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Doctor Who - Tomb of the Cybermen
The Show:
There are only a few adventures from Patrick Troughton's
stint as The Doctor where all of the episodes of the serial survive. (15 out of 21 stories are missing some or all
of the chapters.) The earliest complete
tale
that's still around is The Tomb of
the Cybermen, and that was thought lost
until a copy turned up in Hong Kong
in 1991. It's a good thing too, because
this is a truly
great chapter from the long-running show.
First released on DVD in region 1 in 2002, the Restoration Team
has gone
back and taken another pass at this serial using techniques and
programs that
weren't available when they first worked on it.
The result is a very good looking disc, one that's a solid
improvement
over the original which was nice looking to begin with.
The Doctor, Jamie, and his new companion, Victoria, land on
the planet Telos just as an archeological expedition has made an
important
discovery: they've located the final
resting place of the Cybermen, long dead for over 500 years. The expedition is lead by Professor Parry,
but financed by a mysterious woman, Kaftan, who is never far from her
large
muscled bodyguard Toberman. Also with
the party are Kaftan's colleague Klieg, Captain Hopper, the pilot of
the space
ship that brought them to Telos, and Viner, an archeologist. There are also a few crewmen who would be
wearing red shirts if they were on Star
Trek.
Entering the antechamber the group finds a series of levers,
a series of odd symbols, a large, sealed hatch, and nothing else. It's up to The Doctor to discover, and open,
two hidden doors and while Klieg works on deciphering the code that
will open
the hatch, the rest of the group go exploring.
One of the doors leads to a Cyberman rejuvenation chamber where
Kaftan purposely
seals Victoria
into the sarcophagus-like cell that's used to recharge the evil
androids. She's about to start the
rejuvenation process
on the young girl when The Doctor, assuming that the whole thing was an
accident, releases her. Meanwhile Jamie
and another expendable search a strange room where hypnotic patterns
are
projected on the walls, with deadly results.
Eventually Klieg gets close to solving the logic puzzle that
is the key to unlocking the hatch, but can't quite crack it. With a helpful nudge in the right direction
from The Doctor, he finally comes up with the answer and throws the
correct
levers, opening the portal to the chamber below. There
they find a something amazing: the last of
the Cybermen in suspended
animation. Ignoring The Doctor's
warnings Klieg manipulates the control panel and wakes revives the
creatures. He's part of a group of
intellectuals
on Earth who feel that they should be ruling the planet, but they lack
the
power. Klieg and Kaftan are sure that if
they can free the Cybermen, the robots will do their bidding. But it never works out that way, does it?
This was the second Troughton Doctor Who story that I
ever saw (the first being the over long and
unwieldy War Games) back when it was
first released on DVD and revisiting it I'm still struck at what a good
job
Patrick Troughton does in the role. He
really takes the character in a totally different direction than his
predecessor
did (something I wish the current show would do a bit more) and changes
the
feel of the show in the process. Troughton's
Doctor comes across as a bumbling goofball at first glance, but hidden
inside
the rumpled exterior is a deceptively brilliant and capable person. That surprising contrast is what makes this
incarnation of The Doctor so delightful and it's fully evident in this
adventure. I especially liked the
ad-libbed bit when The Doctor and Jamie and following the others into
the
Tomb. Aware that it's dangerous, The
Doctor and Jamie hold each other's hands for comfort as the step over
the threshold
only to realize what they've done and quickly let go one on the other
side.
Of course this serial also features the Cybermen, the Doctor's
scariest villains. (I never could
understand why the Daleks were so popular.
They're okay, but the idea of a men who have had all (or nearly
all) of
their organic parts replaced by metal and plastic and have lost all
emotion in
the process is very creepy. That goes
double when they start converting people they've captured.
But I digress...) The story adds a
good part to the Cybermen
mythos but the high point is when the machine-like creatures wake from
their
frozen slumber and break out of their tomb.
