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GoldLyrics.com - Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord - Episode 144-147
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List Price: $59.98
Our Price: $50.99
Your Save: $ 8.99 ( 15% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: BBC Warner
Starring: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0883929025282
Format: Box set
Label: BBC Warner
Manufacturer: BBC Warner
Number Of Items: 4
Publisher: BBC Warner
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2008-10-07
Running Time: 349
Studio: BBC Warner
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
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Editorial Reviews:
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Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 10/07/2008 Run time: 350 minutes Rating: Nr
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: colin got screwed
Comment: as a kid if you asked me who the worst doctor was id say sylvester mcoy. and i would have said colin had it not been for the trail of a timelord. when i was a child this story was genuinly creepy and scary. now that im an adult i laugh quite a lot. the dvd extras are incredible and worth the money alone. and you learn how screwed up the politics of a tv show can become.
Customer Rating:
Summary: colin baker shines here
Comment: Colin Baker really did a great job during this season of the classic doctor who show. Any failings in these shows can be truly attributed to the bbc who was determined to kill the show. The men in charge hated sci fi as surely as the people at NBC did in 1969 with star trek. These are the type of men and women who look down on the whole genre. John Nathan Turner (1947-2002, RIP) the shows producer during the 1980's, cannot even be blamed for the shows demise or at least half the failings of the time , sure he tried many unfortunate things for the series. Like the garish clothes the doctor had to wear. But he was faced with these terrible people who
had it in for him and the show. In spite of all the struggles from that period, a inspired colin baker and some decent stories came together to bring us a good season of Doctor Who.
The dvd's themselves are well done here and they excellent. I am grateful the bbc put these in a affordable boxset. They need to do much more boxsets as no other major tv series has been released this slowly.
And while they are at it they can finally put out a 'Doomwatch" boxset too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "There's nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality!"
Comment: For anyone collecting DVD releases of classic Doctor Who, this nicely packaged box set is a rare, seldom-encountered oasis. Though there are good reasons and rationales for it, the normal release schedule can seem maddeningly random and haphazard at times. Such however is certainly not the case here with the 4-disc "Trial of a Time Lord" set, which includes all of 1986's season twenty-three in one complete and coherent whole. What a luxury, to watch an entire year of the show together in order! Of course, one key unfortunate factor making such an indulgence possible is that this season was radically (one might say brutally) scaled back and truncated by the allegedly apathetic if not hostile BBC hierarchy of the time: fourteen half-hour episodes, the old standard of twenty-six sliced right in half. The show was indeed literally on trial for its survival, and the fiction-mirrors-fact echo of the Doctor being put on trial by his own people is a deliberate and conscious one by the show's beleaguered creators. You might say that the postmodern self-reflexive '80's had finally caught up with Doctor Who, but the effect is poignant rather than ironic.
But yes, true to its title, the overall story arc encompassing the four individual tales of this season sees the Doctor on trial for reckless and capricious interference and meddling in timelines, and later even for genocide. With this good solid bit of courtroom drama as the frame, each individual tale then unfolds in classic Dickensian order as evidence presented to the court by the Doctor's belligerent prosecutor, the Valeyard (for a good clue as to his true identity, check out what his title means, and no, for once he's not the Master in disguise). First of all, from the Doctor's past we get to visit (or revisit?) "The Mysterious Planet", wherein he and Peri explore a distant world with two different regressed civilizations, one free and tribal, the other ruled with an iron hand by a control freak of a computer--a world that turns out to be impossibly familiar after all. This intriguing puzzler is the last full story by Robert Holmes, a longtime stalwart writer of the show responsible for many of its most memorable moments, and is worth its weight in gold for that reason alone. And quite good in its own right, too, an entertaining adventure replete with dry wit and given substance with thought-provoking ideas and concepts integral to the plot--typical Doctor Who in the best sense.
Next, from the Doctor's present we are shown "Mindwarp", which manages to deal with many chillingly disturbing grown-up themes like unethical medical experimentation and corporate economic exploitation in a compelling manner, playing with the viewer's mind in the process as we see the Doctor act in very uncharacteristically self-interested and even evil ways--or has the evidence been tampered with? To top it all off, Peri leaves the series in a dramatically grim fashion (Afterwards to be retroactively defused by a lame cop-out). From the Doctor's future, "Terror of the Vervoids" finds a later him and a future companion, Mel, aboard a space liner plagued with an ongoing series of murders and a serious weed outbreak. A traditional whodunit in a futuristic setting (the writers don't seem to realize they've effectively put "Robots of Death" and "Seeds of Doom" in a blender), this is Doctor Who by-the-numbers but there's little sin in being formulaic when the formula works so well. If the show is on trial, it might as well play to its strengths. Finally, "The Ultimate Foe" brings the Doctor's trial to a bizarre and perhaps less than fully satisfying conclusion. Rather disjointed due to the sad and tumultuous circumstances of its creation and marred by some deplorably cringe-inducing dialogue lines scripted for Mel, the final battle with the Valeyard in the eerily surreal computer-generated environment of the Matrix still has lots to offer besides inspiration for later Hollywood cyberpunk sci-fi blockbusters (or is it a coincidence?), and in the end offers us an old but reliable truth: we are often our own worst enemies.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Doctor in Distress
Comment: The mystery intrinsic to the character of The Doctor began to leak out of the series with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. As the character began to reflect Baker's interests (and ego) rather than the other way around, lasting damage was done. It's no coincidence that the only other season-long epic in the show's history, "The Key to Time," was Baker's weakest series, in part because the tendency of the star to overshadow his character was abetted by some of the weakest stories in his era.
