TV on DVD: New Titles to Feed Your Doctor Who Jones

Oh noes! We're fresh out of new Doctor Who till Christmastime. What is a fan to do? Well, if you're new to the show -- that is, if you just joined the ranks of we devoted Wholigans (or Whovians) since the new crew of Christopher Eccleston/David Tennant/Russell Davies took over in 2005 -- then you can spend a couple of productive months catching up with the best of the old show, which went off the air in 1989. There's a TARDIS-load of it available on DVD (all from BBC Video), and more coming all the time. (Of course, fans from way-back-when should feel free to recommit to the all-encompassing awesomeness that is Doctor Who, too.)

One of my favorite episodes, "Black Orchid," from the Peter Davison era, has just been released on DVD, for instance. This one is notable for a few very cool reasons: It's one of the few purely historical stories, with no monsters and no science-fictional elements at all. The TARDIS lands in 1920s England, the Doctor and the gang -- and it is a veritable entourage of three young companions the Doctor is traveling with at this point -- get invited to a party at a country house, and mysterious doings ensue. This is the only episode in which Doctor No. 5 gets to play cricket -- he's been wearing cricketing clothes all this time, after all, and it's nice to see him actually play (Davison was an amateur player himself). And it's the only one in which we get to check out this Doctor in a (very modest) state of dishabille ... and since Davison is cute as hell, that's very nice indeed.

Also just out on DVD is "The Time Meddler," featuring Doctor No. 1, William Hartnell. Some fans -- I am among them -- find the Hartnell episodes rather slow-moving and even a bit dull, but of course they're worth seeing for their historical value. This 1965 story in particular is significant because the baddie here, an enigmatic figure known as the Meddling Monk, is considered by some fans to be the first appearance of the Master, the Doctor's archnemesis who reappeared recently in the guise of Harold Saxon, prime minister of Great Britain. Whether or not he's actually a proto-Master, the Monk is the first appearance of another member of the Doctor's mysterious race (still not yet dubbed "Time Lords" in the series). Played with gusto and droll humor by Peter Butterworth, he meddles with Medieval history until the Doctor starts meddling with the Monk's own TARDIS. This serial was a turning point in Doctor Who's early development.

Film.com's own Mark Bourne recommended this one back in the spring, when he offered his own old-Who must-sees, but it bears repeating in light of how the current season of the show ended: with the Daleks going out in a bang. "Genesis of the Daleks" is one of truly great stories of the entire series -- old and new: it sees the Doctor, in the incarnation of Tom Baker, with Sarah Jane Smith at his side, witnessing the birth of the Daleks far back in what we now know was the beginning of the Time War. Watch this one, and you'll have the major arc of the Daleks' entire tale.

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MaryAnn Johanson (email me)
film reviews and TV blogging at FlickFilosopher.com

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