Commentary Highlights:

Probably a couple of Colin Baker’s anecdotes, but this commentary is a queer fish for reasons I’ll go into later.

-Lords and Luddites, in which cast and production staff share their recollections

-Deleted Scenes, almost ten minutes’ worth of additional material from the first episode

-Now and Then, featuring changes and developments at the Blists Hill location

-Playing with Time, in which Jonathan Gibbs talks about scoring the story

-Blue Peter, an extract in which Peter Purves explores Blists Hill and Ironbridge’s place in the history of the Industrial Revolution

-Saturday Superstore, featuring an appearance by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant with a Frasier-esque mystery caller

-Alternative Soundtrack, being the opportunity to listen to Part One with John Lewis’s original score

-Isolated Music Score

It’ll never be up there at the top of any of the polls, but even if it’s nobody’s favourite, there’s something about ‘The Mark of the Rani’ which makes it hard to actively dislike- it sits in Colin Baker’s only full-length season in the company of the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Second Doctor and the Sontarans and yet still manages to feel more like a conventional Doctor Who story than any of its contemporaries. Bringing it to DVD has the advantage of being able to set the story in among its natural fellows, the more traditional stories of the 1970s, while taking advantage of the availability of additional items of material for extras, and it has to be said that the extras package is especially generous for a story which doesn’t perhaps command the greatest following. On the surface, a lot of the extras suggest themselves- Colin Baker’s willingness to make himself available for recording commentaries and additional material set an example for the other Doctors to follow, while going back to Blists Hill was also something of a no-brainer, but there are other stories to be told.

The commentary, however, feels slightly odd- while of course it’s a coup to get Kate O’Mara into the commentary box, there’s a certain awkwardness as if the ice doesn’t get properly broken for an hour or so and it’s difficult not to wonder whether we might not have had a more entertaining commentary if Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant hadn’t been left to their own devices. More participants join in for ‘Lords and Luddites’, though- the two-headed Pipandjane, script editor Eric Saward, actor Gary Cady wearing the additional two decades particularly well, and composer Jonathan Gibbs. It’s an interesting mix and everybody has something to say, although it’s also telling to hear the Bakers and Eric Saward telling more or less the same story with subtle differences on occasion, and again with Gary Cady there’s a sense that we’re fortunate to have somebody whose career has moved on since 1985 returning to share their experiences of making the story. It’s perhaps a slight exaggeration to claim that there are nearly ten minutes of deleted scenes as it would be nearer the mark to say that there are ten minutes of extended and deleted scenes, and the extended scenes are blended with the material which made it into the final programme. The main item of interest is a shot of the Luddites pushing the TARDIS along the road, where the camera continues to pan as the cart passes to reveal that the burly miners towards the front are being helped by some equally burly BBC staff pushing from behind, although it’s easy to see why the early TARDIS scene with the Doctor and Peri was dropped as it’s particularly awkward.

The ‘Now and Then’ feature is particularly interesting because it shows how the Blists Hill site isn’t preserved in aspic- the Rani’s bath house has had windows put in, while a landslide apparently accounted for the tavern building. It’s accompanied by a Blue Peter feature which must have taken up half that particular instalment and which takes Peter Purves to the site as it was in the late 1970s- lots of moodily-lit steam engines and pride in every cog and piston, as somebody once said. The Blue Peter item is particularly important, however, because one of the production staff was one Sarah Hellings, who evidently remembered the site in her later directorial incarnation when the time came. Music is also an important element of the extras- there’s the option to view the first episode with what was completed of John Lewis’s score, although it’s somewhat spare and unsubtle and feels a bit like an early 1970s score stuck onto a later story, and an interview with Jonathan Gibbs which is interesting without being too technical and at ten minutes about the right length. Presumably more of the Saturday Superstore material will appear elsewhere as what we get here is little more than Anthony Ainley’s call to the programme- Nicola Bryant is wearing her ‘Twin Dilemma’ costume, which is a bit of a giveaway that there are other elements which belong elsewhere.

It’s a very good package overall, then, with a lot of interesting nuggets hidden away on the disc to give an insight into how the story came to be. The commentary could be a little more engaging, but does the best it can in the absence of the story’s producer, director and Special Guest Villain, while there’s a real sense of the story being grounded in its setting and location too. I can’t really imagine that it’s going to change anybody’s opinion of ‘The Mark of the Rani’, but at the same time it’s put together well and gives a good account of the tale.