It is an utterly bonkers story which nearly makes sense.

Let's address the elephant in the room first. The "yellow face" isn't acceptable now and shouldn't have been acceptable back then. Kevin Lindsay does an "accent" which is, thankfully, mild. But would it really have been so difficult to have found actors of even vaguely the right ethnicity to play the various Tibetan Monks? It casts a rather long shadow over the production.

The plot is neatly done. Your dad, angry that he has lost his job, turns to spiritualism and tries to destroy the family. Only he's not shouting at your mum, he's summoning demonic spiders from another dimension.

There's an undercurrent of what we might now call colonialism. Plundering foreign resources to enrich ourselves and denying the superior claim of indigenous holders of knowledge.

Similarly the climax centres on the fact that The Doctor has stolen an artefact from its rightful culture. The only way to save the day is to repatriate it. A bit suspiciously woke if you ask me 🙃

The b-plot is straight out of Flowers for Algernon but, sadly, lacks the resolution.

The various chases (Car! Helicopter! Hovercraft!) wouldn't feel out of place in a modern story. Indeed, the recent episode "Empire of Death" has something similar on mopeds.

The spider special effects are occasionally effective, but mostly pretty naff puppetry. It is such a shame that more care wasn't taken over them. Of course, this is decades before home video releases, so very little thought was given to the longevity of episodes.

The info text subtitles are fun (and suitably irreverent) and there's a clutch of special features of the usual variable quality.

It is absolutely worth watching. The development of the Time Lord lore is significant. The early attempt at a multi-story arc is a template for future stories. Oh, and The Doctor watches a stripper with The Brigadier. Which is… something…

Because she is 15. Because this is 1991 and Russell T Davies has written one of his first proper dramas for the telly. Albeit Children's BBC - but we've all go to start somewhere, right?

While watching the fabulous "Imagine" documentary on RTD, I learned about "Dark Season". The CBBC show which, arguably, kickstarted his career. I probably saw it the first time around but, alas, the ravages of time had erased it from my memory. It is very much of its time. Filmed in the summer holidays with a bunch of drama-school kids and a healthy disregard for adult supervision.

Victoria Lambert plays... well... The Doctor as if she were a schoolgirl. She has long marvellous speeches about the nature of reality, she browbeats her teachers, and has a couple of plucky companions (including Kate Winslet) who she leads on a merry dance through time and space suburban England. There's some superb technobabble, megalomaniac plots, and cameos from old sci-fi shows. It features scientists in hiding, explosions, people with glowing hands, computers which suck out your brains, shadowy corporations and eldritch horrors. It fully acknowledges its clichés and contains lots of snappy dialogue. Even the title sequence has shades of Doctor Who.

Is it any good? Well, look, if you were the target audience for it in the 1990s then yes. It is a lovely piece of nostalgia. If you are a Doctor Who obsessive who wants a glimpse at what a revived Dr Who could have looked like, it's amazing. It contains many of the prototypes of the 21st Century version As a piece of media in its own right... the DVD is available 2nd hand from all good auction sites!

Delightfully, there is a sequel with a grown-up Kate Winslet available as a Big Finish audiobook.

Full Circle

First up, Full Circle - which introduces us to Adric. Ah, poor sweet Adric. He's an exercise in wish-fulfilment. Getting a nerdy, 17 year old, Who-geek to write a teenage nerd to appeal to other teenage nerds. I don't think the character quite works because, in my opinion, the Doctor needs a slightly dimmer foil in order to explain things to. And because, sadly, no-one likes watching grumpy know-it-all teens. He's the original Wesley Crusher. It's a pity because Matthew Waterhouse plays the part brilliantly.

Sadly, Romana is kind of useless in this one. The character doesn't really suit the "scream queen" role she's given. Although she gets much more interesting when infected - which leads on to a brilliant (if underused) effect where her veins glow mysteriously. The effects are of the usual quality - with the animatronic spiders being particularly poor.

