Commentary Highlights:

Probably Michael Sheard’s enthusiasm on what will presumably be his only commentary; Paddy Russell seems to have recorded about half a dozen short comments on particular scenes which are fed in separately.

Osirian Gothic - about 25 minutes of reminiscences from cast (Elisabeth Sladen, Michael Sheard, Bernard Archard and Peter Copley) and crew (Philip Hinchcliffe, Paddy Russell and designer Christine Ruscoe).

Serial Thrillers - a 45-minute documentary in which anybody who’s anybody offers their fourpennyworth as to why the Hinchcliffe era is still considered so good.

Now and Then - Michael Sheard narrates a short tour of the Stargrove Estate, showing what has and hasn’t changed in the three decades since ‘Pyramids’ was filmed. Includes a snippet of Jon Culshaw’s Tom Baker impression.

Oh Mummy! - A bit of light relief, featuring Sutekh’s career before and after Doctor Who.

Deleted Scenes- About two minutes’ worth including captions, taken from several points in the story.

Photo Gallery - Another generous selection running to nearly ten minutes, including a guest appearance by Peter Grimwade.

In hindsight, the decision to bring ‘Pyramids of Mars’ out in 2004 turns out to have been a particularly fortunate bit of timing, as it’s sad to reflect that five years on from its release, three of the cast members are no longer with us- but as Elisabeth Sladen remarks on the commentary that she was given a TARDIS key as a souvenir in case she ever wanted to come back to Who, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it captures a particular point in time. Considering that the story had been available on VHS since 1985, a major challenge for the team behind the DVD releases was the familiarity- or even the over-familiarity- of the episodes themselves, and so the extras package becomes even more important. What we have is a good balance between a discussion of the story itself (Osiran Gothic), its context (Serial Thrillers) and a comedy piece which derives much of its humour from the very familiarity of the scripts.

To begin with Osiran Gothic, while in many ways it’s a standard compilation of talking heads, clips and still photos, nonetheless ‘Pyramids’ was very fortunate at the time in having most of its major cast members still alive, and although Messrs Sheard, Archard and Copley are all clearly of quite an advanced age, all are lucid and have interesting things to say. Serial Thrillers perhaps doesn’t have quite so much to say that the average viewer of Doctor Who DVDs doesn’t know already, but it’s an engaging overview of the Hinchcliffe era with additional comments from David Maloney and Roger Murray-Leach which were presumably recorded at the same time as the ‘Talons’ extras. To be fair to the man himself, Hinchcliffe is nearly always the first to point out many of the failings of the stories which he produced and admits that in hindsight he probably should have reined Robert Holmes in a bit more, and the fans-turned-professionals who are interviewed do give a balanced view of where the series might have gone just a bit too far under Hinchcliffe’s tenure, but it would also be a good way in to the era for new viewers or those with a sketchy feel for the series’ history.

A comedy short is certainly a brave and potentially controversial thing to attempt on a Doctor Who DVD, but I think Oh Mummy! pulls it off for two main reasons. Firstly, Gabriel Woolf voices Sutekh- if there’s one part of Osirian Gothic which is unsettling, it’s seeing Woolf out of costume using that voice in normal conversation- and keeps the character himself deadpan, and secondly many of the jokes are based around the familiarity that many of the watching fans will have with the scripts of ‘Pyramids of Mars’. So the idea of Sutekh in panto shredding the mind of Widow Twankey or turning up on your doorstep giving you Sutekh’s gift of milk is really quite funny, as is the dreadfully corny punchline of the business with Neil the Rabbit. The Now and Then item is interesting mainly because it enables you to see just what has and hasn’t changed in 28 years since the location work was filmed, although using the Heathcliff Blair reconstruction of Dudley Simpson’s score does make it rather obvious that this isn’t included as a separate track. The deleted scenes include the shot of the TARDIS on devastated 1980 Earth which most people know about, but also some bits from Part Four where several mixes weren’t good enough so had to be cut and an alternative take of Clements being chased by the mummies, evidently dropped because Clements hares out of sight while the mummies struggle to make ten yards, while the best bits of the Photo Gallery are probably the shots taken on the Martian sets with CSO backdrops which change the look quite radically.

It must be daunting to be tasked with putting together an extras package for a story like ‘Pyramids of Mars’, in the knowledge that with a popular and highly-regarded story, your extras are likely to be seen by more people and also need to say something new about a story that people have had the best part of twenty years to know inside out. I think it’s fair to say that what we have manages that very well- we’re fortunate that Peter Copley, Bernard Archard and Michael Sheard committed their recollections to video in what turned out to be the last few years of their lives, but collectively the extras combine a wide range of interviews, research and original work. In the circumstances, then, it’s hardly controversial to say that although the extras don’t perhaps bring very much new to our understanding of the story, they certainly complement the televised episodes very well.