Product Details

• Actors: Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin, John Levene
• Directors: Paddy Russell
• Writers: Malcolm Hulke
• Producers: Barry Letts
• Format: NTSC, Color
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: January 10, 2012
• Run Time: 148 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B005KQVD3M
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,429 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) arrives in a modern-day London under attack from prehistoric monsters in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an infamous 1974 serial from the 11th season of the venerable British science fiction series Doctor Who. Though its dreadful puppet dinosaurs have the scorn of generations of fans, Invasion of the Dinosaurs does have an intriguing storyline in Operation Golden Age, a bizarre plot to return the Earth to the purity of its pre-human days through time-travel technology. As noted in the fine making-of featurette, People, Power and Puppets, which is featured on the set's second disc, the ecological-extremism element lends much-needed gravity to the serial, as does a subplot involving UNIT captain Mike Yates (Richard Franklin), whose brainwashing by the supercomputer BOSS in 1973's The Green Death makes him a willing accomplice to the Golden Age scheme. Of course, any semblance of verisimilitude goes out the window anytime Pertwee or companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) have to face off against the stiff rod-puppet saurians, but both actors shoulder the burden manfully, and Franklin makes the most of Yates's brief moment in the spotlight. There's no question that much of Invasion of the Dinosaurs is a misfire for the Pertwee-era Doctor, but by the same token, it's also not the unmitigated disaster it's been made out to be since its original airing.

The two-disc Invasion of the Dinosaurs set presents five of the serial's six episodes in their original color presentation; as Who historians well know, episode one was erased as part of the BBC's recurring practice of wiping tapes of past television shows, but a black-and-white 16mm work print was eventually unearthed, along with a scene not shown in the original broadcast that is included in the set's brief collection of deleted scenes. Viewers can watch episode one in its monochromatic format or in a version that attempts to approximate the original broadcast color quality. Also included are two audio commentaries, one featuring director Paddy Russell, script editor Terrance Dicks, Yates, and several other cast and crew members, while the other offers John (Sgt. Benton) Levene's observations on 10 minutes of Part Five. Now and Then revisits the serial's extensive London locations, while Doctor Who Stories: Elisabeth Sladen Part 1 presents the late actress's lively recollections of her brief tenure as companion to Pertwee's Doctor. The extras are rounded out by a clip from a broadcast of England's long-running Billy Smart's Circus that features Pertwee behind the wheel of the outrageous Whomobile, as well as a photo still gallery, a PDF of the Radio Times listings that can be viewed in DVD-ROM format, and the by-now standard production notes subtitle option. --Paul Gaita"

Product Description

Returning from their adventure in medieval England, the Doctor and Sarah Jane are bewildered to find London deserted and under marshal law. Even more startling is the sudden appearance of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the street. When they reach UNIT headquarters, they learn from the Brigadier that the city had to be evacuated when dinosaurs began appearing all over London. Fortunately, the prehistoric reptiles disappear almost as soon as they appear, but their random visits naturally caused "considerable panic and some loss of life." The Doctor believes that the dinosaurs are being transported through time from the Mesozoic age, but he needs a live specimen to test his theory. Meanwhile, Sarah applies her reporter's instincts to uncovering a hidden agenda. This video features over two hours in color, but Episode 1 is in black-and-white.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars My First Doctor Who! October 8, 2011

By Primeval

Format:DVD

Now, all of us lets be mature and get past the puppet dinosaurs and see that "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" is a great addition to the series. The story is excellent. The acting, well, it was the '70s, give 'em a break. The chemistry between Sarah Jane and The Doctor is brilliant, especially during the first episode. The line between good guy and bad guy is tremendously well slurred and makes us wonder if The Doctor's doing the right thing. All in all, this is a great story and a wonderful tribute to the late Sladen, forever in our hearts.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wondrful fun but DVD puzzles at times. January 16, 2012

