Bates’ dynamic, we’re introduced to Max (Thieriot), Norman’s older half-brother. Whilst not as dark, menacing or unstable as the rest of the Bates clan, Max still manages to get himself into bother in other ways.

Full of slow-build subtleties, sinister mayhem and just the slightest teases of what is to come, the first season of Bates Motel is quite simply addictive. It’s one of those shows, of which there seem to be so many lately, where as soon as one episode ends you immediately want to watch the next one. We find Norman adapting to a new school and new friends, along with the problems that can be caused by that; problems that aren’t helped by the fact that young Norman isn’t quite your regular teenager. We also get to meet some of White Pine Bay’s locals, with secrets, suspense, and sinister goings-on aplenty.

As the young Norman, Freddie Highmore is terrific. It’s literally like watching somebody playing Anthony Perkins playing Norman Bates; he captures all the mannerisms, all the awkwardness, all the turmoil and inner conflict just perfectly. As Norma, Vera Farmiga delivers a seductive, insecure, unstable siren that gives you plenty of indication as to where Norman gets certain quirks from. Yes, the show centres around mother and son, but there’s also great supporting performances, particularly from Olivia Cooke as a well-meaning friend/love interest of Norman’s, and from Thieriot as the rebellious older brother who sees just how crazy things are.

With regards to extras, this Season 1 boxset includes a whole bunch of deleted scenes from across the series, all of which are in synch with the tone and feel of the show – one can only presume time constraints got in the way of most of these scenes making the final cut. Then there’s the discussion panel featurette from the Paley Centre. Featuring the majority of the principal cast, including Highmore, Farmiga and Thieriot, and some of the show’s creators, this featurette gives a great insight into the show and the interaction between its cast and crew. At nearly an hour in duration, this really is a treat for fans of Bates Motel, as the discussion is dealt with like an in-depth Q&A session.

In a time where quality TV is all the rage, Bates Motel is a must for any and all genre fans, perfectly balancing the modern-day setting with the traditional elements of Psycho.

Extras: See above.

Review: Machete Kills / Cert: 15 / Director: Robert Rodriguez / Screenplay: Kyle Ward, Robert Rodriguez / Starring: Danny Trejo, Mel Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez / Release Date: Out Now

Well, it’s about time. After not killing much of anything in Robert Rodriguez’s colourful Grindhouse spoof Machete, the eponymous character returns – this time, with a body count.

Aside from an out-of-shape Steven Seagal, there’s no hiding from the fact that mercenary and occasional freedom fighter Machete Cortez didn’t really kill much of anything in the original Machete. Normally, that’s fine, but when you cast Danny Trejo as a character who is literally named after a really big kind of knife, you had better have him use it more than occasionally. Thankfully, Machete Kills gets the hint, and this sequel is chock full of bang for Machete’s buck, from beheading through to disembowelling and much more besides.

The plot is barely important, with Machete tasked by the U.S. government to take down an insane arms dealer and disarm his massive space-bound payload. This puts Machete at odds with an angry brothel owner (Sofia Vergara and her machine gun boobs and penis), a mad scientist (a fantastic Mel Gibson) and a hitman named El Camaleón (played by almost half of the supporting cast – including, um, Lady Gaga).

Rodriguez has assembled an impressive cast here, most of whom are a joy to watch. Mel Gibson is particularly well cast as the Big Bad of the piece, clearly having fun in what would be his latest comeback gig. Trejo is as reliable as ever as Machete, still making for a remarkably convincing hero, in spite of his age. Beware the high definition offered by the Blu-ray release though – sufferers of trypophobia (warning: Googling it can cause contraction of said phobia) will likely pitch a fight at the HD pock marks, indentations and various caverns of Trejo’s face and Gibson’s crinkle-cut forehead.

With so much at play, it’s no surprise that Machete Kills often struggles to maintain a semblance of coherency. The tone veers sharply between retro action movie and flat-out spoof, Machete now too invincible to care about as a character. It’s all very hit and miss, with Machete’s would-be execution a lot of fun, but his sex scene with Amber Heard coming across as exploitative and a little icky. That said, this is a film which has Danny Trejo and Mel Gibson riding side by side in a Star Wars landspeeder, so maybe it’s best not to take it too seriously.

