Post by hushicho on Sept 3, 2004 0:00:16 GMT -5
Since the hot topic of the moment seems to be the eighties in Doctor Who, what better what to commemorate that than by featuring perhaps one of the most controversial stories, 'Earthshock', in a review? Well, I'm not to that one yet on my comprehensive coverage of the fifth Doctor's stories, but I thought I would review the DVD release that was just put out today and the extras featured on it. I picked it up today while I was out, thinking it wouldn't be released until the 9th! So I was pleased bringing it home, as I'd been eagerly awaiting this one chiefly for its commentary (and not its story -- I've always loathed 'Earthshock'.)
First off, I'm sure you all would like to know how the picture and music holds up. I'm not a big AV geek, so I really couldn't tell you the specifics as to the pixels and the sound (as I also only just have a typical setup, not a home theatre), but it seemed fine to me. It was head and shoulders above the VHS release of course, and most of the video was quite clear except for a few scenes on the freighter, which were bizarrely blurry and aged. I don't remember them being quite like that on the video, but perhaps it was for some reason I missed. Whatever the reason, most of it was amazingly clear, which was also sort of a bad thing. As before I had only seen one or two wobbly set designs, now it was blatantly clear that most if not all of the rocks in the cave...formerly quite convincing...were made of either plastic or polystyrene. Troops jog past huge rocks and jar them out of place, high stalagmites jiggle a bit rudely, and although they were able to be overlooked on television and video before, they are clear as day now. An unfortunate feature of DVD clarity! The sound is very good, and even on the commentary it's very clear and very vivid; you can do the isolated music option as well, even though I never do, and the music for Earthshock is quite good and atmospheric, very well-composed and (for once) an excellent usage of the electronic music that was mandated for 80s Doctor Who.
On to the commentary, the very reason why I so eagerly awaited this DVD! It features the entire fifth Doctor's TARDIS crew for the first time, with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Matthew Waterhouse, and Sarah Sutton. I was particularly hoping for Sarah's part to be good in the commentary because I'm a longtime Nyssa fan. I wasn't entirely satisfied, I have to say; she didn't seem to play a huge part in the commentary, but then again she didn't play a large part in the story either. Matthew, perhaps unsurprisingly, played the smallest part in the commentary of all, and as usual Peter and Janet played the largest parts...really a mirror of the series!
But what they had to say was usually either really very funny or very insightful on the production, giving us a lot more of an idea as to how the production went and what it was like, what their feelings were and are on it, and how they dealt with it. Particularly amusing are Peter's comments on Snyder's demise in part one (and the subsequent 'discovery' of her remains) and the fact that the entire commentary cast misses the 'shocking' appearance of the Cybermen for talking about something else entirely! They also stand still to get the girly screams of the ill-fated crewmembers in recap on part three, and in general the commentary makes the otherwise drudgy story blitz past. It's all very friendly and relaxed, which I think is very good, but there are some times where things get confusing, and it's unfortunate since some of those times rather hint at interesting things but discussion either abruptly shifts or gets convoluted with too many people trying to talk about it. Still, having actors rather than crew involved was a good choice, especially on this episode, as the commentary is much, MUCH more interesting than usual due to no people involved who don't know how to enunciate or how to keep an audience!
On the negative side, the production was obviously very tense and rather unpleasant, as they allude to in the commentary and pretty clearly set out in the 'making of' documentary included that I'll discuss later. Peter Grimwade's poor direction makes itself clear at many, many points, and the actors really didn't enjoy working with him. This is apparent both in the production and the commentary, although Janet Fielding does point out that he was quite approachable...when she wasn't working under him! As usual the topics of JN-T and Eric Saward are rather touchy and are thankfully, for the most part, entirely avoided.
Overall the commentary is really great though, and I find myself wishing that Janet Fielding had been available earlier in the game, to do commentary for 'The Five Doctors' as well! Here, as usual in form, she critiques every bit of fashion faux pas...and indeed there are many in some of the more dated features of 'Earthshock'. Sarah is meek and underspoken as usual but does manage to get in a few pretty interesting lines, Peter's recollections are almost always quite vivid and insightful (and his jokes usually quite savagely funny), and Matthew unfortunately doesn't seem to know how to approach everything, understated as much as Nyssa is. It's weird how very like the series the whole chemistry is. Perhaps they were written to be easy to act, since they're so similar!
The informational text for this one seems rather sparse relating to the actual show, but it does give some interesting tit-bits of trivia surrounding guest stars and such. There isn't a huge inundation of informational text that it overshadows everything else though, like there were on some previous releases; you can watch it with commentary and information text and still concentrate on both pretty well.
Now, as for the other extra features, the Doctor Who 40th Anniversary short with the clips edited together to a peppy new version of the theme was nice, although I had seen it when the actual anniversary celebrations were going on. I am glad to see it included on something though. There was a television programme from the time that discussed the monsters of Doctor Who that was also a very nice inclusion and very welcome, and it's something that many of us probably weren't able to see at the time so it's nice to actually see it. These are, by themselves, very nice extras and very nice to see. There was also the option to see the film footage as it had been cleaned up and clarified, by itself. And of course there's also the option to have new added-in effects rather than the rathed dated ones from the show, which really integrate extremely well with the story. I was extremely impressed at them, and in many ways they work a lot better than the originals. But it also interferes with the commentary because they're watching the original effects and commenting accordingly, so you may want to watch it that way with the commentary and then enjoy the new effects. I am glad that you have the option to watch with or without though, because unlike some certain sci-fi franchises I won't name here, not everyone likes not to have the option to see a story how you originally viewed it!
