Customer Reviews

Doctor Who - The Key to Time Collection

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The BBC has gone all out with this Dr. Who DVD set of Season 16 "The Key To Time". The great thing about these DVDs is that they all have commentary and Tom Baker himself has done commentary on half of them. This is great compared to other show DVD releases. How many Star Trek Episodes or Movies have commentary by any of the actual stars of the show? (NONE) Here's a description of the stories and extras you'll get in this package...

The Ribos Operations- A pretty good Robert Holms Story about greed for a valuable mineral set in a medieval type culture.
Commentary by Tom Baker and Mary Tamm(Romana). Text commentaries/trivia and photo galleries.

The Pirate Planet- This is the Gem of season 16. One fo the great Douglas Adams Dr. Whos. It's about a planet that continuously experiences economic boons whose native's never bother to question why. The Doctor must face the extremely loud and boisterous Captain to find the answers. Wonderfully humorous dialogue and one of the few Whos that can hold the interest of non fans.
Commentary by Director Pennant Roberts and Bruce Purchase (the Captain) Text commentaries/trivia and photo galleries plus several minutes of additional footage from the location shoots.

The Stones Of Blood- Another excellent story (from a dialogue perspective at least). Satan worshippers pray to giant stones which can move across the countryside sucking the life out of people. There's even a decent slasher film type scene with a couple camping in the woods.
Commentary by Mary Tamm and director Darrol Blake Text commentaries/trivia and photo galleries.

The Androids of Tara- A swashbuckling adventure about an alien civilization who's garb look medieval but who also employ android technology. Kind of silly but kind of fun.
Commentary by Tom Baker, Mary Tamm and director Michael Hayes Text commentaries/trivia and photo galleries.

The Power of Kroll- The worst one of the season. Laugh as the green painted swampies worship the giant latex Squid. Be warned... at any moment the giant rubber tentacle could come and drag someone away! Kind of like the gong show.
Commentary Tom Baker and John Leeson (K9) Text commentaries/trivia and photo galleries.

The Armageddon Factor- The final battle for the Key To Time. Can the Doctor defeat the mysterious Shadow? I always found the Shadow to be incredibly scary although it doesn't make up for the fact that they could've probably cut a half hour out of this.
Commentary by Mary Tamm, director Michael Hayes and John Woodvine (the Marshal). Text commentaries/trivia and photo galleries.

Watching the Key to Time series in one piece really fills in alot of blanks for those of us not fortunate to have seen enough Doctor Who episodes to get a sense of the whole. Not that you'll get much of a history of the Time Lords or understand from this series alone why Doctor Who is on the adventure he is on, but it's still a great place to start, not to mention that this series contains two of my all-time favorite Who episodes, The Pirate Planet and The Androids of Tara. The search for the Key is really just a convenient excuse to send the Doctor off on a series-long adventure. Some of the episodes barely make mention of the Key, while others focus on it more intently.

This series comes from the Tom Baker years, and shows both the scarcastic wit and the caring that made these years so popular with viewers, especially in America, where Baker has been by far the favorite of the doctors. These years also featured K-9, the robotic dog who has more personality than alot of the humans in the Doctor Who worlds and whose near demise in the final episode is surprisingly moving. It also features the beautiful Mary Tamm as Romana, the youngish time lord who is foisted on Doctor Who against his will but becomes his treasured companion. Tamm is fabulous, holding her own wonderfully against Baker and managing to convey intelligence, beauty, humor and compassion consistently. Although you can read about each episode in more detail on the reviews for the individual episodes, here is my quick rundown of each:

The Ribos Operation: 3 stars, not the most interesting Who episode, not the worst either. Introduces the White Guardian and Romana and sets up the search for the key, but is otherwise pretty run of the mill. Nice hammy turns by the co-leads, one a tyrant out to buy a planet to use as a staging post for reconquering his world, the other a con man trying to hustle him on the sale of the planet, a backwards world with religious symbols that look awfully Catholic.

The Pirate Planet: 5 stars - very cheesy, very funny, very intelligent episode about one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever committed. One of the best Who episodes, written by the late, great Douglas Adams of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fame.

The Stones of Blood: 2 1/2 stars -- Worst episode of the bunch, a silly, slow-moving take on Stonehenge and goddess-worshipping cults.

