Hello Friends,
Myself and fellow mod Peri-Peri have thought it might be a good idea in this thread to review some of the brilliant DVD releases in the Whoniverse. Whilst we will kick off the series, we would encourage everyone to pick a favourite DVD and write a review - otherwise you'll get me talking about food all the time lol! So, in what is hopefully the start of a regular stream of reviews, I have decided to kick off reviewing the latest release from our friends at 2:Entertain, A Christmas Carol.
I must confess, I had mixed feelings about actually parting with my hard earned pennies for something that, at best I was going to watch twice or three times. Then I saw it had 'Doctor Who at the Proms' as an extra and then saw the price for the blu ray was a measly £10.93 from Amazon, so I took the plunge. With the money I saved, I decided to buy some nice biscuits and sit and re-watch the DVD and extras.
So for your £10 you get the feature presentation, the transmitted Confidential and the proms. You do not get commentary or, indeed any other features. I suppose those responsible would argue that confidential covers off 'The Making of...' type feature.
The biscuits I have bought are Chocolate Hob Nobs. For those unfamiliar, they are an oaty-based biscuit half covered in chocolate. They are the most robust biscuit for dunking known to mankind (I think they were developed as part of the Apollo programme to avoid crumbs in orbit). They cost £1.20 a packet. I could have 9 packets for the same price as my DVD.
Watching a christmas special at the end of January is a bit like hearing your parents have sex. It feels slightly dissonant and weird and you feel a bit awkward. But the story is a good, solid riff on the classic Dickens tale, Matt Smith just sparkles as the Doctor and in Michael Gambon bestrides the production like a colossus. I know many fans had some misgivings about Kathryn Jenkins but she does a job. There is actually very little of Amy and Rory, but what there is proves they continue to be good value. The actual story has been reviewed at considerable length in another thread so I won't wobble on too much more - suffice to say, I really enjoyed it.
The Confidential is, mercifully, not cut down. Unfortunately I have a little problem with Confidentials generally. They tend to be less about "the making of" and more about how brilliant everyone was. Moff will turn up and tell you how good MS is, MS will tell you how good The Mill are, KG will say how good the Moff was .... and so on. But there are some nice moments and it is actually worth the £10 alone to see Gambo's first performance at the read through. You can see MS visibly wilt as Gambo starts to speak (not that he needed to worry - Smith was sublime).
But as I fish around at the bottom of my teacup for a rogue half hob-nob which has sunk to the bottom, the Proms comes on. One of RTD's finest yet consistently undersold ideas is that of the Proms. I know Murray Gold has attracted some criticism from some of the barmier ends of fandom, but surely no one can argue with his work on Season 5 (The Doctor's theme is just incredible). The whole thing is wonderful and if you like the idea of the Proms and admire Murray Gold's work then, frankly, the DVD is worth the tenner just for this.
I bought the Blu Ray version, running it through an LG Player onto a Sony Bravia LCD, the features are all presented in lovely 1080p High Definition. The 5.1 mixing for the features are well balanced and all in all I think this probably represents good value for money. Certainly it is worth 9 packets of quality biscuits