The Reign of Terror

Compared with selling the other videos in the Sensorites boxed set, I had a much more mercenary – some might say down right capitalist – moment with the Reign of Terror. It was I think the last Doctor Who video released and this was played up as a bit of a big deal even though the DVD releases were well under way and people had stopped buying videos unless they absolutely had to or were old. I dutifully got my boxed set on or around the day of release like the well conditioned fan I am. Then the online murmurs started that this was becoming one of those rare titles everyone dreams about owning several copies of. I paid little attention to the news because I only had the one copy and this was before DVD recorders let you back things up for your own personal use and absolutely nothing else. Then I happened to be in Leeds one day and found a still-sealed copy of the Reign of Terror for £19.99. Hold hard, I didn’t say, I’ll have that. The same day I sold it online for £49.99. Not a bad bit of business.

Despite the warm glow of spivvy cash in my mental pocket, I finally finished the Reign of Terror… drum roll please… two months ago as I write this in May of 2008. And that was the audio CD. I have the serial on video, I have the recon, I even have a DVD version for personal use only which includes the best of both worlds and would let me watch the entire story from end to end. And yet I have never done so. I’m starting to sound like someone who hates the historicals and I’m really not. I just found the R of T to be a bit dull. The CDs passed a pleasant two and a half hours in traffic and I’m not against digging out the DVD (which is probably unplayable now if rumours about the fragility of DVD-Rs are anything to go by) but I just can’t be arsed. There was nothing on the CD which made me think I wanted to see pictures.

Planet of Giants

Planet of Giants was another Saturday morning job, though thankfully it started later than its longer comrades - the end time was fixed so the start time was flexible. I’ve not watched it since. Certainly not all the way through. I've got the video and might've started it but never got anywhere near the modern-day, run of the mill, sub-Avengers plot about pesticides and other scientific miracles of the age. Despite them pulling off a really rather remarkable feat of set design and effects, I can’t think of anything which interests me about this story save the amazing fact that they edited together the last two episodes to make one better episode. I can’t fathom how bad those two episodes must’ve been for them to have been chopped up and stuck together again. I mean, the BBC had paid for them. It goes against all the known laws of physics. I'd watch a featurette on that when the serial comes out on DVD. The rest will probably gather metaphorical dust.

The Dalek’s Invasion of Earth

I was terrified of the Dalek’s Invasion of Earth as a child. It was the cover of the novelisation with the scary looking Roboman that did it. I mean look at it - that Roboman is so scary that even the inflatable Dalek spaceship can't make this a cuddly cover. Nor can a Dalek who has clearly eaten a well known brand of dumbed down porridge.

I got a copy from a second hand book shop in Conwy or Llandudno or Betws y Coed or somewhere equally Welsh and it coloured my judgement for years. Neither the film nor the serial are anything like as horrible as that cover. I’m still not entirely happy looking at it right now. That holiday in North Wales is linked forever in my mind with that book and the Eurythmics’ song “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)”. And so, by extension, the Dalek Invasion of Earth always reminds me of that song. And my fear. It’s a ménage a trois.

Because the film was always on TV I saw it quite a lot once I’d sort-of overcome my fear. Or hidden the book. Or realised that the whole thing is played for laughs. Whichever it was I watched bits of the film whenever it was on. I remember watching one Saturday morning showing on my first ever bedroom television. This was the old TV from downstairs and the green bit of the tube had gone so everything was a funny colour. It was probably very unhealthy to watch with just the red and blue trying to make every colour of the rainbow but it was my first telly and it was more exciting than words can describe. There is also a weird kinkiness about the PVC clad robo-slaves which the younger me didn’t understand at all. It was a long time before things fell into place and I started to get it.

It was another Sunday morning omnibus which finally let me see the original version. These days of course I prefer the real thing – somehow the film manages to be 40% as long but still contains huge amounts of padding – but on first viewing it is a little slow. Weird as it sounds, the omnibus format really did make things drag. You would think that UK Gold’s sensible placing of adverts between what we know to be the individual episodes would break the story up nicely. But five minutes of adverts just doesn’t chunk it up as effectively as titles and credits which only last a third as long. One last point about Robomen – the film gets the look right but the voices wrong while the serial gets the voices right but the look wrong.

The Dalek Invasion of Earth was also the first Doctor Who video I ever bought from Amazon.com. The UK release had long since been deleted and was proving difficult to get so I bought it from America and it has sat in its cardboard box ever since. The DVD release happened not that long after and it now lives – as it has for most of its time – in the tin box which originally housed Attack of the Cybermen and The Tenth Planet.