While another sequel might be a step too far, Machete Kills isn’t quite the waste of space we may have feared.

Extras: TBC

Review: Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark / Cert: TBC / Director: Emile Edwin Smith / Screenplay: Jose Prendes / Starring: Christopher Judge, Elisabeth Röhm, Steve Hanks, Kate Avery, Debbie Gibson / Release Date: January 28th (US), TBC (UK)

For those shark movie connoisseurs out there, yes, this is a follow-up to 2009’s Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus and 2010’s Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus. Whilst the previous Mega was last seen ‘swimming with the fishes’ at the climax of the 2010 match-up movie, Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark sees a new Mega Shark appear from the depths of the ocean. Having learnt from their previous efforts, this time the US government is fully prepared for such an occurrence and just happen to have made themselves an equally gigantic robotic shark. As it becomes clear that Mega’s motive is to head to Australia to find a mate and blow his Mega-wad, it’s time for Mecha and his crew, along with their Holly-lite Nero computer system, to stop the companion-seeking monster from destroying the Australian coastline in a horned-up rage. In the immortal words of Streetfighter II, “Fight!”

From the opening moments, where we see a gloriously CGIed iceberg, it’s apparent that we’re not dealing with any Titanic-style spectacle here. In fairness to Mega vs. Mecha, compared to other low-budget shark tales, the SFX work isn’t as horrendous as it could have been. Obviously, though, the film needs to be taken in the spirit in which it was intended – i.e. tongue-in-cheek and cheesy.

Despite the obvious constrictions, Mega vs. Mecha does its best to deliver a solid film that even follows the continuity of the previous Mega Shark films. For example, remember that shot in the first movie where Mega leaped out of the air and took out an aeroplane? Ol’ Mega tries the same here, only to be blocked off by Mecha this time around. With moments like this, it’s good to see writer Jose Prendes trying to keep some sort of thought and sensibility to this clearly-ludicrous screenplay, although the film’s cast, particularly when it comes to reaction shots, don’t do the movie any favours. Nor do choppy editing and over-the-top dialogue help matters.

If you can leave logic at the door, you may actually enjoy Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark. The lovers of shark films out there will have seen a whole host of efforts far worse than this, and Mega vs. Mecha is just simply silly, easy-viewing fun if you’re looking to sit down and disengage your brain. And if nothing else, it’s worth checking out just to see Debbie Gibson’s cosmetically engineered face looking like a well-worn moccasin that’s been left out in the sun for too long.

Extras: TBC

Review: Paranormal Xperience 3D / Cert: 18 / Director: Sergi Vizcaino / Screenplay: Daniel Padro / Starring: Maxi Iglesias, Amaia Salamanca, Lucho Fernandez / Release Date: Out Now

The words ‘Paranormal’, ‘Xperience’ and ‘3D’ do not, normally inspire great confidence. Thankfully, Paranormal Xperience 3D is much better than its title suggests. An odd Spanish supernatural slasher film, it packs its five medical students off for a field trip which none of them will forget in a hurry.

The setting is an abandoned Spanish mining town, rumoured to be haunted, following the crimes of a murderous mad doctor and his subsequent death there. The students’ experiment (Xperiment?) hopes to disprove the existence (Xistence?) of spooks (spoox? Too far?) and the supernatural, but the evidence they find there points so far in the opposite direction as to get them all thoroughly killed… in 3D.

Starburst had envisioned yet another found footage turd, slipping Paranormal Xperience 3D into our DVD player, but there’s barely a handicam nor snotty nose to be found throughout. In fact, it’s closer to a backwoods slasher film than it is a Paranormal Activity rip-off. The good doctor makes for a fine villain, while the kids are young and pretty enough that they’re decent company until they’re inevitably knocked off, one by one. If only they could have spent a little more time paying attention to their surroundings and less trying to hit on one another, they might have survived a little longer. From one character’s constant obsession with both tying and being tied up, to the guys’ relentless hitting on poor troubled Diana, it’s small wonder that this famous five should find themselves failing their finals.

