The Doctor Who Collection

The Doctor Who Collection
by Gordon Flemyng

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DVD details

Actor: Andrew Keir, Bernard Cribbins, Peter Cushing, Ray Brooks, Roberta Tovey
Director: Gordon Flemyng
Producer: Joe Vegoda
Producer: Max Rosenberg
Producer: Milton Subotsky
Writer: Milton Subotsky
Writer: David Whitaker
Writer: Sydney Newman
Writer: Terry Nation
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 224 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-11-20
Studio: Continental Distributing

DVD Reviews of The Doctor Who Collection

DVD Review: Daleks, Peter Cushing and Dalekmania
Summary: 4 Stars

Terry Nation, who came up with the fictional race called the Daleks, wanted to make money. Without his greed and the wave of fandom that rocked the UK at the time the Doctor Who? TV series came out we would have never had the Daleks on the big screen. This two movies, plus the DVD documentary is a must for any fans of the Doctor, the Daleks, or Peter Cushing. Dr. Who and the Daleks even has a audio commentary. This is the first time many fans saw the Daleks in bright, shiny, color. Even if you have the movies on tape you still may wish to pick this set up and give the tapes away!

DVD Review: Not essential Who viewing.
Summary: 3 Stars

The difficulty I had with these films is they seem only to exist in order to capitalise on the Dalek legend. Peter Cushing was never an actual, "Dr Who" in the many TV series incarnations he had, that fact makes these film suffer instantly. Most Who fans have recollections of one of the Dr's incarnations as a favourite, My own favourite was the whackily sublime Tom Baker who series also featured the robot assistant dog, K9.
One has to have some memory or notion of each Dr Who's foibles to make his incarnation believable, Cushing only played him in these 2 films and lives in many people's memories as a long time actor in the Hammer Horror genre. There isn't much else to help you recognise the series here either, the assistants are different and there is just a little too much obvious comedy on offer. You may have giggled at silly monsters and wobbly sets but Dr Who was also a serious business!
The main thing that gave Dr Who his enduring appeal was Sci Fi with a dry and whacky flirtation with British dottiness.
These films spell that dottiness out too much and loose an essential component of what makes Dr Who appeling as a result, Cushing is most like Hartnell but is too enrgetic and frivalous to carry it off, he's more like a witch finder general as he was in "Twins of Evil"; Dr Who needs some refinement and Cushing doesn't give him much.
The assistants are whacky "Scooby Doo" style detective kids - wrong again! I think the films tried to "Americanise" the Dr for more mass appeal, failing to realise in so doing that American fans like him the way he was on TV.
On the plus side the Daleks do not dissapoint in their menace, quite how an electric kitchen bin with a sink plunger snout can be so scarry I don't know, but they are!
Die hard fans should peel their eyes soon, The BBC is riviving the good Dr, a new series is set air in the UK on the 26th March 2005; the first for 16 years! This time played by Christopher Eccleston who you may remember as Nicole Kidman's husband in "The Others".

DVD Review: Buy the 2 movies alone
Summary: 3 Stars

This is one of those instances where the Boxed set falls short of expectaions. While the set comes with a 3rd disc of bonus material "Dalekmania"'s interviews are nice additions - the documentary lacks the feeling and excitement of the interviews included along with the various Television eppisodes. The additional trailers included are entertaining but only as examples of the formulaic trailers of sci fi in the mid 60's.

The movies themselves are really quite good. Vibrant colored Daleks and prety good acting. While the original stories were adapted from 1st Doctor William Hartnell's The Mutants (the Daleks) and Dalek invasion of Earth they are seen on a much grander scale.

Peter Cushing's Doctor Who (as he is referred to in the movies) is a much warmer friendly protrayal. but the compainion characters lack the depth that was created within the series. Like the Sylvester McCoy eppisodes it seems budget used for effects outwieghs character development. The second film Dalek invasion of Earth 2150 ad is very well made and has some great comedic play to it. the Scenes of Tom the cop as a roboman are truly hysterical.

DVD Review: The Doctor Who Collection
Summary: 3 Stars

For both Doctor Who and Peter Cushing fans these films are curiosities(however well made or liked).Released at the time to cash in on DALEKMANIA they were,for some time,the only example of early Doctor Who available to American TV viewers.Their success no doubt convinced the BBC(back in 1966)that the programme's audience would accept a different actor portraying the title character which in turn allowed the series to run over 25 years.
My only problem with The Doctor Who Collection is how it's been packaged.A 3-disc boxed set!?!The two films each run less than 85 minutes and could easily fit on a single DVD with room left over for bonus features.The DALEKMANIA disc provides no real insight into the series/movies/actors or monsters and was made several years earlier to promote the VHS release!
Anchor Bay no doubt thought Doctor Who/Peter Cushing fans could be milked for this release which smacks of greed and contempt.I have no doubt with the advent of DVD-ripping technology bootlegs will abound.More power to them

DVD Review: daleks rule!
Summary: 5 Stars

I love these movies and this is a great way to watch em! Peter Cushing is very entertaining as the doctor and it's too bad he only played the part twice. These movies are so sixties it's fantastic! Im a sucker for sci fi which isn't afraid to be fun and the Daleks are such great villans! Both movies entertain and the Dalekmania disc is a nice bonus.
By the way, who is Mary Tamm? She's not in these movies.

Description of The Doctor Who Collection

Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 11/20/2001

In the mid-1960s, with Dalekmania sweeping Britain, BBC TV's Doctor Who materialized on the silver screen. Doctor Who and the Daleks replaced William Hartnell with Peter Cushing and remade the Daleks' TV debut with a much bigger budget in Technicolor and Techniscope. With his two granddaughters, Roberta Tovey and Jennie Linden (and Roy Castle along for comic relief), the Doctor becomes an intermediary in a conflict between the robotic Daleks and angelic Thals on the almost-dead world of Skaro. A huge hit on release, the film remains an enjoyable, well-produced family adventure, though somewhat lacking the menace of the TV original.

Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. remakes the second Dalek TV serial and finds the Doctor and companions in a ravaged future London where a resistance movement has literally gone underground to fight the Nazi-like alien invaders. Peter Cushing once more makes a kindly, dependable Doctor, though Bernard Cribbins is given a cringe-making comedy routine impersonating a "roboman," and the jazzy soundtrack is wildly out of place. Nevertheless this is a superior sequel, offering lavish production values, better action set pieces, and a higher suspense and fear factor than its predecessor. The best moments remain surprisingly chilling even today.

The three-DVD set includes Dalekmania, a fun, very well made 1995 documentary running 57 minutes and recounting the production of both feature films. Included are interviews with various surviving cast members. Doctor Who and the Daleks--the first disc--has an affectionate commentary track with Roberta Tovey and Jennie Linden, hosted by Jonathan Southcote, author of The Cult Films of Peter Cushing. Sadly Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. has no substantial extra features, but both films include the respective trailer presented anamorphically enhanced and a DVD-ROM reproduction of the relevant movie brochure. The mono sound is good and the sharp, vibrant, anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 transfers are all but flawless, making both films look good as new. --Gary S. Dalkin

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