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 Peter Davison is my favourite Doctor Who so far. With the new TV series looming fast, I thought it was time to review one of my favourite stories and favourite Doctors in celebration of this event. The DVD I will be reviewing is The Visitation ~ our copy came from www.sendit.com at the bargain price of £9.99, a saving of a tenner on the recommended retail price of £19.99 (it was £14.99 on Amazon).
Released by the BBC, this DVD was released on 19th January 2004 and contains one disc ~ the main feature (a four parter) and the Special Features. If you don’t want to read an outline of the plot then please feel free to jump the next three paragraphs and rejoin me later!
THE PLOT
This story sees the fifth Doctor (played by Peter Davison) and his companions, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric, landing in seventeenth century England during the time of the Plague. They are actually aiming for 20th Century Heathrow…but that’s another story! Faced with what at first glance is a typical rural historical scene (complete with villagers with pitchforks), it soon becomes apparent that something else is lurking in the woodshed (and there actually IS a woodshed!). Earth is in danger from a group of aliens (called the Terileptils) who want to wipe out the inhabitants of Earth and move in themselves.
In a pretty action packed adventure the time travelers do battle with aliens, an android (dressed as death), angry and frightened villagers and even plague infested rats.
It is a story full of atmosphere, excitement and Peter Davison! There is a good little plot twist at the end that clears up what started the Great Fire of London too!
The Visitation was originally broadcast on BBC1 from the 15th to the 23rd February 1982.
THE DVD EXTRAS
***Commentary***
The commentary on Visitation is provided by five people ~ Peter Davison (The Doctor ~ also famous for appearing in such delights as Campion, All Creatures Great and Small and LOADS of other stuff), Janet Fielding (Australian air hostess Tegan Jovanka), Matthew Waterhouse (Alzarian mathematical genius Adric), Sara Sutton (aristocratic Nyssa from Traken) and Peter Moffatt (the director of the story).
This is one of my favourite commentaries so far, although five people trying to get a word in does seem to make the whole thing seem a bit “crowded” at times. The actors all seem to get on well and the commentary is light hearted, amusing and quite entertaining. I’m still not converted to commentaries in general and still prefer to watch the story without!
***Info text***
I still like the information (sometimes called Production) subtitles best of all. This is especially true of this adventure! I find learning where bits of the story were shot, what the actors have been in before and since and all the other facts very interesting. Anyone who wants to know more about the background to the production and likes to know little snippets and facts will find this a good little feature.
***Scoring the Visitation***
I must admit to whizzing through this one on fast forward. It started off quite well and looked like it was going to be interesting. In reality the composer (Paddy Kingsland) goes into too great a detail to tell us about the musical score he produced for this story.
***Directing Who***
I enjoyed this feature a lot! The Director, Peter Moffatt, gives an insight into his years of directing Dr Who. He looks back on his experiences with an affection that is infectious. Who fans will really like this one!
***Music Only***
Viewers are given a chance to watch the story without the dialogue and to only listen to the score (previously done to death in Scoring the Visitation). Quite entertaining for a while, but I quickly found myself trying to lip-read and longed for the words to back up the music. That said, the score IS good and the music adds a lot of atmosphere to the adventure.
***Writing a Final Visitation***
This was Eric Saward’s first story for Dr Who. This short documentary shows his thought processes behind the writing ~ it is quite interesting to see how he came up with the idea and how the script changed from first thoughts to the final broadcast.
***Photo Gallery***
The usual round of stills and photos of the episode! This is one of the better examples because some of the shots are quite rare and I hadn’t seen them before. Slightly less of a yawn than usual!
***Film Trims***
This is another name for deleted scenes! Actually I did quite enjoy watching some of the bits that didn’t make the final cut. The clips vary in length and quality ~ some are almost as they would have been if broadcast and some are rough shots that were only shown on the studio scanners (so are shaky and often black and white). I like these little behind the scenes insights and am intrigued by the amount of material that is painstakingly filmed and then never shown on TV.
***Easter Eggs***
Once again I won’t give away what the little bonus extras are, or how to find them. All you need to know is that, by selecting headings from the interactive menu in a particular order, you will get to view a couple of “secret” bits of footage. Often the finding of them is better than the watching of them! But…it HAS to be done.
CONCLUSION
This is one of my favourite stories of the 19th Season of Dr Who. It has history, comedy (coming mostly from the wonderful character of Richard Mace), a good interaction between the main cast members and a good deal of action and intrigue. Some people have criticised the story for being boring, but I think that it is a very well written and well acted drama.
The DVD itself is a good example of what I have come to expect from the BBC. The sound and picture quality are crisp and clear. Even though this isn’t a really antique episode it is still surprising to see how the re-mastering has cleaned it all up and brought it well up to 21st Century standards.
Special Features are again plentiful! Many of them are now becoming standard (there are always photo galleries, commentaries and subtitles), but there are still a few fresh and new ideas on each release. Favourite feature for me on the Visitation has to be the Information text, closely followed by the documentary on director Peter Moffatt.
My only quibble is that there are no real classic features on this one ~ there is nothing quite so wonderful as the comic documentary on Pyramids of Mars I have this adventure on video, but still thought I needed to buy it on DVD as well. The difference in quality and the Special Features make it a great addition to any Dr Who fan’s collection and well worth the money. The story is enduring, the DVD is great and it is wonderful to see it available to a whole new audience. I am so looking forward to the new Dr Who series and also to collecting future Dr Who DVD releases.
» Review by Andrea Waterhouse, Copyright 2003.
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