-Revelation Exhumed: In which an impressive number of members of the cast and crew contribute to an account of the making of the story

-CGI Effects Off the top of my head I can’t really think of any effects from ‘Revelation’ that would need redoing, but somebody redid it anyway

-In Studio, being selected highlights from a surviving tape of the studio recording. Concerned viewers will be relieved to know that they didn’t really blow William Gaunt’s leg off at the knee just to make the climax look all the more impressive.

- Deleted Scenes three in number, including a rather good Takis/Lilt/Tasambeker character scene

-Optional Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Mix which I’ll be able to tell you about as soon as I can justify spending a small fortune on a television set which gives me the full benefit.

-Music- only option

-Continuity Announcements including a nice selection of 1980s and 1990s BBC1 and BBC2 idents and the cliffhangers and opening titles from the BBC2 four-part repeat

-Photo Gallery

‘Revelation of the Daleks’ is, to my mind at least, the last time that the original run of Doctor Who really pushed the boat out in terms of production values and casting, so it’s encouraging to be able to report that the DVD release reflects this. A well-balanced commentary- Nicola Bryant and Terry Molloy speak for the acting side of things, while writer and script editor Eric Saward (who gets the Laurence Olivier story out of the way quickly) and director Graeme Harper add more from the production side. Equally, the documentary includes footage of Alexei Sayle talking about his role, as well as "respectable" actors like William Gaunt and Clive Swift (probably as well that they recorded the extras before the Coppergate incident) as well as the likes of Trevor Cooper, Hugh Walters and Roy Skelton in fresh interviews. It’s clear, then, that a lot of people who worked on ‘Revelation’ enjoyed making it and are quite happy to talk about it twenty years on, although as an Easter Egg I discovered shows, there was a fringe benefit for some of the actors in re-recording some of their lines for the 5.1 mix. it’s sufficiently impressive, in other words, that you can go through the entire package without really realising until you reach the end that Colin Baker is completely absent from any of the extras apart from the studio footage. This is no doubt due in part to the various tensions with Eric Saward which have been reported over time necessitating a one-or-the-other approach, and it’s logical in the circumstances that given the extent of his contribution as writer and script editor, Saward should take priority for this one release. Sad when others recall Baker saying that ‘Revelation’ was one of the best scripts he’d had to work with, but probably the right decision given the amount that Saward has to say about this particular story.

The commentary is pretty much ideal- there’s a balance between different points of view and experiences and all four participants get along well, Eric Saward’s details about the origin of the story and what he was trying to achieve being nicely balanced by Graeme Harper and Nicola Bryant’s enthusiasm and sense of fun. ‘Revelation Exhumed’ also has a lot of participants; some of the behind-the-scenes people have interesting things to say, so there are contributions on subjects like model work, set and costume design as well as opinions of actors like William Gaunt and Clive Swift whose presence on a Doctor Who DVD feature adds to the sense of the producers having done as well to get them contributing as the production team of 1985 did to hire them in the first place, and the interviews generally give the impression that they accepted their roles because of the quality of the script and enjoyed the production process. The studio footage has a few interesting moments, not least a few scenes from the climax where Orcini and Bostock destroy the fake Davros- we get to see the destruction of the Great Healer sans video effects but also William Gaunt’s leg strapped up behind the knee, among other things- as well as a younger Graeme Harper directing from the floor. Of the deleted scenes- one of which is actually an extended version of the extermination of the DJ- the delight is a character scene between Tasambeker, Takis and Lilt; one of the best features of the script is the network of relationships between the Tranquil Repose staff, and this particular scene has Takis showing up Tasambeker’s lack of authority to great effect. The continuity announcements are also worth a visit; the BBC2 idents are a nice reminder of a time in the early to mid-1990s when the channel usually had something worth watching at 6pm, but it’s also interesting to see the titles from the four-part version put together for export with the lettering in a different font.

Overall, then, there’s lots to enjoy, and it has to be said that you don’t really miss Colin Baker that much- the amount that Eric Saward has to say means that if it did come down to one or the other, the right choice was made because we learn so much more about what Saward was trying to achieve than if we’d been left to rely on quotes from other interviews. There really isn’t anything which leaves the viewer thinking "if only they’d done that"; it genuinely does feel like a comprehensive account of ‘Revelation of the Daleks’, and for somebody who watched the original transmission, it’s particularly enjoyable to be able to take everything in without the distraction of the off-screen drama affecting Doctor Who at the time.