The story is interesting enough. It is the mirror image of 2008's The Doctor's Daughter. It's nice to have some solid sci-fi that isn't just solved by shouting. The technobabble about the Charged Vacuum Emboitement is sort of muttered away as an aside. It would have been nice to build up the mystery of E-Space throughout the episode. But TV wasn't really into multi-layered arcs back then.

K-9's decapitation deserves much more of a fanfare. Yes, he's a daft robot dog who can't really do much - but he's a fan favourite. As with most 20th Century Doctor Who, emotion is an alien concept. Romana's in a bit of a mood because she has to go home - but it never becomes part of her character - nor the story.

It all sets us up nicely for…

State of Decay

This is an interesting one. Lalla Ward is in a completely different show to everyone else. She's wry, bitchy, and an utter style icon. Easily my favourite companion. Adric is fascinating! What is it like to have a companion who doesn't get on with everyone - and who might betray you? You can see where Mickey came from!

The plot, in isolation, is pretty good. Vampires... In... SPAAAAAACE! But the story is identical to Full Circle. A human ship crash-landed thousands of years ago and the inhabitants have forgotten their origin due to being led by despots.

Even certain story points are similar - the Doctor getting attacked by a bat is just a replay of Romana getting attacked by a spider. And the effects are similarly "convincing".

There are some excellent touches - especially the fuel cells filled with BLOOD! I actually think the effect of the giant vampire's hand towering above the heroes is pretty good - and it's an obvious influence on Ten-Doc's Satan Pit.

Some good Time Lord Lore being built in to the show - as per Full Circle - which helps the mythos of the show.

It's one of the classic shows which would be brilliant with a modern remake.

Warriors' Gate

This is worth the price of admission alone. A brilliant story. Stunning effects. And directed by someone who gives a damn. It has a filmic quality that doesn't really re-appear until the modern series. It is no surprise that 21st Century Who director Graeme Harper cut his teeth directing this serial! You can also see the visual impact it had on shows like Red Dwarf - with its copious shots of gantries.

Nowadays it is common to film everything in front of a green-screen. But this was a first for Who. It makes it feel like a sci-fi show - not just a drama set in space. It gives shots an ethereal, dream-like quality which no Who has matched since. The story is also excellent - drawing on Alien and Kurosawa - to make something truly special.

There's also a good set of cliffhangers, a mystical b-plot, and even Adric & K9 are useful! Sure, Romana is relegated to scream-queen once again, but there's enough going on with the plot to justify it.

This is the final part of the E-Space trilogy. But we haven't really learned anything about E-Space. Nor has it had any impact on the stories! It's a pity the arc wasn't developed further. Similarly, Romana's story comes to an abrupt end. Her frustration at being recalled to The Division Gallifrey could have been an important emotional arc for her. As could her abhorrence of the Lion-Folk's enslavement. Instead, she just says "Byeeeeeeeeee!" Which is a shame.

All three of these would be brilliant if remade for a 2020s audience.

DVD Extras

The team always give us a good crop of features. Some documentaries, studio off-cuts, and other curios. Good for the nerds like me who lap it all up. But I'm not sure the world needs a documentary on what blood is!

The triple DVD box set is about £12 - which is excellent value for money.

And what a show it is! The dialogue is sharp - rarely a wasted word - and funny. The technobabble doesn't take itself too seriously. The mythos building of The Time Lords gives us delightful hints of what's to come. I'd go so far as to say that Shada is the perfect prequel to Doctor Who Flux. Why has Tom Baker's Doctor "forgotten" about the Gallifreyan prison planet? THE DIVISION!

It also dovetails nicely with Capaldi's Doctor "retiring" to a university to teach. In Bristol!

The plot has some lovely sci-fi to it. The mix of practical special effects, CGI enhancements, and animation tie the whole package together wonderfully. It's also fascinating to see how this episode influenced Red Dwarf - specifically the long fingernails from cryo-sleep and the Back To Reality chairs.

