Product Details

• Actors: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred
• Directors: Andrew Morgan
• Writers: Ben Aaronovitch
• Producers: John Nathan-Turner
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Subtitled, Full Screen, Special Edition, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0)
• Subtitles: English
• Dubbed: Spanish
• 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: March 2, 2010
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000Z7G87W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,334 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks (Story 152) - Special Edition" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

"Remembrance of the Daleks," the final Doctor Who story to feature the titular mutant cyborgs, is a particularly notable adventure for the way it ties the plot into the very first story, "An Unearthly Child," made 25 years before. It is 1963, and the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, arrives in London with new companion Ace (Sophie Aldred), where two Dalek factions are engaged in a deadly search for the Hand of Omega. Ace quickly proves herself adept with high explosives, and while there are references to the history of the show, including some nice in-jokes, the drama is played much straighter than in McCoy's first season as the time traveler. This is Doctor Who with a decent budget; the period setting is surprisingly lavish and there are some fairly intense action sequences. The Daleks remain as menacing as ever, the plotting has an intriguing air of mystery, and McCoy injects some steel into his characterization. Aldred serves an ace as a heroine with attitude (very much post-Sarah Connor from The Terminator), and if this really does prove to be the Daleks' swan song, at least they go out with a bang. --Gary S. Dalkin

Product Description

The TARDIS arrives in London in November 1963, where the Doctor and Ace discover that two rival factions of Daleks - one loyal to the Dalek Emperor and one to the Dalek Supreme - are seeking the Hand of Omega, a powerful Time Lord device that the first Doctor hid there during an earlier sojourn on Earth. The Daleks are focusing their search around Coal Hill School - the school that the Doctor's grand-daughter Susan attended - while a military unit led by Group Captain Gilmore is attempting to resist their incursions. The Doctor tries to keep Gilmore and his team out of harm's way while the two Dalek factions battle each other for control of the Hand. The imperial Daleks eventually overpower those led by the Dalek Supreme and capture the device. The Dalek Emperor is revealed to be Davros, now with only the last vestiges of his humanoid form remaining. The Doctor begs him not to use the Hand, but is ignored. However, this is just the final ruse in a complex trap laid by the Time Lord to defeat his old adversaries. The Hand vaporises the creatures' home planet, Skaro, by turning its sun into a supernova, and then returns to destroy their forces orbiting Earth. The Doctor confronts the Dalek Supreme and causes it to self-destruct by convincing it that it is the sole surviving member of its race.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary
DVD ROM Features
Deleted Scenes
Outtakes
Photo gallery
Production Notes

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 84 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Sly Mckoy versus the Daleks on DVD February 6, 2002

By Matthew L. Roffman

Format:DVD

Remembrance of the Daleks is the only Sylvester Mcoy Dalek story and it's the best 7th Doctor they made. It involves the Doctor returning to the very Junk Yard where the program began in 1963 just a few days after his first incarnation left. For some reason, two warring factions of Daleks have traveled back to this time as well. Why are they there and what do they want... and what exactly was the Doctor doing in 1963 London back in the first episode anyway? All these questions will be answered.
It is so cool that Dr. Who is coming out on DVD with all the extras you could want. It's a pity other show DVDs such as the recent Farscape episode don't have such extras. Hopefully the forthcoming Star Trek DVDs will. Here's a list of the extras you'll get...
commentary by Sylvester McCoy & Sophie Aldred, deleted scenes, out-takes, on screen production note subtitles, multi-angle scenes, the original trailers, photo gallery
Ths commentary is pretty good. More consistent and informative than the Robots of Death Commentary but not quite as entertaining as The Five Doctors Commentary or the Caves of androzani Commentary. Sophi and Sylvester talk a lot about things that happened on the set and the careers of some of their costars in the story. Pretty interesting stuff...

On another note... if you're looking for new Dr. Who material. Look for the audio releases of the missing episodes. Look for my list "Missing Dr. Who's on Audio and Video" to find out about this. [....]Look for "The Web of Fear" for starters. "The Dalek's Master Plan" Audio Release is awsome too. Also check out Big Finnish productions for the new audio adventures of Dr. Who featuring Doctors ranging from Peter Davison to Paul Mcgann. Was this review helpful? Did you learn something new from it? Please vote Yes.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy upgrade November 17, 2009

By Nathan Redmond

Format:DVD

Okay, folks. Before you go writing a one star review about how "BBC Video has double-dipped again and they don't even have half the series out yet!", let me provide some backstory on the trials and tribulations that led to this release. I'm not going to discuss the actual episode (aside from the music), as I haven't seen it yet, and many others have said more interesting things about it anyway.

