The Series (4/5 - Resoluton, 4.5/5 - Season 18)

    Anyone who reads this site enough probably knows that Doctor Who is probably my all-time favorite pop culture creation. I found this show in the middle of the night on PBS, as a teenager, and the sheer wonderful weirdness of those Tom Baker episodes made me a fan for life. We have reviewed Doctor Who on EuroCultAV in both classic and new form for about 10 years now, and this month we continue on with 2 new Doctor Who Blu-ray releases from BBC Worldwide. Doctor Who - Resolution which is the New Year's special that aired last month with new Doctor Jodie Whittaker. We are also treated to the third Doctor Who Blu-ray collection, and the 2nd to feature 4th Doctor Tom Baker. This one contains all of Season 18, which features Logopolis, this Doctor's swansong, which also just happens to run into the 1st Peter Davison series that was Blu'd by the BBC in November.

Doctor Who - Resolution

     Doctor Who - Resolution brings back the series mainstays the Daleks (or in this case Dalek) for a new adventure that spans a millennia. The episode opens during what is touted as a great battle between many of the 9th century armies of Earth fighting against a lone monster. It is not much of a spoiler to say that this was a Dalek, though we do not see it at the time. The armies defeat the monster, and 3 of the warriors of separate nationalities, take the Dalek and break it into 3 pieces, and hide it at various points around the globe, swearing to guard the piece for their lives, and the lives of their descendants. Unfortunately, one of the warriors, a British soldier dies before he can hide the part, killed by a bandit. His body is left to rot, and it found in the 21st century by a pair of archaeologists who are digging up the site.

    While this is happening The Doctor and her new TARDIS team, are viewing various New Year's celebrations around the galaxy. When they make their return to Sheffield, they are to discover that one of the archaeologist Lin has become attached to a Dalek. literally. The creature that resides in the iconic Dalek shell has attached to Lin's back, and has integrated itself with her. She is now the Dalek's puppet, and begins to enact a reign of terror while the Dalek attempts to get the rest of its pieces.

    I know that for the sake of continuity the outer shell of the Dalek is its life support system, and as such the episode kind of goes against the shows on internal continuity, but between a good story, and a minor nitpick, I'll take a good story, and Resolution is just that. I will admit that Series 11 pleased me quite a bit, by not attempting to utilize Doctor Who's most iconic creatures and foes.   Daleks, Cybermen, Zygon's and beyond were once new creations, and room must be made to let some new enemies come to the fore. However, Resolution brings the Dalek back with style. 

    Resolution plays with the fact that it's a New Years story, and that the audience will be family stuck at home on New Years, so while there are scares and surprises they are kept at a moderate level, and mixed with a solid sense of tongue in cheek humor. The whole episode opens with an epic medieval battle, and then goes on to feel like an extended chase around Sheffield to take on this lone renegade Dalek. As such it is never given an opportunity to feel boring.  Of course, this is sadly the only Doctor Who fans will get in 2020, but at least it was a good one.

    Doctor Who - Resolution is presented 2:00:1 in a 1080p AVC encoded transfer that looks quite solid. There are moments of softness especially in the graphics heavy sequences, but overall everything looks solid, well detailed, and infused with color. Audio is handled by a DTS-HD 5.1 track in English which comes through crisp and clear.

    Extras include a look back at Series 11, a making of documentary, and a couple of other smaller featurettes.

Doctor Who - Series 18 - Blu-ray

    When I first started collecting Doctor Who DVD's in 2007, the first ones I got were part of the "New Beginnings" box set that contained the final 2 serials of Season 18 Keeper of Traken and Logopolis, and also the first of Series 19, Peter Davison's debut Castrovalva.   Though I had seen quite a bit of Who on PBS as a teenager, my memory of those episodes are in broad strokes rather than specifics. As such I became glued to the Season 18 DVD's as they were coming out.

    Series 18 opens with what is considered a lesser Who serial the Leisure Hive, which sees The Doctor and Romana II end up on the earliest leisure planet "Argolis' while attempting to take a short break from their life of adventure, and end up in a complex dispute that started with a war 40 years earlier, and continues on with The Doctor and Romana finding themselves in the midst of a conflict by the native Argolin's and the Foamasi, who are attempting to purchase the remnants of the planet.  The Leisure Hive is the beginning of the long time tenure of John Nathan-Turner, the longest showrunner in the show's history, and the 3rd showrunner of Tom Baker's tenure.  Though JN-T's era would be known for it's turn to the campy, it is also known for becoming tied further into the continuity of the show making it a program that is less for families, and more for the dedicated fans. This becomes apparent in this episode which eschews the humor of the Graham William's era (series 15-17) and in its place we get a more hard science edge. I do happen to think this new direction worked well for the show, and this specific pre-Regeneration period, however, it starts off a bit rough with this serial, which is quite watchable, but overall nothing truly special.