The Androids of Tara: 5 stars - Fabulous episode that plays on "The Prisoner of Zenda." The Doctor and Romana get caught on opposite sides in a battle for the throne of Tara. Another one of those stories in which one of the leads (Romana) is a dead ringer for a principal on the other world (right down to the little scar in the middle of her forehead). Overlook that small detail, though, and this one's a winner from the beautiful scenery and costumes to some of the best acting in a Who episode.

The Power of Kroll: 3 1/2 stars - not a great episode, but still entertaining. Anthropology stars here as one race risks exterminating another out of corporate greed, only to be foiled by a giant squid.

The Armageggdon Factor: 4 stars -- the longest episode (at six mini-episodes instead of the usual 4), and the wrapping up of the Key saga, takes place on a planet on the brink of annihilation following a nuclear war. Also introduces us to the princess whose shape Romana will assume when she undergoes her first transformation.

This series is both a must for serious collectors and a great intro for the first-time Who viewer. It's not necessary to view these in order (for years I'd only seen two of them), but it's a nice treat if you can afford it.

The Key to Time season, season 16, of Doctor Who is a mixed bag. As fans know, this was the first Doctor Who season to have a true ongoing storyline throughout the entire season. Yes, it's true, Season 8 does have the Master in each story, for a link of sorts. Each Season 8 story can be enjoyed on its own without confusion, while the average viewer watching in the 1970's who had started watching in the middle of the season might wonder what this "Key To Time" is. This experiment works, for the most part, although some of the stories are uneven. If I could, I would probably give the stories alone 3 stars, but the DVD commentaries and pop-up production text bump my rating up to 4 stars.
The Ribos Operation, The Stones of Blood, and The Androids of Tara work quite well, in my opinion. The Pirate Planet, Power of Kroll, and Armageddon Factor don't work quite as well.
The season is full of great double acts. Garron and Unstoffe in 'Ribos', The Pirate Captain and Mr. Fibuli in 'Pirate', Emilia Rumford & Vivien Fay in 'Stones' and Major Shapp and the Marshall in 'Armagedon'.
Tom Baker gets rather silly in some of the stories and, in my opinion, was allowed too much control with the character. A little flippancy is fine, but Tom's mugging to the camera and doing silly things like throwing coins in the air that take forever to fall would have never been allowed under Baker's first producer, Phillip Hinchliffe. Graham Williams needed to keep better control of his star. Tom's little eye rolling mad speech at the end of 'Armageddon Factor' is amusing but far too jokey.
Still, Tom Baker gives mostly marvellous performances and Mary Tamm shines as Romana.
The set is well packaged, with the 6 individually plastic cased stories in a nice presentation box. The artwork on the packages isn't all that pretty, but it's what's on the inside that counts.
Each story has terrific audio commentary and pop up production text. Tom Baker and Mary Tamm work well in their commentaries and don't have any of the tension that supposedly existed during the production of the stories. The other commetaries are nice, too, but the 3 with Tom are the most entertaining. Bios and Photo Galleries are on each disc, too. The only other extra is about 10 minutes of location filming from 'The Pirate Planet' which includes footage that wasn't in the story when broadcast. I wish there were more extras, but Warner Video and BBC Worldwide Americas gave the BBC in the UK very little time to prepare these 6 stories for release...
The picture quality and sound are terrific for programs that are over 20 years old.
I do hope that there aren't more season releases like this one. The only other season with an 'umbrella' theme is the 'Trial of a Time Lord' which was 14 episodes. The majority of Doctor Who doesn't have an ongoing storyline like programs such as The Sopranos, Buffy, or Babylon 5, which are more suited to the season set approach. I would rather have the stories that come out in the UK first, which are painstakingly restored and are packed with extras.
Still, I do recommend this set. It is a fun way to spend 9 hours. Acually 18 hours, if you watch the stories without the commentary and then with!

The latest DVD release for the intrepid Time Lord marks a unique entry in the long running BBC Sci-Fi show's history. Producer Graham Williams took the decision to link the entire sixteenth season under one ongoing theme - the search for The Key to Time, with each of the individual six stories focusing on the Doctor's search for one of the pieces, scattered randomly around the universe by the White Guardian. The linking concept changed the nature of the show and for the first time gave the Doctor a purpose and aim, rather than just his typical aimless wandering the galaxy in prior stories.

