Season 13 Collection- new extras reviewed

 As the previous individual dvd releases for this season were fairly comprehensively packed with additional features- most included here- there’s not quite as much brand new material in this Collection as there have been in others. Of course, the sheer quality of the actual stories is enough in itself yet somehow the team has found some interesting new documentaries to present as well as cleaning up the episodes with AI. The method used has sparked some controversy with some people saying it has caused a loss of detail and some odd looking moments. I believe that, just like when there are new special effects options available, the original episode as it was should still be an option. Apparently, this was thought to be something people would not be interested in yet the large number of social media posts on the subject suggests otherwise. To be honest I didn’t notice that much on my nearly three year old tv, but some of the stills posted online suggest peoples faces are the most affected with them ending up looking too smooth and unnatural.

 

One new segment looks at improving the notoriously unconvincing Skarasen appearance in part four where it rises above the Thames. It seems the issue with the original was the way it was shot on video at the wrong speed. A team led by Mike Tucker and Neil Cole has constructed a replica of the original puppet to try and rectify that. It’s in keeping with the production standard of the time so don’t expect a digitally three- dimensional creature but the new Nessie is a vast improvement seeming somewhat more realistic and terrifying. The documentary shows the lengths the team went to in pursuit of this standard, probably taking more time than all of the original visual effects on the story were allocated.

Return to Thirteen sees Philip Hinchcliffe return to the scene of some of season thirteen’s locations and contributors to reminisce in the company of Toby Hadoake. He’s already done a lot of in depth interviews before in various media so this is more of a canter around familiar locales. Places visited include the erstwhile Fox Inn, Devesham and Chase Manor all of which seem remarkably unchanged fifty years on. Trips to Zeta Minor and Karn are not possible so we instead call in on designer Roger Murray Leach and stuntman Stuart Fell. In lieu of Stargroves we also pay a visit to Gabriel Woolf who seems delighted to be reunited with Sutekh’s original helmet. When he speaks those iconic lines it takes us back fifty years!

The nature of these films is gentle nostalgia especially the `Android Invasion` segment which includes Lis Sladen’s daughter and some lovely photos taken on the shoot. Probing questions are off the table especially given the time that’s passed and the ageing of the participants. It’s sometimes hard to reconcile that such a group of polite, pleasant men were responsible for the sound and fury of this season. I note that in keeping with the `gothic` feel of this season the filming took place in the midst of a cold spell.

Tom Talks sees the man in fine fettle in a wide ranging interview from 2013 that I’d not seen before. It was perhaps recorded as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations?  By this time Tom has settled into benign effusiveness willing to accept that he wasn’t always the easiest person to work with. He especially conveys so well what it was to live through such a heady time, a master storyteller who can conjure up decades ago with a florid turn of phrase.

Worlds Within is a look at the life and career of the enigmatic Ian Marter with contributions from various people he worked with, his wife Mopsy (aka Rosemary Heyland), his brother Alan and one of his two sons, Rupert. Given the passage of time there is always a melancholic feel to these films and Marter proves a trickier subject given his much spoken about secretive nature. Several of the interviewees speak of him never revealing his inner thoughts and his wife’s contributions reveal a troubled soul about whom she says more than I’d ever heard before. The portrait that emerges is of an ambitious, driven man never totally satisfied with his career, feeling he could do more.

His early acting roles are well reviewed yet he never quite gets that role which will take him to the next level. Though he published a lot of adaptations both of Doctor Who stories and films (the latter under the pen name Ian Don) he harboured more serious literary ambitions which were never fulfilled; his only original book took him back to Harry Sullivan and was published not long before his premature death at just forty two. The film includes extracts from his personal letters and also poems which definitely show his talent with words.

With diabetes that it seems he didn’t always treat properly his health was always an issue yet friends talk about how this illness seemed to disappoint his father which may explain why he was so restless as an adult. One co star talks about him pacing around the dressing room before a performance. Photographs don’t always tell the while story and the accounts we hear of his often a cold relationship with his father growing up seem to contradict the carefree holiday snaps of the family.

Later it seems he was distanced from his own family when he separated from his wife, despite their clear affection for each other, and was not speaking to his elder son at the time of his death. Mopsy alludes to her husband’s convicted sexuality which may have been part of what troubled him. All this seems somewhat removed from the chirpy, everything will be fine, British character he played in Doctor Who and other roles and which comes across in interview clips.

After watching I got the sense that he was a man out of time. Had he been around in the Thirties or Forties he probably would have been a  big star but as it was even he seems to have felt unfulfilled in his relatively short life. The film is an excellent, informative look at someone we thought we knew but whom perhaps very few people knew at all.

In Conversation with Graeme Harper sees the director bring some of his customary enthusiasm as he looks back over his career prompted by Matthew Sweet. Harper seems to have had a fulfilled, fun life and has no particular  trauma to air. His answers paint an interesting picture of a television world of yesteryear and he has a relaxed way of telling it. His eagerness still shows all these years later for his childhood, early days as a young actor, working his way up the BBC hierachy and his approach to directing. A meeting with Stanley Kubrick seems to have fired him up to ultimately become a director while he speaks fondly of Douglas Camfield and also Martin Campbell, both of whom gave him significant breaks. His chosen directorial style – single camera, always moving, lots of energy – has latterly become the standard for most productions and he is modest about what influence he may have had. He just knew that it was the best way to keep audiences engaged in any production.

The Behind the Sofa episodes remain enjoyable viewing. This time Maureen O’Brien seems dazzled by the quality of the episodes and also Tom Baker’s performance. Even though this is peak classic Doctor Who, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton are harder to please and they do seem to delight in pointing out weaker special effects, surely an outmoded way to look at the series. The big mystery is when there are six stories, why only four monster models lurking behind the guests?