An impressively large set was created and the effect is
memorable and striking
even today.
One of the things that struck me about this story,
especially when compared with Doctor Who
from the 80's, is how restrained the acting is, it's even subtle in
parts. When The Doctor asks Klieg if he
wants to
rule the Earth, the man says "yes, yes you're right... master of the
world." He
delivers the line quietly and without much inflection and doesn't chew
the
scenery at all. Compare that with some
of the villains in Tom Baker's last season where they are so over the
top it's
almost camp. Another nice touch is the
subtle
revelation of who damaged the space ship that the expedition arrived in. In the scene where captain announces that the
ship can't leave due to a sabotaged fuel pump, Toberman smiles quietly
in the
background. That's the only overt
evidence of who was responsible. It's a
well written script that still plays well.
The DVD:
Audio:
This show comes with the original mono soundtrack that
fits the
show just fine. The dynamic range is nothing to write home about,
but the
dialog is generally crisp and clear and there is no background noise,
tape
hiss, distortion or dropouts. There are optional subtitles in
English.
Video:
The full frame B&W image has had the VidFIRE
treatment,
a method of deinterlacing filmed images to approximate the original
videotape
fields. I compared this release to the
original 2002 DVD version and there is a definite improvement. It mainly makes the movement a bit smoother
and the image a bit tighter. I was going
to do some side-by-side comparisons but for still .jpg compressed
images the differences
were very minor and I didn't think they gave a good example of what
viewers
could expect. Suffice to say if you
haven't bought this serial yet, this is the version to buy.
Extras:
This disc has some great extras. First
off are two, count 'em, two commentary tracks.
The original track from the 2002 release with Frazer Hines and
Deborah
Watling is here, along with a brand new one featuring Frazer Hines,
Deborah
Watling, Bernard Holley, Victor Pemberton and Shirley Cooklin. Once again Toby Hadoke is acting as
moderator. Other
items ported over from the original
release include an introduction by director Maurice Barry that was on
the
original VHS release of this story, a 3-minute title test sequence, Late Night Line-Up, a 3-minute look at
the BBC special effects workshop that features some Cybermen props, and
The Final End, a 1 minute mock-up of the
final battle from the now lost final episode of Evil of
the Daleks made from the original audio track and some home
movies.
As for new bonus features, there are a few nice ones.
There's The
Lost Giants, a 27-minute look at the making of The
Tomb of the Cybermen with the cast and crew, The Curse
of the Cybermen's Tomb, a
14-minute look at the parallels between this story and Egyptian tombs
both in
reality and in movies, and Cybermen -
Extended Edition is a 32-minute overview of the Cybermen's
appearances in
Doctor Who from both the old and the new series. It's all wrapped up
with a
7-minute look at the VidFire process.
In addition there is a pop-up informational text option which is very
informative as always. It does give some dry statistics,
like how
many people viewed each episode, but there are also some interesting
notes such
as script changes that were made and background information on the
supporting
characters. The extras are rounded off with, a couple of photo
galleries,
and the listings from the Radio Times in .pdf format.
There are two things that are missing however. The
old disc has a 30 minute featurette,
Tombwatch, that is missing. This Q&A
session with many of the cast and crew from a 1992 convention is worth
having
and it's a shame that a rights issue kept it from being included. There's also a VidFIRE demo that's not here,
but since the whole show has gone through the process it's not a huge
loss.
Final Thoughts:
The question many of you reading this are asking is:
should I upgrade? That's a tough
one. The video is an improvement, but the
original
disc didn't look bad to begin with. There
are some nice extras too. The
Lost Giants is well watching and
both commentary tracks, though a bit of overkill, are nice to have, but
on the
other hand the Cybermen overview didn't present any new information. It boils down to how often are you going to
watch this story and how much are the extras and some improved video
worth? If you don't have this early
adventure though, that makes things easy:
run out and buy a copy of this Special Edition.
Highly Recommended.
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