The entire series has been simultaneously released on DVD now for the first time, with each story on its own disc, released separately or all together in a box set. I opted for the individual discs, thinking this was the way to have all the individual covers, but in fact the box-set does have all the separate cases, so it is a much better bargain.

The stories themselves hold up very well, although as with any Doctor Who season, there are definitely highs and lows. As far as most fans are concerned, the biggest high comes with the second story - The Pirate Planet, penned by Douglas Adams, shortly before he was appointed script editor for the show and a couple of years before he embarked on the Hitch Hiker's Guides. It certainly is a good story, but my personal favorite is the season opener, The Ribos Operation, penned by the show's former script editor Robert Holmes. It's full of whimsical characters, terrific jokes, wonderful sets and some great acting. The low points for me have to be the last two stories, particularly the frankly attrocious six-parter The Armageddon Factor, which tied up all the loose ends for the entire season most unsatisfactorily.

Personally, the absolute highlight of the entire season is the inclusion of the stunning Mary Tamm as the Doctor's assistant, fellow Gallifreyan Romana. Her haughty interplay with the Doctor is magical and Tamm provided an incredibly glamorous presence in the show. It's a great pity she signed up for just the one season and couldn't be persuaded to stay on for the next.

The DVD's themselves are of excellent picture and sound quality, but I'm disappointed that there are hardly any extras included at all. Each story has a commentary provided by a mix of the cast and production crew. Baker and Tamm provide the commentary together on two of the stories. Tamm appears on two others, and Baker and K9 actor John Leeson appear on The Power of Kroll, with writers, directors and guest actors helping out on the others. Sadly, Producer Williams, and writer's Holmes and Adams are all deceased. I am sure their contributions would have been wonderful. Mary Tamm seems to have almost total recall, whereas Tom Baker appears to remember nothing at all of the shows. It doesn't matter, since their warmth and obvious enjoyment of working together again comes across clearly, and Baker is obviously delighted to be reminded of the show once more. It's a bit of a shame on The Androids of Tara that the pair seem to run out of anything at all to say, and there are long silences. What is mildly annoying is that the on screen captions mirror almost word for word what the commentators are saying. I would have preferred it if the two elements provided alternative explanations of the show's background and production history. There are also subtitles available, but that's about it! None of the extra features we've come to associate with the release of Doctor Who on DVD appear here. A missed opportunity I think. Since this series is only released so far in region one, I hope the BBC don't opt to augment the extras for the British/European releases at a later time.

Another small irritation is that the cover artwork for each case often features photos from a different part of the six stories. Some simple research could have avoided that error. I suppose the concept of the linking series was not considered a winner (despite huge TV ratings in the UK), since it wasn't attempted again until Colin Baker's ill-fated run as the Doctor many years later, but it works for me!

The Key To Time season - a season of highs and lows. Supposedly the Doctor's quest to find and recover all six segments of the powerful Key To Time, the hunt was really just an excuse for the Doctor to go on his usual adventures, albeit this time with a fellow Time Lord and a mission. This season (and indeed the time that Graham Williams spent in the producer's chair) isn't exactly my favorite, yet I still find quite a lot here to appreciate. The sense of fun and adventure never left the series, and both can be seen here in spades.

The season itself is not one of the greatest that Doctor Who ever did, but it is certainly worth anyone's time. Doctor Who definitely exhibited a lot of variety during its 26 year run, and the stories showcased here display that diversity. We go from a medieval-Russian styled story of swindlers and con-artists to a high-concept science-fiction story from the pen of Douglas "Hitchhiker's Guide" Adams to an Earth-based horror tale to a homage to THE PRISONER OF ZENDA to an old-fashioned monster story before wrapping everything up in a tale of galactic warfare. And not only are all those stories part of the same TV series, but they're all part of the giant umbrella arc. Quite impressive that a show could manage to combine all those dissimilar elements yet still retain a unique flavor of its own.