    The second serial is Meglos, which involves the last surviving member of the Zolfa-Thuran race, its planet was made lifeless during a war with their neighboring planet Tigella. The Doctor and Romana II end up on the planet after being stuck in a time loop. The episode has an oddly similar feel to the Leisure Hive, but with a bit more life injected into the final product. Also, The Fourth Doctor in his Meglos form has become an iconic image of the Doctor during this period.

   Where I feel the series truly begins to shine is with Full Circle, and the beginning of the e-Space Trilogy. The Doctor and Romana end up getting caught in a charged vacuum embodiment sending them into a pocket universe, that is based on negative coordinates. The first serial Full Circle finds them on the e-Space planet Alzarius which is about to undergo "Mistfall" the period where toxic mist rise as well as giant poisonous spiders, and marshmen who will attempt to attack the Alzarians, who are planning to live in their "Starliner" a spaceship that was landed on the planet by their ancestors, and which apparently needs extensive repairs before the Alzarians can take off in it, and go home.  The episode has some iconic creatures in the marshmen, who sadly were never used again after this serial. It also introduces the oft-hated companion Adric, who I will say works well with The Fourth Doctor in a teacher/student sort of way.

    The 4th serial of Season 18 is one of two serials in this season that make my personal top 5 favorite Who stories, State of Decay. This adventure sees the Doctor, Romana, and Adric (who stowed away aboard the TARDIS after the conclusion of Full Cirlce) on a planet which is stuck in its medieval period.  The people of the planet are dumbed down and live in terror of the 3 rulers who lives in the tower adjacent to the village. These 3 are vampires, and have lived a millennia while trying to resurrect their master, a Giant Vampire, who happens to be an eternal enemy of the Time Lords.  State of Decay has a wonderful atmosphere that blends gothic horror, medieval fantasy, and science fiction and does so quite effectively.  It offers a creepy autumnal setting that makes this a great Halloween season watch, and has a score by Paddy Kingsland which accents the atmosphere of the episodes. 

    The next serial is the e-Space closer Warriors' Gate. This serial has the Doctor, Romana, and Adric, caught in the space between e-Space, and n-Space. The trio becomes involved in trying to free a time-sensitive race known as the Tharils from a group of space slavers. The episode more than any other this season has a true otherworldly vibe. It uses some interesting effects to create a world between worlds, and offers a nice surrealist vibe to the whole thing with a mix of the new romantic.

    After this Romana departs from the Doctor to help the Tharils regain their freedom among the galaxy. The Doctor leaves e-Space with Adric, and soon finds himself tasked with getting to the bottom of some strange goings on in the Traken Union. Traken is the most harmonious planet ever to exist, it is so peaceful that anything evil to land their ends up becoming a stone like creature known as Melkur which eventually dissolves into the planet. The Doctor and Adric are given the tasks to investigate the Melkur that has dwelt in the grove on Traken for quite a long time without dying by the Keeper of Traken, an individual that is given a 1000 year life span and access to all the energy and knowledge of Traken.  This is the other episode that is in my top 5. It has an iconic villain in the Melkur, and a plot full of near-Shakespearean intrigue. Of course, the Melkur is not just a stone creature, but a nefarious villain looking to get revenge on the Doctor while gaining the power of Traken for himself.

   The final serial of the Season and Tom Baker's final go around as the Doctor, is Logopolis. The Master has resurrected himself in the body of Counselor Tremas from Traken, and begins his attacks against the galaxy at large. In thie serial the Master unleashes a wave of entropy that will destroy the galaxy, and the only thing keeping it together is the mathematics masters of the planet Logopolis.   The Doctor, Nyssa of Traken, Adric, and the newly acquired companion Tegan Jovanka work to save the galaxy from its imminent doom.

    The episode has a melancholic and doomy atmosphere that fits the tone of the season, and while it's a smaller scale adventure than the one Tom Baker envisioned going out on, its conclusion has become iconic, and feels like a fitting send off to one of the greatest actors to portray the Doctor.

    Doctor Who - The Collection - Series 18 is presented with a 1:33:1 1080i transfer preserving the original aspect ratio of the programs. As with the other 2 box sets, this is an SD presentation on Blu-ray that is upscaled. That being said, it looks quite nice. There are some minor banding issues present on some of the episodes, but there is much less compression and black crush that plagued some of the DVD's (Especially the earlier ones). Audio is handled by HD audio tracks that bring the shows soundtrack to crisper, clearer life than ever before, and makes those Radiophonic scores shine.  The extras include all the prior extras from the DVD editions including commentary tracks, and featurettes. Newly included here are a series of new Behind the Sofa episodes for each serial.