Commentary Highlights:

Nothing in particular, but the various combinations of Verity Lambert, Waris Hussein, William Russell and Carole Ann Ford all work well.

I Didn’t Know That Before I Read The Information Text:

The sets for the first episode having to be reconstructed from scratch because they’d nearly all been broken up after the recording of the pilot- that was a new one on me.

- Pilot Episode, with both versions of the second half after the recording break and also edited down to a 25-minute version of what presumably would have gone out if Sydney Newman had liked it.

-Theme Music Video- various elements from title sequence tests and so on forming a backdrop to the original version of the theme music

-Comedy Sketches, being the three Gatiss/Walliams sketches from Doctor Who Night plus the Corridor Sketch, whose origins appear to be with Reeltime Pictures in the early 1990s.

-Photo Gallery

Disc 2 - The Daleks

Commentary Highlights:

Nothing to do with Doctor Who, but it’s interesting to hear Verity Lambert and Christopher Barry’s recollections of learning about the Kennedy assassination as ‘The Survivors’ was about to begin recording.

I Didn’t Know That Before I Read The Information Text:

Mervyn Pinfield’s original idea was that the Daleks could be realised using large cardboard tubes painted silver- fortunately for Character Options the Blue Peter option wasn’t pursued.

-Creation of the Daleks, in which a number of participants from different areas of the creative process discuss how the Daleks came to be quite as they were

-Photo Gallery

Disc 3 - The Edge of Destruction

Commentary Highlights:

For the first time since ‘The Five Doctors’, there isn’t one.

The idea of the two-episode filler being written because the sets for ‘Marco Polo’ weren’t ready appears to have originated with Jacqueline Hill, although based on the interviews elsewhere on the disc, some of the cast still believe it to this day.

-Doctor Who: Origins, a 55-minute documentary going through much of the original documentation relating to the series’ birth pangs

-Over the Edge, in which Verity Lambert, Richard Martin, Frank Cox, Raymond Cusick, William Russell and Carole Ann Ford recall making the story

-Inside the Spaceship, a look at the realisation of the TARDIS from the original concept and design

-Masters of Sound, an extended and updated edit of material recorded for a 1993 documentary taking story of the Radiophonic Workshop and its involvement with Doctor Who from 1963 to its closure in 1998

-Marco Polo, nothing less than a condensed version of the fourth story in 30 minutes with the aid of the soundtrack and telesnaps

-PDF documents

For the enthusiastic Doctor Who DVD purchaser, 2006 began with the release of a project which had been mooted for some time but never quite realised, namely the first thirteen episodes over three discs. Some years before a similar set had been proposed and prepared for VHS but never quite somehow come to be, the tapes eventually being released separately. But in the first of what eventually would become a habitual way of starting the new year, the people behind the discs decided to treat the buying public to a set of three stories which- appropriately enough given the series’ relaunch in 2005- take things back to 1963 and murky beginnings in 405-line monochrome. I did admittedly dither for a while as to whether to review the discs separately or as a whole, but as will become apparent, the commentaries and other extras are scattered around the set in a way which emphasises the unity of the first three stories. There are, after all, only so many forty-year-old memories to be teased out of septuagenarian and octogenarian minds, and it probably wouldn’t be fair to sit William Russell, Verity Lambert and Carole Ann Ford together to watch the full thirteen episodes plus pilot and expect them to come up with six hours of scintillating commentary. There are (or were, however), numerous personnel available from both sides of the camera available to contribute, even if only a couple of pithy and apposite sentences- not only Lambert and the surviving regulars but directors Waris Hussein, Richard Martin and Christopher Barry, designer Raymond Cusick, sound boffin Brian Hodgson and David Graham and Michael Summerton on the two halves of the Dalek experience.

As might be expected, ‘An Unearthly Child’ gets the red carpet treatment; not only the four restored episodes of the transmitted story, but the "pilot" (as Gary Russell points out, the BBC in 1963 didn’t really do pilots, but it sounds a lot more professional than "first go") and a second version of the pilot material edited down to a 25-minute version to give an impression of what the first episode might have looked like if Sydney Newman hadn’t insisted on some changes. The theme music video is a nice idea and a clever way of using the existing title sequence test footage, while the photo gallery doesn’t really have any real surprises. Comedy sketches in the Doctor Who DVDs are always a controversial area, but then again the Doctor Who Night sketches have the distinct advantage of being the creations of recognised comedy writers and performers Mark Gatiss and David Walliams, both of whom can be relied upon to have a certain affection for the series- and let it not be forgotten that the sketches were at least considered broadcastable on BBC2. The most entertaining is probably ‘The Pitch of Fear’, which takes as its basic conceit the idea of Doctor Who’s original 26-year run being pitched all at one go in 1963, although it’s worth noting that a couple of cheap jokes at the expense of the later Doctors have been removed. The reasons are understandable- Mark Gatiss and David Walliams enjoyed a lot of success between 1999 and 2006, as a result of which they may well have achieved more fame and wealth than the actors they were originally mocking, and it would have been a lapse of taste on the part of the DVD range to include jokes of that level made about people who had contributed generously to the various extras. ‘The Web of Caves’ and ‘The Kidnappers’ depend more on a knowledge of how the series played out and some of the stranger excesses of fandom, while ‘The Corridor Sketch’ was a bit of a novelty to me- I’m not sure of its pedigree, but the Reeltime Pictures 1991 credit suggests that it derived from one or other of their tapes; it’s more of an extended in-joke which depends on knowing a certain amount about the early days of the series, while there’s also an element of fun to be had in spotting a couple of fan celebrities.

