Hitting the shelves of DVD retailers at the end of September was the Doctor Who release ‘The Key To Time’ which features the entire 16th season of the classic series starring Tom Baker.
SIx linked stories see the Doctor and new companion Romana (Mary Tamm) despatched by The White Guardian to collect the six segments of the Key to Time – a powerful device capable of stopping time.
So ensures a race to collect the six pieces and return them to The White Guardian before The Black Guardian – his evil counterpart – discovers them and uses the Key for his own purposes.
This epic release spans a whopping seven discs which are packed with extras and features.
As always the main features have been lovingly restored by the Restoration Team and feature commentaries, indeed some stories have a choice of two commentary tracks.
The main documentary on the set is the hour-long ‘A Matter of Time’ which looks at the three year tenure of producer Graham Williams. Contributions come from talent on either side of the camera including Tom Baker, companions Louise Jameson, Mary Tamm, Lalla Ward and script editors Anthony Read and Douglas Adams (interviewed in 1992).
Other features include a look at the making each of story, series related excerpts from shows as wide ranging as Blue Peter and Nationwide and ‘Hammer Horror’, a look at the influences of horror films on the show.
Disc seven includes several features including a history of rogue Timelords plus two looks at the sounds and music of Doctor Who. Rounding off the disc is ‘Late Night Story’ in which Tom Baker reads five stories from the 1978 series.
With any large boxset it’s difficult to provide a comprehensive review but this release provides excellent value for money with an RRP of �69 which gets you six stories for only three times the cost of a single range entry – essentially it’s a case of ‘buy one get one free’.
Buy Doctor Who: The Key to Time from the unitnews.co.uk entertainment store.
