Season 26 Blu-Ray Box Set - Review

I received this the day it was due - Monday 27th January. The reason I'm reviewing it now, 8 days later, is because I've only just finished working my way through it. Considering this season consisted of only four stories - 14 episodes in total - there is a heck of a lot of material on this set.
We'll get to the Extras shortly, but first a word or two about the stories themselves. Everyone knows that Season 26 is when Doctor Who finally got its groove back, after a rather disastrous few years - only to be cruelly scrapped by a BBC that had fallen totally out of love with it. We'd already had a failed attempt at cancellation between Seasons 22 and 23. The latter, and Sylvester McCoy's first season were not terribly good. Things started to look up with Remembrance of the Daleks and the arrival of companion Ace. This final season of the Classic Era is very much her season - with three of the four stories forming a sort of character arc for her. Things kick off with the one that isn't really part of that arc - Battlefield. It's a so-so story, which even its writer doesn't think much of. This was mainly because he was forced to expand it to four parts when it had originally been intended only to be a three-parter. I should say at this point that the only story I watched of this set in the format in which it was broadcast was the last one (Survival). Give me a Special Edition and I will generally choose that over the broadcast version every time (due to new VFX or additional scenes reincorporated). This box set offers you the chance to see up to three different versions of some stories, and Survival was the only one that didn't offer that choice. These Special Editions aren't always tidied up for HD, so I will revisit the set soon to watch the upscaled broadcast versions.
I won't pretend that I fully understood Ghost Light on first transmission. Even today, after reading so much about it and just having watched an extended cut of it, there are still some elements which aren't ever properly explained (e.g how can stuffed and eviscerated animals make noises, and why do their eyes glow? Why does the candle suddenly flare?).
Best of the bunch for me is The Curse of Fenric (the story that gets three different versions). Probably the best of the McCoy era. Survival lays a lot of the groundwork for what what was to come with Rose in 2005. Writer Rona Munro intended it to be set in a run down urban landscape, which would have been so much better than the rather leafy suburban setting she was given.
Even with the rather weak Battlefield (which at least has Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier in a prominent role) it's a good, solid set of stories.

Onto the Extras, of which there are many. The original DVD release of Survival had a second disc of material on its own - including the documentary "Endgame" which tells the story of the demise of the series and the immediate aftermath, with contributions from some of the people who had killed the show. This, and all the other VAM from the original DVD releases, is all present and correct in this set. The Seventh Doctor's "Tomorrow's Times" and "Stripped For Action" features have been moved to this set, seeing as how it sums up his era. As this rounds off the whole Classic Series, the Blue Peter documentary ("Who Peter") is included as well.
All stories get a "Behind the Sofa" feature. In the past this has been split between two groups on the sofa - the main set being people who were there at the time, and a second set of people representing other eras of the show. Here the action is split over three sofas. On Sofa 1 we have McCoy and Sophie Aldred, on Sofa 2 we get new writers Pete McTighe and Joy Wilkinson, and on Sofa 3 we get companion actresses Anneke Wills, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding. Either 2 or 3 we could have done away with, as it means we don't actually get to hear much from McCoy and Aldred.
The Curse of Fenric is another original DVD release which had a whole extra disc of bonus material - but no Making-Of documentary. This is remedied by a new doc, directed by McTighe. McCoy, Aldred and Tomek Bork (Commander Sorin) revisit the locations from the story, interspersed with some talking heads. On visiting the church they are reunited with Nicholas Parsons, who had played the Rev Wainwright. This was rather poignant, as Parsons had just passed away a day or two before I watched this.
There's quite a lot of location and behind the scenes footage for all four stories, plus we get two Convention panels - the one for Fenric, previously released, and one with just McCoy and Aldred from 1993.
The final disc has two main new features. Matthew Sweet conducts a lovely interview with Aldred, recorded when she made the Blu-Ray trailer. For me, the highlight is "Showman" a feature length biography of John Nathan-Turner. It's worth buying this set for this alone. He was a very divisive figure, and could be particularly nasty at times - themes not glossed over in the documentary - but you cannot help but feel sorry for him by the end of this. His was ultimately a tragic life, after so much promise. We hear about his childhood and schooldays, move into theatre and then to the BBC. Things build towards his annus mirabilis - the 20th Anniversary year, with The Five Doctors and the Longleat event. Everyone agrees - including himself in an archive interview - that this is when he should have walked away from the programme into something else, soap opera or light entertainment. By allowing himself to be talked into staying on Doctor Who, because he was doing so well with it and he was still enjoying it, the seeds of his downfall were sown. His treatment by the BBC after the series was cancelled really makes you angry at them, and heartbroken for him.
Lots of photos from his life, and loads of archive footage, including convention appearances, illustrate this sad tale. It's an excellent piece.
Next up we have Season 14, due in April (so expect it in June)...