Predictable and clichéd as it may be (does a film’s twist still count as a twist if we can see it coming from a mile off?), Paranormal Xperience does impress in its gore sequences. Despite being very obviously filmed for 3D (expect to see a lot of fingers, gore and grue thrown at the screen), it’s delightfully nasty at times, making good use of the old eyeball piercing, barbed wire garrotting and smashed glass splatter sequences throughout. The CGI blood is no good, and some of the makeup work is a bit iffy, but it only adds to the film’s charm.

A pleasant surprise, Paranormal Xperience 3D is an enjoyable Spanish curiosity which makes up for its lack of originality with guts, gusto and… yes, Xtreme 3D.

Extras: None

Review: Mysterious Cities of Gold – Season 2 / Cert: PG / Director: Jean-Luc Francois / Screenplay: Various / Release Date: February 10th

Making a sequel to a beloved TV series almost 30 years after the original ended is a risky business to say the least. Not only are you looking to do it in a way that will engage your new, younger audience, but you also have to appeal to the fan base that grew up with the series all those years ago. It’s a fine balancing act that Blue Spirit Animation have largely gotten right with the second series of Mysterious Cities of Gold.

The story picks up a short time after the first series ended, with our heroes meeting up again in Barcelona. After a jailbreak, they set off to China in search of the next city of gold. As with the first series, the less you know about the story, the more enjoyment there is to be had from it, and while it is fair to say that some of the wonder and magic of the original series is lacking here, it is still a compelling and engaging story that you soon become engrossed in again.

If you are a fan of the original series, there are some things that take a little getting used to. The first is the theme tune. Not only has the opening narration been removed completely, but the main theme has been altered to have more of an oriental sound to it. It grates a little at first, a bit like your favourite singer reimagining your favourite song, you get used to it and actually start to love it.

The second is the new voice cast. All of the voice actors do a fine job and you soon settle into their performances and after a while mostly don’t notice it. If anything Mendoza is the toughest voice to get used to, but that is only because Howard Ryshpan gave such a distinctive performance as the character in the original series, it’s difficult to imagine any other voice coming out of Mendoza’s mouth.

The updated animation has a clean, sharp and bright look to it that both honours the original and updates it for its new audience, while still giving the show a unique look that sets it apart from most other cartoons on TV at the moment. It’s a testament to the creative team that they have managed to produce a series that is so respectful of what came before, following the plans for the series that were laid out by Jean Chalopin all those years ago.

While it has to be said that this series does lack some of the magic and wonder that the original revelled in at times, its storytelling is tight, managing to be compelling and engaging throughout. Like the first series, it is ideal box set viewing and after waiting the best part of 30 years for this one, Season 3 can’t come soon enough.

Extras: Series guide booklet

Review: Doctor Who – The Moonbase / Cert: PG / Director: Morris Barry / Screenplay: Kit Pedler / Starring: Patrick Troughton, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines / Release Date: January 20th

The ‘classic series’ Doctor Who DVD range edges ever closer to its end – barring any further missing episode recoveries – with this four-part 1967 serial from the early days of Patrick Troughton’s TARDIS incumbency. The two episodes which remain in the BBC Archives (already released in 2004’s ‘Lost in Time’ box set) are joined here by two instalments (episodes one and three) animated in the style of the recent ‘Ice Warriors’ release which also saw two of its missing episodes similarly recreated.

If you happened across the recent DVD of first Doctor William Hartnell’s swan song serial ‘The Tenth Planet’ you could be forgiven for thinking that, when scripting its ‘sequel’ just a few months later and bringing back the already-popular Cybermen, scriptwriter Pedlar just scribbled out a few names in the script and moved a few lines of dialogue around. ‘The Moonbase’ is pretty much the same story as ‘The Tenth Planet’, differing only to the extent that it’s not quite as good. ‘The Moonbase’ sees the series drifting towards its infamous ‘base-under-siege’ era, when it seemed that virtually every story saw the Doctor and his companions arrive at some isolated enclave of human scientists or explorers which is immediately besieged by a hostile, usually scaly, alien threat. So it is in ‘The Moonbase’. The TARDIS lands on the moon and, after a bit of horsing around in spacesuits on the lunar surface, the travellers find themselves inside an installation housing a machine called the Gravitron which is controlling the weather systems of the planet Earth. But something’s wrong: Moonbase operatives are falling ill and before long the complex is attacked by the Cybermen – sleekly redesigned from their clumpy first appearance – who have designs on the Gravitron which they plan to use to wipe out life on Earth.