There are a few annoyances. K-9 is as useless as ever! Physically slow, and with a pathetically underpowered laser. The "lumbering monster" trope is a bit poor - I still don't understand what they are or what they were trying to do. Romana feels a little underused - although she gets some excellent lines. Like any 1970's Doctor Who, it could easily have been trimmed down to about half the length. But, remember, this is cheap TV filler - the first VHS release of Who wouldn't be for another 4 years.

Because the footage has been edited down to a "feature length" episode - about 2h 30m - we lose the cliff-hangers. They're relatively obvious to spot where they would have occurred. It's rare that Who does a satisfying cliffhanger resolution - but it might have been nice to keep them in.

There is a delightful Easter Egg at the start and at the end. No spoilers, sweetie!

The 2nd DVD is chock-full of documentaries and behind the scenes film. Lots of fun - but you'll probably skip through a few of them.

Obviously nothing can match the hype - but Shada comes close.

A cold open on an alien planet! A celebrity comedian cameo! A feisty female companion! Wales!

On paper, Delta contains all the ingredients for a great serial. What if all the weird people at your holiday camp are weird because they're aliens?!!? Is that bus really a spaceship? What if your best friend's older sister is on the run from space bandits? Explosions! Motorcycle chases! Rock and roll music!

But the execution lets it down. There's a brilliant special effect of a baby alien hatching from an egg. It is gruesome, gooey, and horrific. And then it is replaced by a baby in a green onesie with her face painted green… The Doctor has a barnstorming speech about truth, justice, and fairness. And then just… walks away? Motorcycles race through the countryside - but no-one is chasing them. The B-Plot with American agents chasing after Sputnik is an irrelevant MacGuffin. There's endless exposition about irrelevant matters - but we never quite find out why any of this is happening.

The whole thing looks cheap. I don't mean the apocryphal "wobbly sets" - but none of the props have any heft, the set dressing is shabby, and the space-ships look like cardboard models inexpertly overlayed on the video. This story aired shortly after the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation - and it simply can't compete. The plot is absent, the direction is lacklustre, and it never really takes advantage of its 1950s setting.

The show only lasted a couple more years before hiatus. And, sadly, it isn't hard to see why.

The DVD is - as per most Doctor Who DVDs - a brilliant package. A pristine video transfer, gorgeous audio, a great trivia track, and packed with lots of fun video extras.

What's more fun is looking at all the ways the 21st Century Who calls back to this episode. Strangers chatting on a bus later becomes the Tennant-era "Midnight". Heading off to a suspiciously run-down pleasure planet morphs into Neil Gaiman's "Nightmare in Silver". Some bloke falling inexplicably in love with an alien and running off to join her is now a frequent trope. As is The Doctor dancing.

My wife reckons that the Welsh greaser-girl goes on to become Gwen-from-Torchwood's mum. And who am I to disagree?

One of those DVDs which you show to people bashing new episodes so they can see how much better things have become.

If you've enjoyed this review, please leave a comment or buy me another Dr Who DVD to review 😊

This is heavily "inspired" by Fantastic Voyage - and I think that's great; Doctor Who has always ripped off other sci-fi. It introduces younger viewers to concepts that they are going to encounter in the future.

The mad scientist has the requisite German accent, the doctors and nurses have some splendid costumes and technobabble, and the alien enemy has a decent motivation. There's blood, betrayal, jokes, and exploding space ships. What more do you want from a Saturday evening adventure?

Leela is so much more than the "dad-nip" she is often remembered as. She's the perfect cypher for kids watching. She's brave and gets a good deal of action. She isn't a passive girl along for the adventure - she drives it.

K-9 is, obviously, the star of the show. He gels with the Doctor straight away. He's a funny and expressive little blighter and it isn't had to see how he became a fan favourite.

The special effects are… OK, they're not even at the level of Star Trek - which was a decade old at that point - but they do the job. Mostly. Remember that this would have been viewed on a tiny TV screen, with hazy reception, and no possibility of rewinding. The use of CSO / Bluescreen to have the characters walk around in the Doctor's brain is particularly good.