If you already own this set on VHS, then I can only state that purchasing this on DVD is definitely worth it. Fans who have been following the Doctor Who DVD releases will already know that the discs have been vastly cleaned up in terms of clearer picture quality and crisper sound. The Key To Time set is no exception. The audio commentaries are also a great idea, and even the more uneventful are never less than entertaining (THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR being the exception). Actors Tom Baker, Mary Tamm, Bruce Purchase, John Leeson and John Woodvine and directors Pennant Roberts, Darrol Blake, and Michael Hayes all share their remembrances and experiences. To be honest though, not all of the anecdotes have weathered the decades intact, and Tom Baker seems to only be dimly aware that he once played a character known as "The Doctor". But again, entertainment counts for something, and listening to Baker tell various anecdotes about old ladies attacking him with shopping trolleys is very enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

While there are a few rough spots in this collection, this DVD set is really more than the sum of its parts. It's easy for Doctor Who fans to take Tom Baker for granted after seeing his episodes rerun into infinity, but a release like this can really make one stop and take notice of how enjoyable Doctor Who can be. Fans have probably watched many of these stories multiple times, yet I see this set as a reminder to sit myself down again and watch them as if it were the first time. I noticed things here that I had never caught before, and I remembered a lot of characters and clever bits of dialog that I thought I had forgotten. And if you've somehow never seen the adventures of Tom Baker, wacky Time Lord, then this DVD set is an excellent introduction to the fun, magic and variety that is Doctor Who. Enjoy!

The Key To Time season of Doctor Who is one of the high points of Tom Baker's later years, and possibly even the best slate of episodes laid out for Baker and company since his debut season. It's lovely to have them on shiny round things now instead of slowly-deteriorating tapes. But those of you who have gotten used to the feature-rich Doctor Who DVD releases like "Ark In Space," "Caves Of Androzani," "Remembrance Of The Daleks" or the region 2 "Doctor Who: The Movie" release may feel a bit betrayed by these discs. At most, there's a commentary, a trivia text subtitle, and a "Who's Who" on most of the discs, with some surviving raw location film footage on the "Pirate Planet" DVD. When so much has been written in Doctor Who Magazine or the Howe-Stammers-Walker books about this season's creation and execution, one feels like perhaps these episodes were rushed to DVD. Still, I can't fault them too much - producing special features for one disc takes long enough, but six? So a solid four out of five stars for this box set.

It's great to see Doctor Who coming to DVD, but as with all DVDs being made, those who master them should put in the best effort possible to make them look and sound great. We should expect no less. Compared to the other Dr Who DVDs on the market, "The Key to Time" series is of lower quality because they weren't given the same amount of attention during the remastering.

The video, while sharp and vibrant, suffers from occasional black horizontal 'video lines' that blip on once in a while. These could easily have been cleaned up and are annoying to watch when they do appear. Fortunately, they don't happen often (2-5 times an episode are they really noticable and bothersome.)

Second, there's audible hiss in the background. With modern clean-up procedures, this could have been reduced or completely eliminated. The hiss bothers me much more than the video lines because the sound is constant. And other BBC Video releases in America such as "Are You Being Served?" do come across rather well in terms of the audio.

Okay, negative points aside let's now dwell on the positives.

The audio commentaries and informational text are probably the most informative they've ever been and are alone worth the price of the set.

The video itself is vibrant with color not being overly saturated and is quite sharp. Video lines aside, the sharpness and saturation match that of other released Dr Who stories. And, again, the video lines are not frequent. Just annoying for when they do crop up. It could be worse...

But this is the Key to Time on DVD. It's been released, and that's how it is. We have to accept it, warts and all. I still say it's worth the purchase. The good does outweigh the bad. I just wish those doing the mastering would be more conscientious as they had done with previous Dr Who releases on DVD.

This fantastic "Doctor Who" box set is unprecedented in at least two ways. Firstly, the very idea of linking all six storylines of the show's sixteenth season into one epic meta-story was and remains ambitiously inventive, something not really attempted before and rarely repeated on such a grand scale since. Each story is quite different and episodic in the usual "Doctor Who" fashion, and yet in all of them the Doctor and his assigned assistant Romana are searching for the six segments of the Key to Time hidden scattered throughout time and space--a mission hoisted on the reluctant Doctor by the White Guardian, an immensely powerful cosmic being concerned with maintaining the balance of the universe. In this quest, the Doctor, Romana, and K9 will come across all manner of challenges: clever con-men and tenacious tyrants, peregrinating planets and apoplectic pirates, daft Druids and strolling stones, antique androids and crafty counts, cornered colonialists and colossal calamari, and finally missile-happy militarists and sadistic shadows. All in a day's work if you're a Time Lord, I guess.

