Doctor Who: The Beginning (An Unearthy Child / The Daleks / The Edge of Destruction)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill, William Hartnell, William RussellBrand: Warner Brothers
Producer: Verity Lambert
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Box set, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 311 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-03-24
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E2489
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- The Doctor is a renegade Time Lord: an eccentric, highly-intelligent scientist from a distant planet. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS, a curious device, larger on the inside than on the outside, which was designed to change its appearance to suit its surroundings. Unfortunately, the Doctor's TARDIS seems to be broken, and always appears as a blue British police box. The Doctor
Movie Reviews of Doctor Who: The Beginning (An Unearthy Child / The Daleks / The Edge of Destruction)
Movie Review: Back to where it all began.
Summary: 5 Stars
With Doctor Who back on our screens after a long rest, it's highly appropriate that BBC Video have taken the opportunity to remind everyone where it all started with this DVD package. However, if you've fallen under the spell of Christopher Eccleston & David Tennant's portrayals of the mysterious Time Lord in the new adventures, you may find the roots of the long running show a little bit on the dull side! It certainly serves as a reminder as to how TV production has changed in forty plus years!
The Beginning Collection takes us all the way back to November 1963 when Doctor Who first aired on Britain's BBC TV in its traditional Saturday evening slot. This set of three discs (in two cases) brings the first four stories from the show's forty-two year history back to life and explains the origins of the format that led to the world's longest running sci-fi TV show.
Not that it was all sci-fi based. The first story - An Unearthly Child aka The Tribe of Gum otherwise aka 100,000 BC - features the original crew of the TARDIS going back into ancient Earth history to deal with a tribe of cavemen desperate to rediscover the secret of fire. But that was always the intention of the show; to educate as well as to entertain and for the first four years of it's life, the stories regularly took the time travelers back in time as well as way into the future and into other worlds. The second story - The Daleks aka The Mutants - was the first story to be set in outer space on an alien world and was the kick start to the ratings phenomena that lasted for twenty six years; introducing the evil Dalek race who in many ways became as popular in their own right as the Doctor himself. The third installment is the two part adventure featuring only the original four-handed cast and set entirely within the Doctor's space and time machine - The TARDIS - variously known as Inside the Spaceship, The Edge of Destruction and Beyond the Sun. Alas, the fourth installment in the show's history, an adventure featuring Marco Polo's trek across Cathay, has long been wiped from the video archives. Thankfully, the soundtrack still exists, as do many still photographs, and the disc producers have put together a montage of the two to recreate a thirty minute version of the story on these discs. In view of the systematic wiping of tapes carried out by the BBC in the 1970's, this recreation is probably the closest we'll ever come to the real thing.
Indeed, as almost always with the Doctor Who releases, it's the extras and the restoration work that makes these discs so worthwhile. The two surviving members of the original cast, Carole Ann Ford and William Russell Enoch (who played the Doctor's grand-daughter Susan and her science teacher Ian Chesterton) both have come together once more to provide fascinating commentary on several of the episodes, along with the show's original producer Verity Lambert and directors' Waris Hussein, Christopher Barry and Richard Martin. Despite how long ago it all took place, their memories are quite sharp and very clear, although they only commentate on selected episodes, thus avoiding any embarrassing silence as the thoughts dry up! There are several documentaries regarding the creation of the show, the original design elements, music, special sound and effects and some comedy sketches from the Little Britain team to enjoy amongst many other special inclusions. Also added is an Arabic soundtrack of episode two of the third story!
Possibly the most interesting `extra' is the inclusion not just of the pilot episode of the show, but also the alternative takes that all miraculously still exist. More than anything, this exceptional look at what `might have been' gives real insight into the creation of Doctor Who and how it developed before being broadcast to the unsuspecting UK audience. The pilot is actually included twice on the disc. Immediately preceding episode one in its `final' format and again separately in its first take with all the alternative filming, narrated by Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein. Overkill perhaps, but worth it for the fans. It's true that all the episodes (including the pilots) have been released on VHS tape in the last decade or so, but here they been meticulously restored, remastered and "VidFired" to bring them back to almost original broadcast quality. Some of the footage in The Daleks isn't quite up to the standard of the other episodes, but that's understandable based on the quality of the remaining tapes.
Just as Christopher Eccleston brings the ninth Doctor to life on US TV and David Tennant begins his reign as the tenth in the UK, it's great to see William Hartnell's original Doctor making its first tentative steps into the TV world. As noted in the commentaries, Hartnell was almost alone in having enormous faith in the show, believing it would run for five years. How wrong can you be?
More Doctor Who: The Beginning (An Unearthy Child / The Daleks / The Edge of Destruction) reviews:
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Summary of Doctor Who: The Beginning (An Unearthy Child / The Daleks / The Edge of Destruction)
The Doctor is a renegade Time Lord: an eccentric, highly-intelligent scientist from a distant planet. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS, a curious device, larger on the inside than on the outside, which was designed to change its appearance to suit its surroundings. Unfortunately, the Doctor's TARDIS seems to be broken, and always appears as a blue British police box. The Doctor has a soft spot for the planet Earth, and often visits there, either to save it from various alien threats or to whisk a choice few inhabitants away to the distant parts of the galaxy to help him fight evil there. The Doctor has many foes, including Daleks (led by Davros), and The Master, another renegade Time Lord. Time Lord biology enables them to regenerate their bodies, and so both the Doctor and the Master appear evolve over the years...Similar DVD Movies
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