First off, I'm sure you all would like to know how the picture and music holds up. I'm not a big AV geek, so I really couldn't tell you the specifics as to the pixels and the sound (as I also only just have a typical setup, not a home theatre), but it seemed fine to me. It was head and shoulders above the VHS release of course, and most of the video was quite clear except for a few scenes on the freighter, which were bizarrely blurry and aged. I don't remember them being quite like that on the video, but perhaps it was for some reason I missed. Whatever the reason, most of it was amazingly clear, which was also sort of a bad thing. As before I had only seen one or two wobbly set designs, now it was blatantly clear that most if not all of the rocks in the cave...formerly quite convincing...were made of either plastic or polystyrene. Troops jog past huge rocks and jar them out of place, high stalagmites jiggle a bit rudely, and although they were able to be overlooked on television and video before, they are clear as day now. An unfortunate feature of DVD clarity! The sound is very good, and even on the commentary it's very clear and very vivid; you can do the isolated music option as well, even though I never do, and the music for Earthshock is quite good and atmospheric, very well-composed and (for once) an excellent usage of the electronic music that was mandated for 80s Doctor Who.
On to the commentary, the very reason why I so eagerly awaited this DVD! It features the entire fifth Doctor's TARDIS crew for the first time, with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Matthew Waterhouse, and Sarah Sutton. I was particularly hoping for Sarah's part to be good in the commentary because I'm a longtime Nyssa fan. I wasn't entirely satisfied, I have to say; she didn't seem to play a huge part in the commentary, but then again she didn't play a large part in the story either. Matthew, perhaps unsurprisingly, played the smallest part in the commentary of all, and as usual Peter and Janet played the largest parts...really a mirror of the series!
But what they had to say was usually either really very funny or very insightful on the production, giving us a lot more of an idea as to how the production went and what it was like, what their feelings were and are on it, and how they dealt with it. Particularly amusing are Peter's comments on Snyder's demise in part one (and the subsequent 'discovery' of her remains) and the fact that the entire commentary cast misses the 'shocking' appearance of the Cybermen for talking about something else entirely! They also stand still to get the girly screams of the ill-fated crewmembers in recap on part three, and in general the commentary makes the otherwise drudgy story blitz past. It's all very friendly and relaxed, which I think is very good, but there are some times where things get confusing, and it's unfortunate since some of those times rather hint at interesting things but discussion either abruptly shifts or gets convoluted with too many people trying to talk about it. Still, having actors rather than crew involved was a good choice, especially on this episode, as the commentary is much, MUCH more interesting than usual due to no people involved who don't know how to enunciate or how to keep an audience!
On the negative side, the production was obviously very tense and rather unpleasant, as they allude to in the commentary and pretty clearly set out in the 'making of' documentary included that I'll discuss later. Peter Grimwade's poor direction makes itself clear at many, many points, and the actors really didn't enjoy working with him. This is apparent both in the production and the commentary, although Janet Fielding does point out that he was quite approachable...when she wasn't working under him! As usual the topics of JN-T and Eric Saward are rather touchy and are thankfully, for the most part, entirely avoided.
Overall the commentary is really great though, and I find myself wishing that Janet Fielding had been available earlier in the game, to do commentary for 'The Five Doctors' as well! Here, as usual in form, she critiques every bit of fashion faux pas...and indeed there are many in some of the more dated features of 'Earthshock'. Sarah is meek and underspoken as usual but does manage to get in a few pretty interesting lines, Peter's recollections are almost always quite vivid and insightful (and his jokes usually quite savagely funny), and Matthew unfortunately doesn't seem to know how to approach everything, understated as much as Nyssa is. It's weird how very like the series the whole chemistry is. Perhaps they were written to be easy to act, since they're so similar!
The informational text for this one seems rather sparse relating to the actual show, but it does give some interesting tit-bits of trivia surrounding guest stars and such. There isn't a huge inundation of informational text that it overshadows everything else though, like there were on some previous releases; you can watch it with commentary and information text and still concentrate on both pretty well.
Now, as for the other extra features, the Doctor Who 40th Anniversary short with the clips edited together to a peppy new version of the theme was nice, although I had seen it when the actual anniversary celebrations were going on. I am glad to see it included on something though. There was a television programme from the time that discussed the monsters of Doctor Who that was also a very nice inclusion and very welcome, and it's something that many of us probably weren't able to see at the time so it's nice to actually see it. These are, by themselves, very nice extras and very nice to see. There was also the option to see the film footage as it had been cleaned up and clarified, by itself. And of course there's also the option to have new added-in effects rather than the rathed dated ones from the show, which really integrate extremely well with the story. I was extremely impressed at them, and in many ways they work a lot better than the originals. But it also interferes with the commentary because they're watching the original effects and commenting accordingly, so you may want to watch it that way with the commentary and then enjoy the new effects. I am glad that you have the option to watch with or without though, because unlike some certain sci-fi franchises I won't name here, not everyone likes not to have the option to see a story how you originally viewed it!