Does the story make any sense? No, not really. But it's a good spectacle!

But…

There is a big but here. This has some of the most wobbly sets that I've seen. Everything seem flimsy and fragile. The laser blasts are static blobs on screen. The make-up is a bit ropey. The camera-work is a bit shoddy.

A few months after these episodes were broadcast, this happened:

And that changed everything.

How can you go back to this serial after seeing Industrial Light and Magic do their stuff on the big screen?

Special features

The DVD extras are great - if you're the sort of nerd who drinks in the behind-the-scenes action. A bunch of out-takes showing how the visual effects were done is particularly interesting, as is the mini documentary on model-making. There is a chance to watch some CGI "enhancements" to the original effects - but I didn't find them particularly convincing. And there's the usual smattering of clips featuring the stars.

Thanks!

Thanks to Skylar for the lovely gift.

If you've enjoyed this review, please leave a comment or buy me another Dr Who DVD to review 😊

The Web Planet puts the first Doctor and his companions in the middle of a war between two alien races - the moth-like Menoptra and a hostile race of ant creatures known as Zarbi - for possession of the planet Vortis. With the help of a grub-esque people called the Optera, the Doctor discovers the Zarbi's hidden weapon; the seductively voiced spider creature the Animus, which plans to ensnare the Time Lord and thwart his assistance to the Menoptra.

The Web Planet is a curio of a Doctor Who serial. In an era where the tapes of amazing stories were regularly destroyed, somehow this dog of a story survived!

Serials of this vintage usually have amazing ideas for stories which are poorly executed. There's a gem of an idea buried deep in here - a planet where insects evolved into the dominant force and the giant ants are at war with giant moths. But it is so... flat!

As is usual with early Who, events just happen. There's no particular reason why characters wander off, or make the decisions they do. The cliffhangers are dull, with no incentive to tune in next week.

Everything looks cheap. Partly this is because you're watching on a TV which is 5 times the size of a sixties set. Every flaw is magnified. But even on a tiny screen, it's obvious that the TARDIS is a battered and tatty old model.

That said, there are moments of beauty. The Zarbi are well designed. Even though you can see the actors' legs, they somehow convey the alien otherness of the insect realm. The flying sequences with the Menoptra are magnificent. The theatricality of the performances of the Menoptra and Optera are sublime - both their movement and vocalisations contribute to the feeling that we're not just watching people in cheap costumes. But it's never quite enough.

But it is offset with the sheer dullness of the direction and acting. A bunch of giant ants start to attack and the human actors just... stand there. There's no physicality or dramatic motion. Actors hit the cameras or forget their lines, and shooting just continues. It's almost like we're watching a rehearsal.

Four years later, the BBC would broadcast Star Trek for the first time. It's hard to see how Doctor Who could have survived against the colour, drama, and professionalism of the American sci-fi.

The DVD has the usual array of special features. The "info text" subtitles are worth turning on. Lots of little trivia items - although it does sometimes veer off into "this shot was completed at 1 minute past the scheduled time, which meant that the actors couldn't go to the pub" territory. Not always compelling.

The picture and audio are as good as you're going to get for a show of this vintage.

One for completists only.

A few years ago I wrote about how to extract the audio using the obsolete Windows program DVD-Audio Explorer. I wanted to be able to run the extraction via the command line, which means trying to find a native Linux app. I tried Python AudioTools but I got lost in an endless maze of incompatible dependencies.

So I went with Brian "tuffy" Langenberger's libDVD-Audio.

To install, simply run:

sudo make install

That will give you two new programs. To get info about your DVDA, run:

dvda-debug-info -A /path/to/your/AUDIO_TS

That will pump out details about each track like so:

Title  Track  Length  PTS Length  First Sector  Last Sector
    1      1    3:30    13450000             0        86547
    1      2    4:11    12500000         73144       122600
    1      3    2:11    16010000        370601       233337

Extract

To extract the tracks, run:

dvda2wav -A /path/to/your/AUDIO_TS

That will spit out the files in WAV format.

