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Doctor Who: The Tomb Of The Cybermen- Special Edition DVD Review

“The Tomb Of The Cybermen” is arguably one of the best classic “Doctor Who” episodes.

The plot: The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria arrive on Telos where they encounter an expedition group looking for Cybermen remnants. After some searching, the expedition group finds a Cybermen dwelling and eventually even the Cybermen themselves. As you can no doubt guess, bad things start happening almost immediately, but I won’t spoil how they happen.

With a lot of classic “Doctor Who” episodes, we don’t normally see a lot of camera movement or artistic shots. With ‘Tomb,’ no such complaint can be made as this is one of the more cinematic looking episodes thanks to the superb direction by Morris Barry. There is a surprising amount of angles and wide shots here that give ‘Tomb’ a more epic and larger than life feel to it. It’s refreshing and it’s certainly in a league of its own among classic ‘Who’ episodes.

The production values are also fairly impressive as well. The massive sets and the now iconic Cybermen costumes are the most notable aspects to be sure.

As far as the cast/characters go, it’s a great ensemble episode. Usually we see a lot of throwaway characters, but here we get a lot of developed characters from the shady Klieg to the strongman Toberman. Naturally, the Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton here) and fan favorite Jamie (Frazer Hines) deliver their typically noteworthy performances here as well.

Summary: If you’ve a classic Who fan who has never seen “The Tomb Of The Cybermen” before, you owe it to yourself to pick up this new special edition release. I’m sure that Whovian collectors will want to pick this one up too.

Video/Audio:

While fuzzy in spots, the fullscreen picture is generally stunning. It’s amazing how clean the picture looks.

The Dolby Digital Mono audio track is also shockingly good. Mono tracks tend to be pretty flat, but this one is anything but.

Extras:
* Photo gallery, Radio Times Listings, Walls Sky Ray Promo Material, info text, Sky Ray Advert, “Doctor Who” series 6 and “The Face Of Evil” trailers.
* “The Magic Of VidFIRE”- An extra about the episode restorations/remasters.
* “Cybermen Extended Edition”- An excellent featurette about the various Cybermen appearances throughout the course of the series.
* “The Curse Of The Cybermen’s Tomb”- A featurette about Tomb’s parallels/inspirations to Egyptian history.
* “The Lost Giants”- Your standard making of that accompanies each DVD release. Expect interviews, information about the production, etc.
* “Title Sequence Tests”- A neat extra for fans wanting to get a glimpse of alternate titles.
* “Morris Barry Introduction”- A 3 minute bonus feature in which the director chats about the episode.
* “Late Night Line-Up”- Visual F/X artist Jack Kline is interviewed.
* “The Final End”- A sort of recreation of the end scene from “The Evil Of The Daleks.”
* Commentary by Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines. This is the track from the first DVD release.
* Commentary by Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling, Bernard Holley, Toby Hadoke, Shirley Cooklin, Victor Pemberton, Reg Whitehead. Certain parts of the episode have new commentators (moderated by Toby Hadoke). It’s nice to get different stories and perspectives here. As usual, Hadoke does a fine job of asking questions and guiding the commentary.

April 17, 2012 - Posted by nicklyons1 | DVD review | 2nd Doctor, Cybermat, Cybermen, Doctor Who: The Tomb Of The Cybermen- Special Edition DVD Review, Frazer Hines