Dom Robinson reviews

Cert:

Cat.no: BBCDVD 1043

Running time: 86 minutes

Year: 1996

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, 4 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 24 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Stereo)

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: No

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras: Exclusive Footage, Cast and Crew interviews, Behind the scenes features, Photo Gallery, Music-only track, Trailers, Alternate Scenes, On-screen Production Notes, Director's Commentary

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Director:

Geoffrey Sax

Producer:

Peter Ware

Screenplay:

Matthew Jacobs

Music:

John Debney, John Sponsler and Louis Febre

Cast:

The Doctor: Paul McGann / Sylvester McCoy
The Master: Eric Roberts
Dr. Grace Holloway: Daphne Ashbrook
Chang Lee: Yee Jee Tso
Salinger: John Novak
Dr. Swift: Michael David Simms
Wheeler: Catherine Lough

If anyone should've known when the new millennium started, it would be Doctor Who, but this story, broadcast on May 27th 1996, places us on New Year's Eve in 1999, but then the Doctor could technically go to any point in time and space and see in a new year every day, but I digress.

"He's back.. and it's about time", spake the billing for this adventure which finds the Doctor (as Sylvester McCoy) accidentally ending up in San Francisco, getting fatally wounded in the middle of a gun battle (perhaps he should've chosen somewhere safer like New York or Moss Side?) and having to regenerate into Paul McGann to survive. Ok, so it may have been "about time" for his return, but the BBC definitely shot themselves in the foot by saying that, getting involved with this episode and then doing sweet F.A. all about Doctor Who afterwards!

But then, perhaps that's down to the unique way in which they're funded?

The Master decides that anything the Doctor can do, he can do better, so gets a new visage himself in the form of Eric Roberts and sets out to wreak havoc on the world by ensuring its demise on the stroke of midnight, just when the rest of us should be having the piss-up of our lives. What a spoilsport!

Overall, this one-off was a rather nonsensical Americanised, over-hyped and over-produced affair, seeming more like a parody of itself than attempting to continue an existing genre and one wonders whether the BBC were contractually forced to have a hand in it given that absolutely nothing came afterwards.

I'm not sure if this 12-certificate version has been censored as badly as the original video release in 1996, given that that suffered cuts of one minute and six seconds, mainly for violence and gunshots since it was released in the same year as the Dunblane tragedy and the politically-correct brigade were still out and about. Comparing the running time on the BBFC site with this it looks uncut now, but there's no update on their site for this release and the director states on the commentary track that we're now watching the full version as shown on American TV (later cut for the BBC screening). The original version did have even more gunshots, but those were edited out by the director after he was asked to tone it down and he agreed he'd gone a bit too far.

Street punks kill off Doctor Who...
...something the BBC have wanted to do for years.

Picture-wise, this DVD is fine, but then you'd expect that given that it's only a five-year-old print. It's presented in the original 4:3 aspect ratio with no artifacts present and the average bitrate is 7.19Mb/s, but varies wildly throughout.

The soundtrack is plain Dolby Stereo, with precious little going on in the rears. What's there is clear enough, but why didn't anyone go to the trouble of remastering it in Dolby Digital 5.1 or even DTS?

First up in the extras are two 30-second-or-so Trailers for the original BBC1 broadcast and a 4-minute Fox promo for when it was shown in the US. It's a mini-featurette that mixes in film clips with soundbites from the cast and the obligatory deep-voiced voiceover.

The Interviews section gives a couple of minutes over to each of the main cast members, as well as executive producer Philip Segal and director Geoffrey Sax, for soundbites, some of which were used in the aforementioned Fox promo. There's an extra 9-minute segment recorded in February 2001 by Segal in which he rather optimistically states that he looks forward to seeing more of the Doctor.

An Isolated Music Score from composer John Debney is an option as is the chance to listen to four music excerpts: "In a Dream" by Pat Hodge, the full version of the track played on the Doctor's gramophone in the Tardis, the rock track "Ride into the Moonlight" played on the Hospital's New Year party, "All Dressed Up" which was played in the morgue and a traditional version of "Auld Lang Syne", recorded for the final scenes, but not used.

The Photo Gallery contains 49 on-set production stills and the Information Text is a third set of subtitles that provides extra info about the programme as it runs. The Behind the scenes compilation is 5 minutes of on-set B-roll footage showing work in progress and the cast generally hanging about.

Philip Segal tours the Tardis set for 2½ minutes talking about what went into creating it. Two Alternate Scenes are included - an extension of Grace and the Doctor with the motorcycle cop and an earlier version of the pair in the hospital lift. Finally comes the feature-length Director's Commentary which also includes its own subtitles.

There are 24 chapters spread throughout the 86-minute film which is fine. The language and subtitles are in English, while the menus contain suitable animation and sound in film clips.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

The following is a list of all the Doctor Who DVDs reviewed to date :