Encode

WAV is pretty large - about 20MB per minute per channel. Converting to FLAC (the Free Lossless Audio Codec) gets you down to about 10MB. I just go straight for the modern Opus Codec which does excellent quality surround sound at low file sizes.

opusenc --bitrate 4096 track-01-01.wav 1.opus

That's about 2MB/minute/channel and I promise that you won't hear the difference.

Metadata

If you want to add metadata to a track, it's done like this:

opusenc --bitrate 4096 in.wav out.opus --title "Yesterday" --artist "The Beatles" --tracknumber "02"

Older versions of Opusenc, oddly, don't have a native way to express track numbers, so you'll need to do it manually using --comment "tracknumber=02"

Newer versions can use --tracknumber to add track numbers.

Automating

You can make it slightly easier to add the metadata if you give the files predictable names. For example: 01-Yesterday-The Beatles.wav

Here's a scrappy bash script:

#!/bin/bash
for FILE in *.wav
do
    FILENAME="${FILE%.*}"

    TRACK=$(echo  $FILENAME | cut -d'-' -f 1)
    TITLE=$(echo  $FILENAME | cut -d'-' -f 2)
    ARTIST=$(echo $FILENAME | cut -d'-' -f 3)

    OUTPUT="[$TRACK] $ARTIST - $TITLE.opus"

    opusenc --bitrate 4096 "$FILE" "$OUTPUT" --title "$TITLE" --artist "$ARTIST" --tracknumber "$TRACK"
done

I hope future me finds these notes useful!

DVD-Audio (called DVD-A or DVDA) never really took off. It's hard to find the discs and compatible hardware. Nevertheless, I want to listen to these high-resolution audio tracks under Linux. In these examples, I'm using Ubuntu - but any modern system should cope.

Ripping DVD-A

In theory, DVD Audio Tools should work. In practice, I found no guide to compiling the software and the pre-built binaries just didn't work. If anyone knows how to get this working, I'd be grateful if you could let me know.

In practice, I had to use WINE and DVD-Audio Explorer (DVDAE).

You can either point DVDAE at your DVD drive, or manually extract the AUDIO_TS folder to your hard disc.

Open up any of the .IFO files, you'll get a list of the tracks available. Select the ones you want to extract and hit save.

After a few moments, the tracks will be ripped onto your computer.

Playing .MLP Files

If you're using VLC or similar, you should be able to play the files. If you're using XBMC / Kali / OpenElec, you'll need to add the following to "/storage/.xbmc/userdata/advancedsettings.xml"

<advancedsettings>
  <audio>
    <defaultplayer>dvdplayer</defaultplayer>
  </audio>
  <musicextensions>
    <add>.mlp</add>
    <remove></remove>
  </musicextensions>
</advancedsettings>

Converting .MLP Files

FFmpag / avconv will quite happily convert .mlp files into flac / ogg / anything else you like.

avconv -i track.mlp trac.flac

Is sufficient to convert the file.

There is one small problem. FLAC does not support 32 bit files. While the documentation for avconv suggests that using "-sample_fmt s32" will work, it will either silently drop back down to 16 bit or simply not work.

Quite how much sonic information you will lose by going from 32bit to 16bit is up for debate. Basically, unless you really do have amazing hearing, professionally calibrated studio equipment, and no ambient noise. Even then, most of what you're losing is noise.

On the other hand, disk space is relatively cheap. A typical .MLP file will be reduced by 50% - 60% when converted to FLAC based on my tests.

One thing I did find was that some equipment would get the order of the FLAC channels mixed up, or upconvert the sound to 5.1. Have a play with your equipment and see what works.

DTS WAV Files

Some surround music is available as DTS (yup, just like on DVDs). It's encoded as a straight .WAV - the idea being that you digitally stream the WAV to your equipment, your HiFi detects that is actually a DTS bitstream and plays glorious surround sound. If any part of this goes wrong, you'll hear static. Not nice.

