Product Details

• Actors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison
• Writers: Sydney Newman
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: August 24, 1994
• Run Time: 139 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303145930
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #223,281 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Plot Thickens, January 18, 2004

By 

Jason A. Miller (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who - Silver Nemesis [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Silver Nemesis" is "Doctor Who"'s 25th anniversary story only in the sense that Part One aired 25 years to the night after the first episode of "An Unearthly Child". It wasn't even the season premiere, and there wasn't a whole lot of celebrating going on. Most of the nods to "Unearthly", in fact, came in the Season 25 opener, "Remembrance of the Daleks". What made "Silver Nemesis" the anniversary -- apart from the token appearance of classic "Who" adversary the Cybermen -- was the plot, which purported to reveal great secrets about the Time Lord's true origin.

As an actual story, "Silver Nemesis" never got off the ground. Most of the best material was left on the cutting room floor, as evidenced when the extended VHS release added nearly half an episode's worth of extra scenes.

Each of the three parts of "Nemesis" contains one utterly pointless extended sequence that adds nothing to the ongoing story, except lame laughs. In Part Two, 17th century villainness Lady Peinforte is stalked through the streets of 1988 Windsor by a couple of skinheads, who repeatedly berate her as a "social worker". What the heck is that about? In Part Three, Peinforte takes a long car ride with a tourist from Virginia, who speaks in the most inflated Southern accent since the movie "Steel Magnolias". All right, this actually gets funnier in retrospect, but it sure wasn't amusing in 1988. In Part One there is some promise, as "Doctor Who" veteran Nick Courtney makes an unbilled, dialogue-free cameo as a tourist at Windsor Castle. A stand-in for the Queen also shows up, walking her dogs.

The best version of "Nemesis" that exists is neither of the "official" ones (broadcast or VHS). A "lite" edit circulated around the Internet a couple of years ago, which eliminated all of the go-nowhere scenes listed above, and replaced them with the most interesting extra bits from the VHS release. The story is made markedly tighter by this substitution, while still coming in at a manageable three parts. The most interesting alteration is the change of cliffhangers: Part Two no longer ends with the non-terrifying revelation that "thousands" of Cybermen spaceships are orbiting the Moon. Instead, it concludes with a screech as the story's Nemesis -- the living Gallifreyan statue forged as the ultimate weapon of mass destruction -- comes to life in a shower of impressively digitized sparks. As the story is really about the Nemesis (not the Cybermen) and what she knows about the Doctor, "Silver Nemesis" takes sharper focus when she's given center stage.

But "Silver Nemesis" ultimately cannot deliver on any meaningful level. It asserts that the Doctor has "secrets", about "the old time, the time of Chaos". However, no matter how you edit the story, those secrets will never be revealed. Oh, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred still have terrific by-play together. You'll find out a little more about the Doctor's ongoing chess game with the shadows in Lady Peinforte's study, solved in the following season's "Curse of Fenric". However, it will still end with Ace asking the Doctor, "Who ARE you?", and will still end with Sylvester shushing her. That's not an anniversary. That's just par for the course.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Wasted Opportunity, November 17, 2010

By 

Jason Bachand (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis (Story 154) (DVD)

When Silver Nemesis came out on video in the 90s, it was in the form of a greatly extended director's cut. The video was accompanied by an excellent documentary on the making of the story produced by an American PBS station. As a package, it was an excellent value and a fan's delight.

This DVD release of the story is, by comparison, a wasted opportunity. The stories from the seventh doctor's era were often poorly paced and nonsensical, in part due to extensive edits for timing. Silver Nemesis is a prime example. The added footage (more than 20 minutes' worth) in the video release wasn't just for kicks, but actually improved the coherence of the narrative by leaps and bounds. And the accompanying documentary added valuable insight into the characters and the philosophy of the writers.

I can understand why the documentary may have been left out for reasons related to copyrights, but to release this story in "vanilla" form when hours of extant material exists in the BBC archives is, frankly, cheap. I'm going to hold off on buying this DVD and hope it gets the "Revisitation" treatment as several other Doctor Who stories have.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy 25th anniversary, Doctor!, January 4, 2002

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who - Silver Nemesis [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In an untelevised adventure in 1638, the Second Doctor launched an asteroid containing a statue made of the living metal (yes, living metal) validium into space, but got the sums wrong, so that its decaying orbit would lead it back to Earth on 23 November 1988 (read, Doctor Who's silver jubilee).

Three parties are striving to control the statue, named Nemesis: Herr De Flores, leader of a band of neo-Nazis, Lady Peinforte and her servant Richard, and that silver menace whom De Flores calls the Giants (q.v. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen), the Cybermen. The Doctor and Ace get involved in this when the former's alarm sounds at a Courtney Pine concert. They jet back and forth from 1988 to 1638 to discover answers, answers that the Doctor already knows but is keeping from Ace.

Our heroes must gain possession of the Nemesis to correct the Doctor's mistake, and it ends triumphantly when the everybody in the other three parties perish, save one.

Dolores Gray has a pleasant moment as a kindhearted Virginian tourist who gives Lady Peinforte and Richard a lift in her limo, replete with accent.

And the pair of skinheads mistaking Lady Peinforte and Richard for social workers is cause for a chuckle or eye rolling.

The concept of a comet causing events on Earth with its arrival every 25 years is interesting, as evidenced by the eve of the Great War (1913), the Anschluss of Austria (1938), Kennedy's assassination (1963), and the Cybermen invasion of Earth (1988). What other events did the Nemesis influence? The eve of the War of the Ausberg League (1688), the eve of the French Revolution (1788), the Battle of Gettysburg (1863)? Maybe.

A few questionable aspects to this story is the use of the Gregorian calendar (1752) in England re the Doctor's calculations, the motives of the Cybernized people shooting at the Doctor and Ace after the concert (maybe they also hated people whose alarms went off at concerts), and the existence in 1638 of Roundheads. Still, this doesn't detract from the story.

The Cybermen outfits must be brand spanking new compared to Attack Of The Cybermen, as they are polished and glittering, and as such, are a sight to behold. Still, glitter does not obscure the fact that they are still easily killed by gold coins, unless they were made with sharpened edges--who knows?

This is the second of what I call the "Ace Enigma Trilogy," the first being Dragonfire, the third being The Curse Of Fenric. For those who don't know what's going on, think--who moved the chess pieces after the Doctor's first visit to Lady Peinforte's house? And why does he bother playing the game in the first place.

Pity the series ended with Survival, otherwise we might have seen the story where Gainsborough did his painting of Ace.

Following the story are outtakes and a making of documentary, where the viewer gets to see the use of glowing paint for the Nemesis bow, Cyberleader David Banks demonstrating his new Cyber costume, rehearsal sessions in the BBC studio, the importance of first showing actors firing guns the safety catch, and other things.

As a silver anniversary celebration, Silver Nemesis, and its companion documentary has its hearts in the right places.