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DVD: Doctor Who - Remembrance Of The Daleks
BBC America Home Video
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
If long-time fans of the Doctor Who television series were less than fond of Sylvester McCoy's stewardship of the role (he was the seventh actor to play the good doctor), they were in for a surprise when the 25th season rolled around. As each of the previous actors had at least attempted to do, McCoy found his own voice for the character. Where William Hartnell had been eccentrically hesitant, McCoy was cocksure. Where Patrick Troughton might have a good laugh, McCoy would stare daggers and employ clever sarcasm. There was no relationship between Tom Baker, John Pewtree, Colin Baker or the others and Sylvester McCoy's Doctor. Everything he did began to work. His traveling companion, Ace (Sophie Aldred) differed from past companions, as well. She carried a baseball bat and a ghetto blaster, looked every bit the alley cat, and she could be one when it was necessary, but she was still a bit innocent under it all. A far cry from Romana. McCoy and Aldred were probably a shocking pair for old Who fans at first, but Remembrance of the Daleks is a pretty good documentary of their arrival as one of the more interesting pairings in Who-History.
Filmed in 1988, Remembrance finds the Doctor and Ace dropping in on Jolly Ol' London, circa 1963, which is quite a novelty for Ace because it is a place she's familiar with but a time before her birth. The plot takes no time at all to begin development, as the pair walk out of the T.A.R.D.I.S., around the corner and right to the back of a mysterious black van with a strange antennae on the roof. At a pace so fast you barely have time to digest one thing before the next happens, we meet a diverse cast of characters including a beautiful scientist, a suave young soldier with an eye for Ace, an army captain with the usual thick skull who is determined to get a lot of people killed before he'll listen to the Doctor, and a young, silent child (which is how you know it's fiction) who shows up at odd times to cast her spooky gaze on the proceedings. There is something going on, and the Doctor is the only one who doesn't seem surprised.
Perhaps he isn't. His old enemies, The Daleks, are back, but with a twist, and the Doctor knows exactly what he wants to do about it. The trouble is, other people have different ideas about that. It all boils down to a truly surprising and clever ending you're not apt to see coming until a minute before the fact. Such an entertaining story, and from the Doctor the fans said couldn't hit the notes. McCoy definitely earned a strong fan base once he found his character, and today quite a few people actually name him as their favorite Doctor, while others name the McCoy/Aldred team as the best pairing regardless of favorite Doctor. Then again, some think he turned the Doctor into a mean-spirited, sarcastic old grump. Can't please everyone.
As seems to be the case with every Doctor Who DVD release, a lot of thought and care went into this. The video quality is superb, and as far as I can tell with my less-than-optimum equipment (sorry), the sound is fine, too. There are plenty of extras, including deleted scenes and bloopers, raw footage without any soundtrack, the indispensable Who's Who, which allows you to click on pictures of the actors to get a bio and filmography, a few trailers, and, most importantly, entertaining commentary tracks by Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred, who are sometimes havin' fun and sometimes being informative, but always being entertaining. Value is one thing, but I've yet to pick up a Doctor Who DVD that didn't leave me feeling like I just robbed the BBC and got away clean.
© 2004 - DJ Johnson