The Rescue and the Romans

The Rescue and the Romans are inevitably linked together like Morecambe and Wise or Saint and Greavsie. It’s a bit odd because none of the other two-parter / proper story sets have suffered the same fate. We don’t automatically link Genesis of the Daleks and the Sontaran Experiment. Nor do the Visitation and Black Orchid have to turn up at dinner parties together lest rumours of infidelity be started within the hour. And yet the Rescue and the Romans are joined at the hip and we can’t quite imagine one being released on DVD without the other. History tells us they will come out separately but our minds cannot process the information. I got my R&R double tape from Stockport’s fashionable HMV. They’ve extended the upstairs quite considerably since then but I reckon I could probably stand within a couple of feet of where I first picked it up. Mother thinks I have a condition. I’ve read a book about it and I don’t think she’s right. That’s what happens when you diagnose mental illness from a Sunday newspaper magazine. So I was standing there, in the middle of picking up another exciting new Doctor Who video cassette when a guy starts talking to me. He was neither scary nor Geordie so I spoke back. Somehow – and I don’t really know how – I ended up defending the BBC’s policy of literally setting fire to old episodes of Doctor Who which they thought no longer worth space on a rack. Since I’ve never felt the BBC did a terribly good thing in saving rack space in this way I’ve never really understood how I came to be playing devil’s advocate. In HMV. With a complete stranger. But these are the risks we take when buying merchandise.

That was the same day I went to the bank and sorted out my student bank account. A momentous day – soon I would no longer have to buy my Doctor Who videos with cash. With a few squiggles of a pen I was given a cheque book and a Barclaycard. I know the first thing I bought with a cheque was a Goodies video (the blue one not the red one because the blue one had a longer running time). I can’t remember the first time I used actual plastic.

The Web Planet

I’ll admit this now – the only reason I asked for the Web Planet that Christmas was because I’d read the back of the box and it mentioned the Tardis being dragged from the astral plane. For some reason the idea of the Tardis and the astral plane was hugely exciting. Like most fans I went through a phase of thinking anything set in the Tardis was brilliant. Tardis scenes – ignoring the bickering that was the mainstay of the 80s – were automatically ace. I thought the rest of the Web Planet was silly and a bit shoddy but we saw the inside of the Tardis from an unusual angle and that made at least the first tape worthwhile.

When the Doctor and his friends stray from their astral plane and the TARDIS materialises in eerie alien surroundings, a mysterious force prevents them from leaving. Is it a natural phenomenon or some malevolent intelligence?

Uncanny occurrences are followed by encounters with the deadly Zarbi and their unknown leader, to whom the travellers fall prey. With their allies, the Menoptra, the travellers must discover how to immobilise the Zarbi, save the Menoptra from massacre and rid the planet of this powerful and horrifying evil.

As a growing web building begins to envelop the planet, imprisoning the travellers in its mesh, the Doctor must consult all of his wisdom to escape its hypnotic power. But what is at the centre of the web and from where does it draw its power?

The Crusade

The Crusade is the first story – chronologically speaking – which I don’t think I’ve ever reached the end of. I really am coming across as a history hater. I’m not – I’ve got Simon Shama DVDs and an A-Level and I know someone who knows David Starkey. I must’ve seen the (then) lone surviving episode on The Hartnell Years video. I bought the ludicrously shaped boxed set in which the Crusade and the Space Museum were accompanied by a key ring and some other miscellaneous junk. The box was entirely the wrong shape and had to be disposed of almost immediately (by which I mean put it on top of a wardrobe and leave it to gather dust while the video sat in its correct place on a shelf). It was also very difficult to open - it wasn't hinged in any way - you had to coax it open, having first put an afternoon aside for the purpose. I don’t know whose idea it was but time has not improved it - it took me several minutes to prise it open just now. I got it from Borders at Cheshire Oaks near Chester for those keeping score. It was £11.99 which seemed cheap for what it was. I got the recon from Loose Canon and the CD release. I may even have picked up the script book from somewhere. I really ought to at least pop the CD on in the car. Admitting that I’ve not finished the Crusade is quite embarrassing on the second day of writing a sort of Doctor Who memoir.

I remember the excitement when whichever episode it was that turned up turned up unexpectedly. I also remember a rumour – started in the national press if memory serves – that BBC guidelines would prevent it being released on video. Something about them not releasing anything where actors blacked up. Luckily this turned out to be nonsense – an earlier version of the lighthouse story which was supposed to have scuppered Horror of Fang Rock’s DVD outing.

The Space Museum

And here’s the thing – the boxed set was the Crusade plus the Space Museum because they were too embarrassed to release it on its own. That’s how it was marketed, that’s how it was sold and that’s how I bought it. Look at the cover – Richard has pride of place and the text at the bottom doesn’t even mention the Space Museum – the flaps folding out to explain the two missing episodes of the Crusade are more worthy of reference. Odd then that I should’ve watched the Space Museum portion of the tape a dozen or more times without having ever finished its more illustrious predecessor. I hated the Space Museum when I first saw it on one of those Saturday morning omnibuses back on a warm morning (which was probably cold) in late 1997. Mind you, I hated everything in late 1997 as I was falling apart at the seams and trained professionals were trying to put me back together again. I will say this for the Space Museum – it lasts about as long as it takes to put an Ikea “Billy” bookcase together. I know because I put one together and the Doctor was dusting off his space time visualiser as I was hoisting the bookcase into position. My Doctor Who DVDs (amongst many others) are on the Space Museum Billy bookcase. My complete set of Agatha Christie novels are on my Angus Deayton Billy bookcase (so imprinted because I watched three and a half “Have I Got News For You” episodes during the building of that one).

And it is only now - as I read through this prior to publishing - that I realise the irony of associating a Billy bookcase with William Hartnell. Sometimes I'm not slow, I'm glacial.