Bring Back the Memories with Classic Who on DVD

Who do you think of when I say Doctor Who? David Tennant? Christopher Eccleston? If you’d asked me that a few years ago, I would have said Tom Baker. For years, he was the face of Doctor Who, rattling around in a cardboard set in grainy episodes airing on my local PBS station. There was a simple charm to the series that allowed you to turn a blind eye to the flaws. With top notch British actors and creative scripts, these early episodes captivated audiences of all ages and certainly influenced the current era of scifi storytellers.

I got to revisit that era this past week when I reviewed the new classic Doctor Who US releases from BBC Worldwide. Two of the DVD’s are from the Tom Baker era (1974-1981), “Image of Fendahl” and “The Deadly Assassin.” The third is “Delta and Bannermen” starring Sylvester McCoy who reigned from 1987-1989.

Two things impressed me about these DVD releases. First is the quality of the print. Having only seen these as grainy copies on TV with rabbit ears, anything would have been an improvement. But these digitally remastered prints are far beyond what I was expecting. Obviously, they don’t have the depth and high definition of today’s Doctor, but they’re very clean and watchable.

The other thing that impressed me was the array of special features on each DVD. All of them have commentary with the Doctor himself and other actors and crew members. “Image of Fendahl” has Wanda Ventham, whom I remember from UFO. They each include a behind the scenes looks with interviews by key players, photo galleries, trailers and a PDF of the Radio Times listing from the era.

“Delta and the Bannermen” also includes Clown Court outtakes of McCoy on The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow and a Seventh Doctor Comic Strip Retrospective. On “The Deadly Assassins” we look deeper at the novel The Manchurian Candidate which inspired the episode and find out the Doctor’s Frighten Factor.

Real die-hard fans will get a kick out of the deleted and extended scenes on “Image of the Fendahl.” These clips are made up of poor quality, black and white footage, because the original copies of these bits have been lost or destroyed. So kudos to the DVD producers who made the effort to include these rare scenes.

And here’s a hint: If you own these DVD’s I’m told there’s an Easter Egg on at least two of them.

I really enjoyed traveling through time with Doctor Who and his companions. As a fan who rediscovered the show thanks to the newest incarnation, it was nice to go back and relive my first memories of the show.

The DVDs were released on September 1 and are available at Amazon or any large DVD retailer.

Photo: Amazon