Today, 7th July 2019, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Devon Roland Pertwee, and I'm honouring the occasion by watching the new Season 10 Blu-ray Boxset. (Which also explains why there haven't been many updates in the last few days).
I'm still working my way through the set, having watched The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters, and Frontier in Space so far - plus all the bonus features that go with these stories.
The picture quality is excellent - especially in the studio-bound scenes. They're pin sharp.
Of the extras that I have watched so far, the documentary by Toby Hadoke on director Lennie Mayne has been the standout item. It's similar to the feature he did on writer Peter R Newman on the DVD of The Sensorites. he starts out with only a wikipedia entry and a single photo of Mayne, and ends up viewing his family photo albums and watching home movie footage of his wedding to Frances Pidgeon, who herself featured in two Doctor Who stories directed by her husband. Bernard Cribbins is a contributor, having worked with Mayne when he was a dancer and choreographer on the West End stage.
As always, the "Behind the Sofa" segments have been highly entertaining. On Sofa 1 we have Katy Manning, John Levene and Richard Franklin, whilst on Sofa 2 we have Phil Collinson (who produced Doctor Who between 2005 - 2008), Pete McTighe (writer of Series 11's Kerblam! and the very funny trailer for the forthcoming Season 23 Blu-ray Boxset), and Joy Wilkinson (writer of The Witchfinders).
Of the stories I have watched so far, Richard Franklin hasn't appeared in any of them yet, and Levene was only in the first one, so Manning tends to talk about her time on the programme in more general terms, rather than concentrating on the individual stories. It may be more interesting to see this trio back together when Seasons 8 & 9 are released, in which they all played an active role.
The neutral trio prove to be the more interesting to observe. Whilst Wilkinson clearly hasn't much knowledge of the Classic series, Collinson and McTighe are definitely fan boys. According to Collinson, his very first word as a baby was "Drashig".
As someone who loves old fashioned special effects, I was entranced with the 57 minutes worth of model shot filming for Frontier in Space. There are frequent glimpses of Bernard Wilkie and Ian Scoones at work throughout.
So, still to watch are Planet of the Daleks, which has some fancy new CGI and a cleaned up version of the re-coloured Episode 3, and The Green Death, which I can watch either in its original 6 episode version or as the 90 minute omnibus which I can recall watching on its initial broadcast.
Another highlight still to come lies on the bonus features disc - an overview of the entire Pertwee era of the programme, as well as a Panopticon convention panel featuring Pertwee, Manning and Nicholas Courtney.
I've also yet to listen to the BBC Radio 4 Extra feature The Pertwee Files, presented by son Sean and broadcast yesterday morning, which I've recorded. (Which is another way of saying, don't expect any updates for the next couple of days).
There's no better way of remembering Jon Pertwee than to sit back and enjoy watching him when he was at the peak of his popularity as the Doctor, and helping to celebrate the first 10 glorious years of Doctor Who.
Jon Pertwee is the first doctor I really remember watching as a child (I must have seen the end of Patrick Troughton's run, but the memories are gone.) For me, Jon Pertwee and the UNIT family will always be my favourite Who era. As a child, the thought of monsters invading earth was always far scarier than monsters in some distant galaxy. I was also very impressed when I discovered that Jon Pertwee worked in Naval Intelligence with Ian Fleming during the war (having transferred off HMS Hood shortly before its fatal encounter with the Bismarck.) You can see the influence of his wartime service on his time as the Doctor. There's a definite Bond feel to quite a lot of it. I will have to rewatch some of those classic episodes. Jon Pertwee - we salute you.
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