Before the usual range of posts recommence I thought I'd take a quick look at the latest of the Blu-ray classic season releases. Season 7 was Jon Pertwee's first as Doctor, and Caroline John's only as Liz Shaw. It is very much an atypical season, with an odd 4, 7, 7, 7 episode shape, so only four stories for the year. The opening story was the first to be produced and broadcast for colour television, and it was made entirely on location and on film thanks to a BBC strike.
The three longer stories all revolve around a scientific complex - Wenley Moor's cyclotron research centre, the UK Space Centre, and the "Inferno" drilling compound. The phrase "gritty realism" also gets bandied about for much of this season, though it's really only The Ambassadors of Death which features murderous criminals and far-reaching conspiracies. The story also features two big stunt set pieces.
I've looked at the stories in the past, and they will eventually be looked at episode by episode, so what of the extras?
To be honest, this set is a little light on new VAM. Inferno got a Special Edition DVD release, with a lot of new material, and Spearhead From Space had two big new documentaries when released onto Blu-ray. The other stories were double disc DVD releases, so came with a lot extras. All of this material appears on this new set.
Of the brand new extras, we obviously get more "Behind the Sofa". Couch 1 seats Geoffrey Beevers and Daisy Ashford (widower and daughter of Caroline John. He appears briefly in Ambassadors whilst she is now playing Liz on audio). They are joined by Toby Hadoke. Couch 2 seats Janet Fielding, Sophie Aldred and Sarah Sutton. When not complaining about the lack of strong female characters in the show in 1970, they're talking about handbags and what Liz is wearing. The third couch hosts Katy Manning and Matthew Waterhouse. The latter can be quite annoying at times.
Matthew Sweet interviews John Levene, who has reverted back to the surname Woods. He gets quite emotional at times, and it's nice to see him talk about some of his other, very varied, careers. Clips of him in other TV productions are interspersed through the end credits.
Sweet also presents one of the four new documentaries - "Terror in the Suburbs". This was very disappointing after a good start - a look at the filming locations for the Auton attack as they are today. It then develops into a socio-cultural essay on "Suburbia", and Doctor Who hardly gets a look in.
Much better is "Lucky 13" which looks at the science behind the Season 7 stories. There are quite a few archive clips of Kit Pedler, whilst most of the running time is given over to the space programme which was reflected in Ambassadors. In particular we look at Apollo 13 - hence that title - and the BBC's coverage of the events which coincided with the broadcast of the Who episodes.
The third documentary is a biography of Nicholas Courtney. It's slow to get started - by the 13 minute mark he still hasn't been born yet - and it sometimes drifts away on little tangents. It could have done with some tighter editing, to focus purely on his life and career. It would have been nice to have seen some of his other work as well. Presenter John Culshaw is joined by a Troughton sound-alike at the end - who sounds nothing like Troughton...
The last new doc takes a look at Malcolm Hulke - the latest of Hadoke's "Looking for...". Interviewees include Terrence Dicks' widow. A taped interview features, so we get to hear what the writer sounded like. He died in 1979, before fandom really got into its stride, so we never really got to know him like many of the other behind-the-scenes figures.
The convention footage this time sees Caroline John being interviewed, before being joined by Barry Letts.
Finally, a word about the restoration of the episodes themselves. There were sound issues with some of the interiors on Spearhead, and these have been fixed. The three 7-parters all had colour problems and these have also been improved, though with Ambassadors you often see it slipping into monochrome at the edges of scenes. Overall, the stories look far better than on any previous releases.
It was recently announced that the people who produce the animations of lost stories want to up the rate of releases. Apparently this is because they intend to include them on the Season 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 boxsets. This points to the B&W seasons being held back to last, so probably a Tom Baker set next, or perhaps Season 21 to complete the JNT era.
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