Secondly, as of this date this is the only fully complete season of classic "Doctor Who" available on DVD, and so it gives the viewer a much more realistic and authentic sense of what watching this show from week to week would've been like. That is, in other DVD releases the BBC has concentrated on classics, fan favorites, turning points--storylines that really stand out for some reason, in other words. But no show can maintain such a high strung level of intensity constantly, even a great show like "Doctor Who"--no, mixed in among the rare landmarks will of course be unremarkably good or just okay stories and, yes, even a few clunkers. And that's exactly what we find here in "The Key to Time Set" in fact: all six stories are very enjoyable, creative, and fun, but the quality is indeed noticeably variable. More representative of the show's overall stellar strengths and endearing weaknesses, really.

Besides, with Tom Baker as the Doctor, what have you got to lose? Yeah, it's a box set, but go ahead and splurge a little. After all, you only live once--unless you're a Time Lord, of course.

P.S. The six storylines in this DVD set all make up one overarching story arc, as mentioned, and they're probably best watched in that manner. For that reason, and in terms of economics and convenience, this box set is probably the way to go, especially if you're a fervent Doctor Who fan. However, if you are exclusively interested only in a single DVD from this set, they are sold individually as well:
1. Doctor Who - The Ribos Operation (Episode 98) (The Key to Time Series, Part 1)
2. Doctor Who - The Pirate Planet (Episode 99) (The Key to Time Series, Part 2)
3. Doctor Who: Stones of Blood (Episode 100) (The Key To Time Series, Part 3)
4. Doctor Who - The Androids of Tara (Episode 101) (The Key to Time Series, Part 4)
5. Doctor Who - The Power of Kroll (Episode 102) (The Key to Time Series, Part 5)
6. Doctor Who: The Armegeddon Factor (Episode 103) (The Key to Time Series, Part 6)

Now at last I can see this wonderful collection, now I have hacked my DVD player!
And was it worth it- Yes. The key to Time collection is a complete season of Doctor Who Starring one of the best Doctors Tom Baker. This series was a first (and a last!) departure for the series in having the whole series as a inter linked story, each disc describing the good Doctors search for the key to time. Starring also the beautiful Mary Tamm as Romana and plenty of K9.
This is an essential addition to any collection and if you live in UK wel worth the trouble of hacking your player. The boxed set represents good value as it will save pounds (dollars) over buying them seperately. Extras are a little sparse on US versions compared with other who discs on region 2, with just talk overs and picture galleries, but still the restoration of the episodes as ever is very well done!

Dr. Who was always quite inconsistant in its writing and production. A typical season mixes absolute gems (like Ark in Space, or Talons of Weng Chiang), with near drek (like Revenge of the Cybermen or Underworld). While there are certainly exceptions, the 16th season was not one of them. None of the stories of the season are likely to make my Top 10 list, but Ribos Operation and Androids of Tara would both squeak into my Top 20. At the bottom, Power of Kroll was so bad that I'll admit to having not gotten around to watching it yet! The rest of the set (Stones of Blood, Armageddon Factor, and Pirate Planet) are quite watchable, but nothing special. [IMO, Doug Adams brand of humor just doesn't work within the parameters of Dr. Who.]

As for the DVDs themselves, despite what some other reviews said, the picture quality seemed fine to me, with no annoying problems. The spoken commentary by various actors and directors was generally interesting. Are their memories REALLY that good, or have they just been telling the same stories at various conventions for the past 2 decades?
The on-screen information text ranged from interesting (lots of production details and information about script changes) to the tedius (long lists of acting credits for virtually every actor to appear in Armageddon Factor.) One small complaint here is that the white text (used both for the info-text and for the captions)was a bit hard to read. But to balance that complaint, while I haven't watched all the discs with the captions, the ones I've seen seem to be accurate! (A vast improvement over the videos, on which the captions are both extremely simplified [whole lines of dialogue left out or rewritten [[perhaps they assume that the viewers are all little kids, who can't read very well?]]], and, often, just plain wrong. [Written by people are are completely unfamiliar with the series, and have trouble understanding English accents.])

Oh, and lest we forget the BEST thing about this boxed set! Once you get the large box open, the individual DVDs are NOT sealed into their individual cases. (I'd like to know who decided that it was necessary to seal up DVD cases like they contained the crown jewels?)Just pop 'em open and go. Almost makes it worth paying for Power of Kroll.