By A. C. Cronvich

Format:DVD

First off, let me say that I dont have a problem with the dinosaurs. Why? Because I saw this story in High School (20 years ago +) and I thought they were dreadful, but acceptable considering I understood the limitations of the production. Over time the the dinosaurs became exgerated in my head. I thought of them as being much worse than they truly are. So. that stuff aside. Its a solid story. I wish I could say that the color enhanced episode one is a major disappointment. Color restoration had been impressive in the past on stories such as Terror of the Autons. For this version BBC only had partial color information and added the blue with a computer. So the blues look great and the rest looks pretty rough, especially browns and flesh tones. I must say that I am puzzled as to why they couldnt use a computer colorization technique to bring the entire episode up to the standards of the rest of the show. Especially when one considers they had the rest of the serial for reference it is a puzzle. Is colorization that expensive? Some of the color by computer work done in the past ten years has been quite impressive if not perfect. But superior to what BBC has provided. Note to anyone making a movie with puppet monsters/dinosaurs/spaceships: Try filming things backward and then reversing it in editing. It effectively creates the illusion that the object is propelling itself.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Doctor Who: INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS August 10, 2012

By G. L. Nelson

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

The 5-Star rating is for the quality and value of the DVD. Superb job as is typical of the Doctor Who Restoration Team in their production of Classic Era Doctor Who DVD's.

INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS
Story # 71
Season 11's Second Story
Third Doctor, Jon Perwee Era, final season 1973-74
Second Classic Sarah Jane Smith story

OVERALL STORY RATING 8/10
INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS is a 10/10 story pulled down to 8/10 solely due to poor dinosaur special effects. If the viewer is willing to put forth a tiny bit of effort and engage their imagination when the dinosaurs are onscreen, the reward will be a truly superb story well worth the watching. It is truly sad that such an excellent story is pulled so low by a single problem. Were it not for the poor dinosaur special effects, INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS would likely rate among the finest WHO stories of all time, possibly even in the top 25.

Essential for SARAH JANE ADVENTURES fans, and highly recommended for Whovians, both veteran and novice .

STORY & SCRIPT 10/10
Excellent Malcolm Hulke script. Many twists, turns and surprises for the viewer. Great dialog, impressive and creative story idea, believable and intriguing idealists as not-evil-just-misguided-villians. All elements combined make for an impressive, intelligent well-above-average-WHO story that will engage the viewer mentally and emotionally.

ACTING 10/10
Superb performances across the board for main cast, UNIT and guest cast. Jon Pertwee's "Third Doctor" is one of the best and most unique in WHO history, and he and Elisabeth Sladen have an entertaining, very watchable closeness and rapport making the Pertwee/Sladen companionship one of WHO's best-ever pairings.... INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS looks much like an early test run for SARAH JANE ADVENTURES, as Elisabeth Sladen again lights up the screen in only her second story. Her portrayal of the serious-but-warm, girl-next-door, "Sarah Jane" pulls the viewer effortlessly into the story with her, and is a strong, capable, intelligent companion, whose actions move much of the story. The UNIT team regulars are very impressive as detailed below. The large guest cast is superb across the board with every performance engaging, believable and spotlessly done. One of the few WHO stories that can genuinely be rated "flawless" in all across-the-board performances. Veteran Whovians will recognize the incredible Peter Miles(Professor Whitaker) and excellent John Bennett (General Finch) from superb performances each will give in two WHO masterpiece stories to come in Seasons 12 and 14.

PRODUCTION QUALITY 10/10
The sets are so well built, effectively filmed and believable overall, that even a minor wobble here-and-there, does not detract from the viewer's overall belief in the scenes and story. Paddy Russell's imaginative direction is every bit as impressive in overlooked, underrated INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS as it is in the highly respected and recognized PYRAMIDS OF MARS, and HORROR OF FANG ROCK.

SPECIAL EFFECTS 2/10
The dinosaurs are so poorly realized onscreen that the score is pulled down to a "2/10" "far below average" even though other special effects are very well done. Minus the poorly realized dinosaur special effects, this story has superb producton values. Paddy Russell's filming of deserted London is particularly spooky, disturbing and chilling, giving the viewer a strong sense that something is terribly wrong. The "Time Eddy" presentation onscreen is very well done, even by today's standards, a surprisingly good achievement considering the limitations of mid-1970's CSO technology.

