The Series:

The late Jon Pertwee played The Doctor for the first time in this four part storyline which ran through the first few weeks of 1970, Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space, the first of the series to be shot on color film. Directed by Derek Martinus and written by Robert Holmes, the story begins when a bunch of meteorites hurtle through space and crash in the charming English countryside. A local man named Seeley (Neil Wilson) comes across them just as the TARDIS pops up and the new Doctor (Pertwee) steps out... only to basically fall flat on his face.

With the Doctor promptly shipped off to the hospital, UNIT steps in to see just what exactly is up with these meteors. Complicating matters is the presence of a local factory that specializes in manufacturing mannequins. As they've needed to change with the times, they've shifted from manual to automated labor but this ...Read the entire review

The Series:

With Doctor Who having hit newfound heights of popularity these days you really can't blame the BBC for repackaging some of the more popular serials from the series fifty year history. There's money to be made and if in the process some fans only familiar with the Doctor Who of 2005 to present find themselves sucked into the stories of the Doctors that came before Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith then hey, so much the better. This set, collecting one serial a piece for the first four men to step into the role (that'd be William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, John Pertwee and of course Tom Baker to those keeping score), offers up four great stories, each a showcase for the respective star to headline, but does not come without its reservations in the audio, video and extras departments.

But let's talk about the stories before we get into that...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The BBC's Great White Shark: A Living Legend was, before it hit Blu-ray courtesy of this new release, an episode of the ongoing Natural World series. This explains why it's roughly fifty minutes in length and self-contained, as opposed to some of the more ‘epic' BBC Nature series like Planet Earth or Nature's Most Amazing Events.

The documentary introduces us to a man named Mike Rutzen who was born and raised in South Africa and who spent many of his formative years on the coast where he began to encounter large sharks. As he hadn't yet seen Jaws he didn't actually realize until after he'd become well acquainted with the species that he was actually interacting with Great Whites. By that point in time, he wasn't afraid of them, as he'd already been swimming with them. So with that in mind, Rutzen has made a bit of a name for himself as ...Read the entire review

You can almost picture Sarah heaving a sigh as she takes that first, reluctant step off the train. Flat broke and weary-eyed, something clearly went terribly wrong wherever it is that Sarah just came from, and the stormy phone call that

[click on the thumbnail to enlarge]Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/60272 Fri, 05 Jul 2013 18:18:32 UTC Highly Recommended The highly rated, critically lauded series adapted from the same-named (and partly fictionalized) memoirs of Jennifer Worth (nee Lee), Call the Midwife (2012-present) returns for another season of compelling episodes. Created by producer-writer Heidi Thomas, whose short-lived revival of Upstairs, Downstairs had similar qualities, Call the Midwife likewise offers rich characterizations and intriguing, historically interesting stories and situations. Call the Midwife - Season Two expands upon season one, with eight 60-plus-minute episodes compared to six just-under-an-hour shows the previous year. Also included is Call the Midwife's Christmas special, a 75-minute program set between the two seasons and which aired in Britain on December 25, 2012, about a month prior to the new season's premiere. Spread across two Blu-ray discs, Call the Midwife Season Two o...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/60880 Sun, 23 Jun 2013 16:00:58 UTC Recommended The Series: Broadcast in 1970 from a script by Don Houghton and directed by Douglas Camfield, Inferno stars John Pertwee as The Doctor. The story takes place on Earth where a cantankerous Professor Stahlman (Olaf Pooley) overseas a drilling project that should hopefully provide access to a recently discovered fuel source dubbed Stalhman's Gas. Project Director Sir Keith Gold (Christopher Benjamin) expresses his concern about Stahlman's obsessive behavior to Petra (Shiela Dunn), Stahlman's assistant, and he then brings in a drilling expert named Greg Sutton (Derek Newark) to make sure that everything Stahlman is doing is safe. While all of this is going on, The Doctor, who is acting as a consultant of sorts, is using the power generated by the projects reactor to power the TARDIS' console which he is in turn using to conduct various experiments that he hopes will allow him to fix ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/60590 Fri, 21 Jun 2013 02:13:35 UTC Rent It THE MOVIE: The 3D, Leonardo DiCaprio-adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, for better or worse, was the literary cinematic event of the summer. So it makes sense that the BBC would reach back into its vaults and dig up their 2000 special, The Great Gatsby: Midnight in Manhattan. A slim program, clocking not even 50 minutes, it's an entertaining warm-up, perhaps best viewed as a refresher for lapsed fans or an introduction for new believers. The Great Gatsby: Midnight in Manhattan is far from an in-depth dissection of the famous novel and its effects on the culture at large, though both surfaces are skimmed. The film is heavier on the connections betwe...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/60879 Tue, 11 Jun 2013 21:59:30 UTC Recommended The Show: With the release of TheMind of Evil, all of the Doctor Who adventures featuring JonPertwee as thelong-lived Time Lord are available on home video. Pertweeis my favorite actor to play the roleduring the first run of the show, and the idea of owning all of hisappearanceson the show still makes me a bit giddy.It's a good story also, featuring his arch nemesis, The Master,and amachine that removes all of the evil from a person, but at a cost. The restoration of this installment was a longand difficult process, and while the results aren't spectacular, it'sstill adisc worth owning. Read the entire review ]]>