After Baker's larger-than-life personality, the show was subjected to two radical shifts in direction by producer Nathan-Turner. Peter Davison, a highly-accomplished actor, was all wrong for the part, his wholesome Doctor neither mysterious nor terribly complicated, and his companions were some of the blandest ever chosen. Colin Baker's brash, boisterous and even occasionally menacing characterization was certainly a contrast, but once again the mystery was entirely missing, and the part was now a hopeless caricature.
All of which does much to explain why Colin Baker alone shouldn't be continually castigated for his relative failure as the Doctor. To add further stress on the show, the BBC quite simply was bored with the series and was determined to see it go. By the time of this serial, desperation was setting in. But it's not all bad. The less said about the first two stories the better (though Brian Blessed's Yrcanos is terrific fun), but the last two stories, "Terror of the Vervoids" and "The Ultimate Foe" are quite good, harking back to the kind of intricate plotting and sharper production values of the earlier eras. The surprising appearance of the Master in "Foe" is--well--a masterstroke, and the shocking realization that the Valeyard is an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker tendencies is also clever. Add Tony Selby's Glitz (the only redeeming feature of story one) and Bonnie Langford's pixie-like Mel, and you have the makings of a couple of very decent serials.
The extras in the set are generous indeed: each story has a "making of" featurette, all of which provide insight into the kind of pressure under which the cast and crew were operating. There is also a feature on the famous hiatus of 1985, a horribly delightful music video "Doctor in Distress," deleted/extended scenes, and much more besides the usual commentary.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A review of the DVD rather than of the Story
Comment: So far, all the reviews have been about the actual 14-episode story on this DVD. Let me start by quickly saying how much I love this season-long epic. I know, I know...it has its flaws, it was riddled with behind-the-scenes turmoil which kept the story from really coming together onscreen, some of the trial scenes simply don't make sense, etc.....but I still love everything about it. I've always loved Colin's portrayal of the Doctor and I think some of his best work is in this season. He was obviously VERY happy to be back to work on the show he loved after a long hiatus.
But "Trial of a Timelord" has been written about a great deal, and other reviewers here have already given you very good reviews of the actual story. My review, then, is about "the rest of the story"....the DVD packaging of "Trial".
Which, by the way, is excellent.
Even if you don't love this season, you have to admit that this is one of the strongest collections of special features on any Doctor Who DVD. What is most admirable here is that the team that puts together these DVDs did't shy away from the controversy that surrounded this season. These features aren't "Doctor Who Confidential" styled pats-on-the-back. The features show the good and the bad in equal measure.
Here are some of the highlights:
- There's a "making of" documentary for each of the four stories that make up "Trial". These are all really great, very entertaining and educational. But the highlights are seeing Tony Selby and Brian Blessed talk about their time on the show. They very obviously loved doing it.
- There's a 55 minute documentary on Colin's time as the Doctor. It goes into great details about the detioration of the relationship between John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward, the hiatus, the reasons behind the "Trial" story, Colin's firing....its really good. Its a very revealing, "cards on the table" type of discussion. Its amazing to see that even 25 years later, talking about this stuff is difficult for Colin. Its also great to see Eric Saward talk about his role in alienating people who had been his friends and co-workers.
- There's a short bit of commentary with Colin and Nicola watching the scene in Part 14 where the script, at JNT's urging, undoes Peri's death from Part 8 by saying she was living happily-ever-after with King Yrcanos. While Nicola was aware that they'd done that....she'd never seen the scene in question. Her reaction to it is pretty interesting.
- There's a great documentary on what would have been Season 23 had the hiatus not happened and they'd gone on to do Colin's second season as planned. Most of this is pretty well known, and three of the stories were later released as novels. But this is illustrated by new artwork, is narrated by Colin, and talks about each of the stories and the shape of the season. Very enlightening.
- There's a fun little half-hour piece on cliffhangers. Authors, editors and scriptwriters talking about the show's cliffhangers -- which ones were great, which ones didn't work, which ones could have been brillian but weren't, etc. A very fun piece.
- There's a fairly substantial clip from a talk show after the end of the season that has a group of people from one of the DW fan clubs talking about the "Trial" season, and what a mess it was, and if fans couldn't follow it how could the general public? So after a series of comments from each of them, the host says "Well, now lets hear from the producer and the writers of this season". John Nathan-Turner and Pip & Jane Baker seemed genuinely caught off guard to learn that these people didn't completely love their work! It's really interesting viewing.
All-in-all its a stellar package. The sound in particular is cleaned up very nicely. And the picture looks great. There seems to be more contrast in the opening courtroom scenes, where the set looks a bit more darkly lit and moodier. Even if I were't a fan of this season, I would probably give this DVD release of it 5 stars simply on the strength of the packaging, the extras, and the great lengths that the Restoration Team went to to bring us a very thorough and enlightening set. Very well worth the money. I highly recommend this set!
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