When Remembrance of the Daleks was first released on DVD in the UK, a number of mistakes were made in the restoration process that led to some video effects being eliminated (eg. a Dalek ray gun was removed from a scene where a soldier gets exterminated, although his skeleton still shows through). Corrections were made for the subsequent North American and Australian releases, but UK viewers had to put up with it for a while. In 2007, the Restoration Team decided to go back and remaster the episode from scratch, with a new set of bonus features and the missing effects reinstated. It was included in a boxset release of the five Davros serials there. As you may recall, there were originally plans to release the Davros set and a standalone version of Remembrance in North America in March 2008, but thanks to complications over the inclusion of Big Finish audio dramas in the boxset, both releases got canned. In July 2009, the Special Edition was released in the UK in a standalone version, which is now coming to North America, eight months later.

So now that that's out of the way, is this worth buying if you have the original? Well, considering how the UK release of the Key to Time season blew the original North American set out of the water, it can be easily assumed that the BBC has given us a worthy double-dip for this release....

Aside from the brand new remastering job, the special edition boasts these special features:

Dolby Digital 5.1 re-mix by Mark Ayres.

The original commentary with actors Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred from 2000 is re-used.

Steve Broster has produced two new documentaries for this version:

Back to School (dur. 32' 38") - cast and crew talk about the making of the story accompanied by rare behind-the-scenes material. With actors Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Simon Williams and Karen Gledhill, writer Ben Aaronovitch, script editor Andrew Cartmel, director Andrew Morgan and journalists Moray Laing and Paul Lang.

Remembrances (dur. 15' 14") - cast and crew talk about the influences and references to other Doctor Who adventures that are spread throughout the story.

The original Extended and Deleted Scenes package (dur. 12' 24") has been supplemented by brand-new introductions to each scene from Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred.

Outtakes (dur. 4' 12") - bloopers and gaffs from the recording of the story.

Multi-Angle Sequences (dur. 1' 03" and 0' 47") - allows the viewer to watch Ace's escape from the Chemistry lab and the Daleks blowing up the large gates from one of two camera angles. Via a menu, the viewer should be allowed to choose which angle of each scene to start on, but should be free to use the 'Angle' button on their remote to change the view at will during play. This is a feature that was never implemented as intended on the 2000 release.

Trails and Continuity (dur. 4' 58") - BBC1 trails and continuity announcements from the story's transmission, in this extended package.

Photo Gallery (dur. 8' 36") - production, design and publicity photos from the story, heavily expanded and packaged into our now standard video sequence format.

Isolated Music - gives the viewer the option to watch the story with the clean music track.

Radio Times Listings in Adobe PDF format for viewing on PC or Mac. Programme subtitles. Subtitle Production Notes.

Also included is the documentary Davros Connections (dur. 43' 15"), which was originally exclusive to the Davros Boxset, but is now being included in this re-release. This is an in-depth look at the history of the Daleks' creator, Davros, as portrayed in both the TV stories from the BBC and in audio adventures from official licensee Big Finish. With actors Terry Molloy, David Gooderson and Peter Miles, producer / director Gary Russell, director Ken Grieve, writers Eric Saward, Ben Aaronovitch, Gary Hopkins and Joseph Lidster. Narrated by Terry Molloy.

Oh, and one final note: parts one and three each originally featured a song by The Beatles in scenes set in the cafe. While the UK version of this DVD includes the songs (thanks to blanket licensing agreements), they are obviously impossible to clear outside of the UK, so some replacement music has been used. It shouldn't really affect the viewing, as no actual footage has been cut.

For those of you still on the fence because of the double dip, consider this: the only reason Remembrance is getting re-released is because the Restoration Team screwed up the remastering process the first time around, and wanted the opportunity to go back and fix it. And whatever DVDs come out in the UK first, usually make it to North America next. Since this new DVD has improved picture and sound quality, and much more bonus features, I would definitely recommend getting this even if you have the original, on the basis of the new special features and the 5.1 sound. Read more ›

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars They hate each other's chromosomes... August 18, 2003

By Peter Vinton Jr.

Format:DVD

Even the very title, REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS, suggest that nostalgia is going to play a big part in the story. This breakthrough 1988 episode by Ben Aaronovitch once again pits the Doctor against his oldest enemies, and for a Doctor Who serial, the scripting is unusually fast-paced, with not only an inordinate amount of action and better-than-average visual effects, but also some very well-developed characters and unexpected surprises.