The Cybermen, all silver body-suits, piping and the now-familiar handlebars, are as eerie as they were in their debut, with their unearthly, modulated, slightly singsong voices. But not much else really impresses in this routine, occasionally sloppy four-parter, least of all the laughable paper plate Cyberships which drop onto the table top lunar surface. The commendably multinational Moonbase personnel are a pretty faceless bunch and their Commander Hobson (Patrick Barr) is full of hot air and bluster but comes across more like a car mechanic than the boss of a high security lunar weather station with his constant complaints about the Gravitron being “up the spout” when its operation is interfered with. If the idea was to portray a futuristic working unit as a bunch of ordinary people doing a mundane job, rather than the buttoned-up, space-suited boffins and technicians of traditional science fiction, then it’s pretty much job done but the Moonbase crowd are a slapdash collection whose scientific knowledge stretches no further than, incredibly, using a drinks tray to plug up a hole in the Moonbase’s outer skin.

The TARDIS is pretty crowded by this point – Frazer Hines’ Highland piper Jamie having been a last minute addition to the crew a couple of serials earlier – so there isn’t a lot for most of them to do. Jamie is quickly knocked out, Polly (Wills) spends most her time putting the kettle on but Ben (Craze) not only does the strong-arm stuff but he also displays hitherto unsuspected scientific know-how when he helps Polly synthesise a plastic-destroying mixture as a weapon against the Cybermen. Even Troughton’s mercurial Doctor is more restrained here (courtesy of director Morris Barry who, as the disc’s ‘making of’ documentary reveals, reigned in the actor’s more outrageous tendencies), often hovering in the background looking anxious or, in one unusual scene in the animated third episode, heard arguing with himself via an internal monologue.

Animators Planet 55 had the difficult job of establishing the tone and style of the series by visualising its missing first episode as well as its third and, by and large, they’ve done a decent job. There’s the occasional over-long, dialogue-heavy static sequence but generally the animation is pacey, stream-lined and somehow entirely in keeping with the story’s clinical setting. Episode three, in which a Cyberman clambers from a medical table, even replicates the wobble of the table from the live-action footage at the end of episode two! The likenesses of the regulars and the guest cast are hugely impressive but the animation really shows its worth in episode three as the Cybermen stream out of their spaceship, swarm across the lunar surface and fan out to prepare for their attack on the Moonbase. The final scenes of episode three are so well-realised it’s easy to forget that they’re animation at all.

‘The Moonbase’ is hardly a stone-cold classic and there’s certainly nothing especially original or inventive in its storyline, but it’s cheerful, occasionally competent and, with its first-class animated episodes, it’s near-as-dammit complete again for the first time in over forty years. Not a bad way for the ‘classic series’ DVDs to (near enough) bow out.

Extras: Lunar Landing ‘making of’ / Commentaries / Trailer / Photo gallery

Review: Doctor Who – The Time of the Doctor and Other Eleventh Doctor Christmas Specials / Cert: PG / Director: Toby Haynes, Farren Blackburn, Saul Metzstein, Jamie Payne / Screenplay: Steven Moffat / Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Jenna Coleman / Release Date: January 20th

Future TV historians searching for evidence of Steve Moffat’s ‘fairy tale’ interpretation of Doctor Who will surely need look no further than this reasonably priced new two-disc DVD/Blu-ray release which gathers together all the festive special episodes from the Matt Smith/Moffat years. Moffat’s Christmas Doctor Who’s haven’t always concerned themselves with being “the most Christmassy Christmas episode yet” but they appear to have given him carte blanche to fully indulge his strange obsession with the Doctor as a magical, mythical, madcap eccentric travelling through space and time in his Police Box having really quaint adventures. Those who regard Doctor Who as a thrilling and imaginative drama filled with peril, jeopardy and often quite violent (if bloodless) death will find little, if anything, to entertain them here.