STORY IMPORTANCE 9/10
One of the best stories for the UNIT Team. The Brigadier, Yates, and Benton each get their chance to shine, and they and the stunt UNIT regulars are in great form, acting and looking like a genuine military organization, and pull off a few major surprises for the viewer, which helps bump this story up considerably from a normal "5/10" average "Importance" rating. It is definitely one of the finest and most ambitious Pertwee-era stories and that is saying a lot, as there are some genuinely GREAT stories during Jon Pertwee's run as the Third Doctor, Season 7-through-11.

DVD EXTRAS 9/10
Excellent across the board except as noted in the following remarks. The excellent PEOPLE, POWER AND PUPPETRY documentary truly gets to the heart of what makes INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS such a superb story. The on-screen text information by David Brunt is also excellent. However, the commentary is a bit disappointing for once. The commentary is excellent in Parts 2, 3 & 6, but gets off-topic in Parts 1,4 & 5, where director Paddy Russell and moderator Toby Hadoke are the only participants and Russell's career outside of WHO is discussed as much or more than INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS. It is very disappointing that the commentary isn't mostly as it is in Parts 2, 3 & 6, actually concerning the making of the story itself, and less about Paddy Russell's career in-and-outside WHO. I would have much preferred to listen to more observations and memories from Richard Franklin, Peter Miles, Terence Wilton and Terrance Dicks.

DOCTOR WHO STORIES: ELISABETH SLADEN PART 1 is a 14 minute interview from 2003 with Elisabeth Sladen, that is so delightful, that the poignancy hits extra hard on the realization that with her passing on April 19, 2011, the WHO world lost a genuine, irreplacable, treasure. Keep it running past the credits for a cute little surprise.

These wonderful DVD extras are what make Classic WHO DVD's such special treats, so DO NOT overlook them as you will be losing a tremendous portion of the enormous value of a Classic WHO DVD!

COMMENTARY Participants
Toby Hadoke(Moderator) & Paddy Russell(Director) in Parts 1,4 & 5.
Parts 2,3 & 6 has varied participation with Toby Hadoke(Moderator), by Richard Franklin, Peter Miles, Terence Wilton(Actors), and Terrance Dicks(Script Editor); [special 10-minute solo commentary by John Levene(Actor, Sgt Benton) available on Part 5].

PEOPLE, POWER AND PUPPETRY Participants
Matthew Sweet(Presenter); John Pertwee-1993 Interview, Terence Wilton, Peter Miles(Actors); Barry Letts(Producer); Paddy Russell(Director); Terrance Dicks(Script Editor); Richard Morris(Designer). Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Dinosaurs & Time Travel January 27, 2012

By Michael LaBossiere

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

Being old school Doctor Who, the special effects are less than special. However, Dr. Who is a plot and character driven sort of thing and, as with most episodes, the actors and writers deliver something that is still fun to watch, even when the special effects of the episodes date back almost as far as the dinosaurs.

The story features a limited time travel element and addresses the ethics of using extreme measures in the service of environmentalism. While Dr. Who often seems left-leaning, these episodes are clearly critical of the "by any means necessary" approach to environmentalism.

As with many stories, there are captures and re-captures that tend to wear a bit thin-but when you have a lot of time to fill and a budget of six pence and a button, such is how things go.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Well done DVD January 24, 2012

By The Propmaster

Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase

I haven't seen this episode in some time and I mostly just remembered the story of the first episode being wiped (in color format) because it was called only "The Invasion" in an effort to surprise viewers when the dinosaurs come.

The DVD is high quality, with many enjoyable extras. I generally watch the episodes at least once with the info text on, even though I have now learned that this is often a repeat of stuff from the features, the deleted scenes, or the commentary. However, it gives the information right when needed, which is good. I enjoyed the 'making of' featurette and the Elisabeth Sladen segment. The first episode is available in colourized version as a special feature, but is presented in B&W by default.

I received Doctor Who: The Android Invasion (Story 83) at the same time. The similarities were weird, starting with arrival in a deserted town, but this is the better of the two episodes, in my opinion, and a much better collection of extras.