I actually received this latest Blu-ray box set two days early, thanks to HMV, but have only been able to work my way through it a bit at a time due to one thing or another - but better late than never.
I shan't say too much about the stories themselves as I've covered them elsewhere, and will eventually get round to looking at the individual episodes in detail.
Needless to say the picture quality is much improved, though I did see a bit of image shake on a couple of film sequences on Terror of the Zygons. That story is the only one this time to have optional VFX.
This comprises a few new shots of the Skarasen, using good old-fashioned model work rather than CGI.
There's a brief glimpse of the monster towards the end of Part Two, with a bit more for the final Thames appearance sequence in Part Four.
Now onto the Extras, of which there are many as we've come to expect of these sets (and one of the reasons it's taken me so long to get through it).
Two big new documentaries this time - one focussing on producer Philip Hinchcliffe with specific emphasis on this season, and another on Ian Marter, who played Harry Sullivan in two of these stories - his final work on the series.
The Hinchcliffe doc sees him meet up with Toby Hadoke in the West Sussex village of Charlton, which doubled as Tulloch in Terror of the Zygons. Here they discuss the story and Hinchcliffe is reunited with the original Skarasen model, lovingly restored by Neil Cole of the Museum of Sci-Fi in Allendale, Northumbria.
They then move on to discuss Planet of Evil at the rural home of designer Roger Murray-Leach, who provided the stunning jungle sets.
After that it's another home visit, this time to actor Gabriel Woolf who played Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars. He does the voice and is reunited with the original mask. His return in the Series 14 finale is mentioned.
The latter two homes visited are in the country, and it actually looks like they all live in the same village the way it's filmed.
At the Oxfordshire village of East Hagbourne Toby and Philip meet Sadie Miller, daughter of Lis Sladen, to discuss The Android Invasion. Again, there's a feeling that they've just gone a mile or two up the road from where the other interviews were filmed.
Stunt performer and fight arranger Stuart Fell is the next to be visited, to discuss The Brain of Morbius in which he played the patchwork monster. They have a zoom meeting with a collector in the USA who now owns the original brain / brain-case and claw from the costume.
The final venue is Athelhampton House, location for Harrison Chase's mansion in The Seeds of Doom. There they are joined by Graeme Harper who was Douglas Camfield's PA on the story.
Nice to see everyone again, but little new information offered.
The other doc, and the highlight of the set in my opinion, is the biography of Ian Marter. Fans will know that he died on his 42nd birthday in 1986, so it's a poignant affair. His wife and son are amongst the people interviewed, and one very good thing about this production is that there's no presenter or narrator. The friends and family simply talk about Ian, and we get to see lots of images from his varied theatrical career (working with Richard Burton on a production of Marlowe's Dr Faustus being an early highlight). After his year with Doctor Who Marter went on to write some of the most critically acclaimed novelisations - sometimes controversial in their use of violence and first ever instance of a swear word in a Doctor Who book. The man himself appears courtesy of convention footage and his "Myth Makers" video appearance, recorded at the Zygons locations only a couple of weeks before his death. One thing which is mentioned in the doc was his refusal to take his illness - diabetes - seriously.
His struggles to come to terms with his bisexuality are also discussed.
The Matthew Sweet interview is with the aforementioned Graeme Harper. As well as PA'ing on Seeds, he also featured in Morbius as one of the pre-Hartnell Doctors. Unlike the others who contributed to this most divisive of scenes, he didn't get dressed up especially. They used a photo of him from Colony in Space, used for the real Adjudicator ID badge, and he was wearing Roger Delgado's costume.
He spends much of the interview, after talking about his early acting career and move into production, praising Camfield. Harper remains only semi-retired, with a few new ideas in the pipeline.
"Behind the Sofa" comprises three panels as usual. The first has Hadoke (the Doctor Who fan version of mansplaining at times) with Katy Manning and Sadie Miller. Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding have Sixth Doctor Colin Baker. With Davison off working somewhere else, Fielding isn't as annoying as usual. The third sofa has Maureen O'Brien with Sophie Aldred, companion actors spanning the classic series.
Favourite story amongst the lot seems to be Pyramids. Katy sides with the monsters often and is highly entertaining, reducing Sadie to tears at one point.
There's an archive convention panel and an assortment of short miscellany filling out the 8 discs.
We get Tom's links from his Disney Time stint, which linked into the Zygons story as he receives a message from the Brigadier whilst at the cinema.
A schools programme - Merry-Go-Round - sees the presenter watching a bit of Zygons by way of introducing the kids to the idea of the Hero. (He is going to go on to discuss The Odyssey, and I for one would have liked to have seen the whole programme).
We get a bit of a Bruce Forsythe-era Generation Game - a Star Trek spoof during which a Cyberman turns up.
Another Cyberman makes an appearance in a Crackerjack (Crackerjack!) sketch. There are two of these, one of which runs to almost quarter of an hour. Set on the Moon, it sees the two main male performers - Peter Sensorites Glaze and Don Maclean - dressed in Thal spacesuits from Planet of the Daleks. Host Ed "Stewpot" Stewart turns up at the end dressed as the Fourth Doctor.
The other is the full "Hallo My Dalek" sketch, a tiny bit of which you'll have seen in the (More Than) 30 Years in the TARDIS 30th Anniversary documentary.
Now I loved Crackerjack (Crackerjack!) as a child, but watching these I simply could not see what the audience were laughing at at all. Maybe JNT was right and the memory does cheat...
Only three more sets to go before they have to visit the 60's monochrome seasons, all of which have missing episodes or complete stories. They're 11, 16 and 21.
General consensus on-line is that 21 will be next (though artist Lee Binding made some cryptic comments about the colour blue in his colour palette reveal the other day, which might point more towards the set with the visit to the famous blue planet of the Acteon Galaxy...).
Have just received the second season of Blake's 7 on Blu-ray, so I'll take a look at that soon since there are always a lot of Doctor Who crossovers.
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