‘A Christmas Carol’, Smith’s first Yuletide episode (airing in 2010) is a reasonably engaging yarn which does what its title suggests; the Doctor pops back and forth in time to help the miserly Kazran Sardick change his wicked ways and bring the residents of Sardicktown out of the winter darkness and into the light. Pleasant stuff powered by a performance from Michael Gambon (Sardick) which the story doesn’t really deserve and a sweetly-sickly acting debut from singer Katherine Jenkins as Sardick’s time-trapped doomed love Abigail. The only moment of excitement or danger in ‘A Christmas Carol’ is the Doctor’s brief encounter with a flying shark. Otherwise it’s just Moffat’s usual succession of gags, Smith’s over-enthusiastic acting and a quite nice song at the end. Fortunately the irritating Amy and Rory (Gillan and Darvill) only bookend the episode.

2011’s ‘The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe’ is quite remarkably dull. Here the Doctor has become the curator of an old country house during World War Two at which the Arwell family (Mum and two pesky kids) are spending Christmas following the death of dad Reg during the war. The children wander through a magic portal the Doctor has opened for them into another dimension ruled by a wooden king and queen. Virtually nothing happens for the best part of sixty minutes and a decent guest cast – Alexander Armstrong, Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir – are criminally wasted in a story as light and inconsequential as a snowflake. Moffat makes poor Matt Smith utter the words “humaney-wumaney” at the end of the story and for this alone he can really never be forgiven.

2012’s ‘The Snowmen’ is a much better bet. Exiling himself in Victorian London following the loss of Amy and Rory in the previous episode, the Doctor has parked the TARDIS in a cloud (of course he has) and resists all efforts of his “friends” the Paternoster Gang (a tame Silurian and her wife/assistant and a comedy Sontaran) to get him to re-engage with humanity. But there’s an old foe at large – the Great Intelligence, a formless alien entity last seen in 1968 is using living snow to create killer snowmen (which we don‘t see enough of) and the Doctor becomes the object of fascination for barmaid/governess Clara Oswald (Coleman), who leads him into a mystery which will thread itself through the next eight episodes. Pacey and atmospheric (if scuppered by some inevitably inane comedy and a familiar sense of self-indulgence – the Doctor‘s extremely Sherlockian pastiche of Conan Doyle), ‘The Snowmen’ is the least abominable of the bunch here and the only episode which really invites repeat viewing.

Smith’s finale, ‘The Time of the Doctor’ aired last month and, unfortunately, was a dog’s dinner of an episode, a clumsy collection of never-ending comedy sketches which finally led to a deeply unsatisfying and undramatic story which saw the Doctor give up his adventuring to defend the sappy inhabitants of Christmastown from attack from all his best enemies (another recycled Moffat idea) for some two centuries. The episode ends after what seems like two hundred years, so dreary and uninvolving is its narrative, and Peter Capaldi regenerates in a flash from Matt Smith, who at least gets a decent dramatic send-off. Loose ends from Smith’s era are apparently tied up in an entirely made-up-as-it-goes-along fashion and despite some bangs and flashes and an obligatory roll-out of some old costumes – Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Weeping Angels – it’s all smoke and mirrors and, yet again, shot though with an effete, anodyne fairy tale aesthetic which has pretty much robbed the show of its edge and its dramatic pulse.

Despite it’s baffling PG certificate, toddlers and those of a nervous disposition will feel quite at home with this non-threatening collection of tame TARDIS tales. But long-time Doctor Who fans will be left wondering what happened to the thrills and excitement of their favourite programme and why it’s been allowed to become so fluffy, saccharine, sanitised and toothless.

There are a handful of special features but nothing new and exclusive to this release. ‘Behind the Scenes’ is the online ‘making of’ for ‘Time of the Doctor’ which manages to generate more emotion from Matt Smith leaving (he breaks down during the read-through and on his last day’s filming) than the episode itself. Two lengthy if lightweight BBC America specials looking at the history of the show and bidding a ‘Farewell to Matt Smith’ are really the sort of talking-head filler you’ll only be drawn towards once.

Extras: See above