By comparison, ‘The Daleks’ has quite a lean collection of extras, presumably in part to allow the seven episodes to fit onto one disc. ‘Creation of the Daleks’ isn’t the most imaginative or radical retelling of the origin of the creatures, but it’s a straightforward and uncomplicated account which uses archive footage of Sydney Newman as well as contributions by Verity Lambert, Richard Martin, Raymond Cusick, Brian Hodgson, David Graham and Michael Summerton all having different things to say about their involvement in the creation of the Dalek phenomenon. Commentary is limited to three salient episodes- the second, fourth and seventh- in different combinations which allow all the participants their say, and while there aren’t many serious revelations, it’s entertaining and Gary Russell’s moderation helps the conversation to flow freely without resorting to obvious questions like "what was William Hartnell like to work with?", even if the disc as a whole seems slightly underwhelming by comparison.

In contrast, the selection of extras on ‘The Edge of Destruction’ makes good use of the extra space afforded by the shorter story length. There’s no commentary, which is fair enough given that there’s also a "making of" feature and the main players involved would only be repeating the same anecdotes, however the two main extras on the disc are ‘Doctor Who-Origins’, being an extensive and exceptionally well-researched account of the series’ genesis and going back to the BBC documentation, not to mention an archive interview with Sydney Newman. It’s curious how the dynamic firebrand producer seems to have turned into a mild-mannered, avuncular fellow in later life, but still having Newman on record talking about the origins of Doctor Who is important and shouldn’t be sniffed at. The other important extra is ‘Marco Polo’, nothing less than a reconstruction of the lost classic condensed into half an hour with the aid of a set of telesnaps. The presentation is absolutely first-class; the story has been recreated so that it doesn’t feel as if anything is missing or needs explaining, while keeping a sense of the impressive visuals, set design and costumes as well as the impression of an epic journey. At several points across the set, the DVDs are at pains to point out that Doctor Who was originally commissioned only up to the end of ‘Marco Polo’, so there’s a certain unity to the first four stories, and having the fourth serial represented only adds to the set.

The ‘Masters of Sound’ feature is also interesting to have- in one sense it’s not only a record of how the likes of Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire set about creating a sound universe for Doctor Who but a snapshot of the Radiophonic Workshop in the early 1990s, a few years before the realities of modern production techniques rendered it surplus to requirements- while it’s sad to see empty studios, the working atmosphere between Hodgson, Derbyshire and Dick Mills comes across well and there’s a real sense of these people as a unit who worked together for decades. Equally it’s a shame that we might not hear anything more from Delia Derbyshire depending on how many interviews she gave- she does come across as feeling strongly about her work and her involvement with the Doctor Who theme. The remaining documentaries, ‘Over the Edge’ (covering the making of the story) and ‘Inside the Spaceship’, which takes its subject matter from the conception and realisation of the TARDIS, are rather different in style and approach- the emphasis is a bit less on the research and more on making connections with the 2005 series, with clips from ‘The Parting of the Ways’, and the style is a bit more contemporary with computer-generated backgrounds to keep everything visually interesting. Perhaps the idea was to take a cue from Doctor Who Confidential’s style of presentation, which in retrospect may have been a sensible idea given that the set was hitting the shelves shortly after the Eccleston series and might have reawakened interest in the series’ very earliest beginnings, and to be fair they’re almost certainly more accessible for non-expert fans than an hour or so of greybeards wittering on about Donald Baverstock.

If it’s been a conscious decision to review the contents of this set en bloc, it’s also been a long job taking in parts of four weekends- which gives you some idea of the amount and quality of material involved. Overall, it simply can’t be faulted- there are imbalances here and there, and the odd instance of enthusiasm overtaking necessity, but it’s a good balance and it’s almost certainly the last word on Doctor Who’s earliest instalments. Certainly Verity Lambert’s input can probably best be desribed as timely if not irreplaceable, and to have the level of input from Waris Hussein, Richard Martin and Christopher Barry as well as the surviving regulars and Dalek operators means that the available resources for commentaries and documentaries are marshalled very well. The set as a whole certainly does justice to the first thirteen episodes and yet again only goes to show what can be achieved when a wide range of production personnel are available to contribute from different areas of creativity. In fact, appearing on the shelves as it did not long after "The Complete First Series" of the revived Who, it does an excellent job of bringing new life to the series’ real beginnings.