The Season (5/5)

    I will admit outright I am a classic Doctor Who apologist, and also that Peter Davison is easily in my top 5 Doctors. I did not grow up as these episodes aired, but caught them on VHS and DVD (I only saw Tom Baker re-runs on my local PBS station), and seeing Castrovalva after Logopolis, Davison's Fifth Doctor honestly felt like the Doctor that we needed after Baker's more eccentric and occasionally brooding turn as the Fourth Doctor.   The episodes that constitute Peter Davison's first season of Doctor Who, make up the 2nd season of John Nathan Turner's run as showrunner of Doctor Who. The first being Tom Baker's final season which was tonally dark setting up the Fourth Doctor's departure.

     In comparison the tone of the Davison's first season is comparatively lighter and more fun. There is still a good deal of darkness in the show, and the hard science elements that began to rear there head due to writer Christopher H. Bidmead still are prominent, but the show as a whole feels tonally different. Davison's take on the Doctor feels rejuvenated, and ready to take on the universe.   Though the serials are hit or miss (2nd serial Four to Doomsday is a low point), there are a good number of classic Doctor Who serials in here such as Castrovalva, Kinda, and Earthshock, the latter of which is one of the most brutal and action packed Doctor Who episodes with a finale that is still talked about over 30 years later.

    The first serial "Castrovalva" picks up at the Pharos Project in the final moments of the Fourth Doctor. After The Doctor and TARDIS team of Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric, escape authorities, they must see to it that the new Doctor recovers from the regeneration process. In order to do that they retreat to a place of peace, Castrovalva, but this location might not be all that it seems.

    Four to Doomsday sees the Doctor and TARDIS team aboard a traveling spaceship containing a group of aliens bent on taking over Earth, destroying organic life, and replacing it with cybernetic existence. Not one of the most entertaining of the bunch, it has some solid visuals on an 80's BBC budget. Kinda is one of the most distinct and interesting serials of the series.  The TARDIS crew find themselves on the jungle planet Deva Loka, where Tegan is rendered unconscious and channels an entity from another plane of existence the Mara, who  will eventually take over the body of a tribes person on the planet to seek its revenge. This one has the most interesting visuals in a Doctor Who episode since the prior seasons Warriors' Gate, and probably some of the most interesting ideas in a Doctor Who episode in quite some time. It has a very interesting surrealist quality that offers a solid tone change.

    The Visitation is one of the most excising and memorable episodes of this run. It takes place in 17th Century London, in the same area where Heathrow airport would one day be (The Doctor has been trying to get Tegan home).  When they arrive they find a crashed spaceship belonging to an alien race the Terileptils. As it turns out the Terileptils are using a death like android to spread terror through the land, and plan on unleashing a plague upon the world.  This one is a nice sci-fi historical that ties into a real life incident in a fun way. It's briskly paced and never dull with great creature designs.

    Black Orchid is the first 2-Part episode since the Sontaran Experiment in the early 1970's. It is also the first straight historical without sci-fi elements. It sees the Doctor and crew in 1920's rural England visiting a manor house where a series of murders begin to take place.  The episode channels the work of Agatha Christie quite hard in its short run time, but also gives the Doctor and crew a chance to breath and just have a series of nice character moments. It's not a classic episode, as considered by most fans, but it's an nice enjoyable way to spend an hour. Black Orchid is followed upon by Earthshock. This episode sees the return of the Cybermen for the first time since Tom Baker's first season, and they come back with shock and style. This episode is basically Eric Saward's first attempt at turning Doctor Who into an 80's action movie, and it sort of works. Of course, most people will remember this episode for the ending, which I will kindly not spoil.

    The season ends with Time-Flight, an episode that sees the TARDIS crew finally get to Heathrow in modern times, but find out that their presence is required as a Concorde has recently disappeared. The Doctor and crew recreate the circumstances of the disappearance and end up 140 million years in Earth's past. Like season opener Castrovalva this episode feels like 2 episodes in one with the narrative having a distinct change point after episode 2.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    OK, so like Tom Baker's first season these sort of need to be graded on a different standard. Doctor Who was shot on SD with some exteriors shot in 16mm as such there is not going to be much of a jump in quality here. However, I am to believe the 1080i 1:33:1 transfers here are new remasters courtesy of the DWRT and BBC Worldwide, and in comprising them to the DVD counterparts they do offer some amount of improvement. While there are minor issues such as aliasing, there is less compression, but color reproduction, and more detail.

    Audio is also improved with HD audio tracks. There are DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks for 5 of the 7 serials and DTS-HD MA 5.1 for Earthshock and Kinda.   All tracks sound clear, concise, and without issue.

Extras (5/5)

    You won't find a more bang for your buck collection as far as extra features are concerned as this one. The extensive extras from the DVD editions are ported over here.  That includes commentaries, making-of's, interviews, trailers, radio spots, and so much more. New extras include an hour long In Conversation interview with Peter Davison, a Behind hte Sofa interview that features Davison alongside Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Matthew Waterhouse, Mark Strickson, and oddly Sophie Aldred, but I'll take it.  There are new making of Documentaries for Castrovalva, Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid, Earthshock, and Time-Flight. Also, included in an extended version of Black Orchid episode one, studio footage from 5 of the 7 serials, and so much more.

Overall

    I just finished collecting the DVD's of the classic series when these started coming out, and you know what. I'm still happy about it. These new Blu-ray sets take up less shelf space, have better quality visuals, and have even more extras on top of the already awesome extra features that were already out. I can't wait to get them all! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.