Sylvester McCoy has by now very firmly established himself as the Doctor and kicks off his second season by re-introducing an air of mystery to the role. Just when the fans thought they knew everything there was to know about their hero, along come some new plot twists and hushed moments of dialogue to turn the Almighty God Of Plot Continuity on its head. New companion Ace (Sophie Aldred) wastes no time in establishing her rapport with "The Professor," and the two of them are already forging a partnership that will be the best-loved duo since the days of Tom Baker's Doctor and Elisabeth Sladen's Sarah Jane Smith.

More than a mere hat-tip to the series' own pilot episode, REMEMBRANCE actually returns to 1963 London and familiar settings last seen haunted by William Hartnell's incarnation of the first Doctor: to include Coal Hill School (including some prominent scenes in the Chemistry lab), and Foreman's junkyard in Totter's Lane. The long-standing question of just exactly what the Doctor was originally DOING here is finally answered as two warring schisms of Daleks emerge out of space-time and begin the all-out battle that viewers have been waiting for since 1984's REVELATION OF THE DALEKS.... The Daleks somehow don't quite come off as terrifying as audiences may remember them; despite their murderous ways and their unending grating screams of "Exterminate," they present more like long-absent friends than the ultimate threat to the universe. Even the "Emperor" Dalek, last seen in 1967's EVIL OF THE DALEKS, has undergone a makeover in the style of the old Dalek cereal box comics.

More central to the story, however, is the wonderful character development and the repeated emphasis on racism. Sophie Aldred's 1990's teen spirit is justifiably thrown off by the ways of the early 1960's --besides being baffled by the old English monetary system, she runs up against harsher realities such as the "No Coloureds" sign in the window of the boarding house run by Mike's mother. From this we can guess where Mike (Durslet McClinton, in a tragically handsome romantic foil for Ace) soaked up his "look out for your own" attitude, and how that idealism in turn caught fire with Ratcliffe (George Sewell) who once found himself at the wrong ideological end of what passed for "patriotism" in World War II. Ratcliffe's resentment has brought him into a reckless partnership with the renegade Dalek faction, who are themselves in turn despised by the "racially pure" Imperial Daleks. (Ace's deep revulsion to racist attitudes will be more fully explored in the later episode GHOST LIGHT.)

REMEMBRANCE launches Doctor Who into its final triumphant run on BBC --Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred shepherded the series through its two final seasons with some of its best-ever writing and production values (which, alas, would not be enough to save the series from its ultimate cancellation by the Beeb in 1990). McCoy's unreadable "man of mystery" performance is first glimpsed in this episode, mostly in form of hints and verbal slips that do not go unnoticed by Ace. The grander backstory of the Time Lords is widened out as well, and there are quite a few references to past episodes that longtime fans will enjoy. The script even manages a couple of gags at the series' own expense, as well as providing a plausible "early origins" basis for the secret military agency that will later be known as U.N.I.T. Simon Williams' Captain Gilmore appears to be played mostly for comic effect in a kind of exaggerated foreshadowing of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The performances by Pamela Salem as Rachel and Karen Gledhill as Alison go a long way towards solidifying the "peacetime chaos" that was English society in the early 60's. The opening pre-credits shot of the Dalek mothership looming over an unsuspecting Earth is brilliantly accented by a background babble of 1960's media sound bytes, to include speeches by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Besides some hilarious commentary by McCoy and Aldred that demonstrates just how closely the two worked together during their time in the series, the DVD has cleaned up the eternal problem of Doctor Who background music dampening out the dialogue. Special Features are little more than the obligatory biographies, blooper outtakes, and alternate camera angles of two effects sequences --not all it's cracked up to be. Aaronovitch clearly has some big shoes to fill (this being the first Dalek serial in the series NOT directed by Dalek creator Terry Nation), and he carries it off very well. No character (least of all Ace) is left standing around looking for something to do, the story's pacing proceeds at a comfortable rate with very little filler, there are a number of total surprises (even to hardcore fans who think they already know all about Doctor Who), and of course plenty of action scenes with lots of Daleks going kerboom. Definitely one of McCoy's best outings as the Doctor, as well as the best Dalek serial ever (with the possible exception of 1974's GENESIS OF THE DALEKS). This episode occupies a place in my own personal Top Ten list of Greatest Doctor Who Stories Ever. Read more ›