Doctor Who: The Brain of Morbius (Story 84)
by Christopher Barry
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DVD details
Actor: Elisabeth Sladen, Philip Madoc, Tom BakerDirector: Christopher Barry
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-10-07
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: BBC Worldwide
DVD Reviews of Doctor Who: The Brain of Morbius (Story 84)
DVD Review: "Morbius's brain... on the floor!"
Summary: 5 Stars
I out-and-out love this story. I've taken the typical "Doctor Who" fan's path to this point of view, however. I was riveted at age 11, embarrassed at age 16, and now celebrate it in all its campy glory. When the disembodied brain of Morbius fell onto the floor with an audible "splat!" late in Part Three, I actually cheered.
What's most impressive about the DVD release is the Restoration Team's attitude to the story. Now that the classic series DVDs have been coming out for almost ten years, and the greatest of the great stories have long since been released, and the available remaining stories come from deep in the third tier (and now, with the imminent release of Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday (Episode 118), the fourth tier), it is hard to predict what editorial slant the DVD extra features will take. I've been surprised, for example, by the coldness toward Doctor Who - Black Orchid (Episode 121), and I nodded along to the wistful revelation that Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend just hasn't aged that well at all.
Fortunately, the DVD producers appear to love Morbius, and for roughly the same reasons that I do. They're perhaps a little too enamored of Philip Madoc's Shatner-esque turn as this story's Dr. Frankenstein stand-in, Solon. But everyone loves the dimly heroic Condo, the one-armed manservant standing in for Igor. Even Terrance Dicks, who took his name off the final version of the story, seems to have warmed up to it considerably -- and we know from many other past DVD releases that Uncle Terry isn't shy about picking a fight with a 35 year-old bit of TV history.
All in all, "Brain of Morbius" blends two elements of "Doctor Who" greatness. First, a terrific script by Robert Holmes, full of memorable insults ("That palsied harridan!") and throw-away world building (the lone reference to "the silent gas dirigibles of the Hoothi", which 15 years later was resurrected for Love and War (The New Doctor Who Adventures). And second, there's that fearless 1970's mentality that "We're going to get away with putting a rubber brain in a fishbowl and mounting that on an ill-fitting costume with chicken feathers and an enormous lobster claw".
The only curiosity is that, while the text commentary accurately describes Terrance Dicks' novel-writing career as including the Past Doctor Adventure Warmonger (Doctor Who), the writer curiously fails to mention that it was in fact a prequel to this story. Just as well, however. Unlike this DVD, you might want to give that book a miss.
Description of Doctor Who: The Brain of Morbius (Story 84)
The planet Karn is home both to a mystic Sisterhood, whose sacred flame produces an elixir of life, and to Mehendri Solon, a fanatical scientist who is using the remnants of spaceship crash victims to put together a new body for the still-living brain of the executed Time Lord criminal Morbius. When the Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet, Solon decides that the Doctor's head is just what he needs to complete his work.Bestsellers in DVD
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