Sometimes, avconv won't automatically detect the DTS encoding

avconv -i dts.wav
Input #0, wav, from 'dts.wav':
  Duration: 00:04:08.70, bitrate: 1411 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Audio: pcm_s16le, 44100 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1411 kb/s

in which case, just force it to see the DTS - you can ignore any errors

avconv -f dts -i dts.wav
[dca @ 0x19dc840] Not a valid DCA frame
[dts @ 0x19d27c0] max_analyze_duration reached
[dts @ 0x19d27c0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, dts, from 'dts.wav':
  Duration: 00:04:08.70, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1411 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Audio: dca (DTS), 44100 Hz, 5.1, s16, 1411 kb/s

You can then convert to any other format you like.

From DVD

Most DVD-A discs also contain a slightly lower quality copy which can be played as a normal DVD. Sweet!

I use MakeMKV to extract the regular DVD portion. I've written a brief tutorial about using it on the command line.

Once you have your .mkv you have two choices. Either leave it as it is - you get the benefit of chapter markers at the cost of a higher file size due to the video content. Or rip the audio straight out.

avconv -i whatever.mkv -acodec copy audio.ac3

Generally, a much smaller filesize than the .mlp - have a listen to see if you can notice the loss of fidelity. Annoyingly, converting AC3 to FLAC will increase the file size.

Incidentally, if you want to rip, say, the 2nd audio track - if you've got multiple audio tracks on a disc:

avconv -i whatever.mkv -map 0:2 test.flac

For some reason, neither MakeMKVcon nor avconv can extract PCM audio from DVDs. For this, we have to use mplayer:

mplayer -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:fast -ao pcm:file=audio.wav dvd://1 -dvd-device /full/path/to/VIDEO_TS/

Takes a little while, but gets the job done. Naturally, the .wav can be converted to flac.

The documentation for MakeMKV is available. It's a bit sparse. It also doesn't have many of the features of the GUI.

For example, the GUI allows you to select which video, audio, and subtitles, you want to copy. So if you only want the original German director's commentary, with the Swedish subtitles from the main feature, you can do that. The command line is an "all or nothing affair".

Install The Software

We're going to be using MakeMKV. The latest version of the Linux software can be found on their forum.

First, download both pieces of software.

wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv-bin-1.7.6.tar.gz
wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv-oss-1.7.6.tar.gz

Then, extract the files.

tar -zxvf makemkv-bin-1.7.6.tar.gz
tar -zxvf makemkv-oss-1.7.6.tar.gz

Get the tools you need to build the software

sudo apt-get install build-essential libc6-dev libssl-dev libexpat1-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libqt4-dev

NOTE: You need GCC version 4.6 or higher. If you're unsure which version you have, type:

gcc --version

If you need a more recent version, follow these GCC upgrade instructions on StackOverflow.

To build the software, first compile the Open Source part

cd makemkv-oss-1.7.6
make -f makefile.linux
sudo make -f makefile.linux install

Then install the binary part (you will have to agree to a licence).

cd ../makemkv-bin-1.7.6
make -f makefile.linux
sudo make -f makefile.linux install

All should be installed without error!

Running for the First Time

Stick a DVD in your drive and run the following command

makemkvcon -r info

You should get a bunch of information about the drive and the program.

To see information about the disc, run

makemkvcon -r info disc:0

Assuming that your DVD drive is 0.

How To Rip

This command rips all the movies on the disc which are longer than 3600 seconds (60 minutes). This means that it should skip any special features etc.

You will need to create the folder you want to rip to first. The filename will be "title00.mkv" so make sure you're ripping to a unique folder each time.

makemkvcon --minlength=3600 -r --decrypt --directio=true mkv disc:0 all /DVDs/MovieName/ ; eject -r

The " ; eject -r" tells the system to eject the disc once ripped.

What Can't You Do?

MakeMKVcon is missing the following functionality (hopefully being fixed by its creator)

• Can't select a specific title.
• Can't extract specific audio files.
• Can't specify subtitles.
• Can't create folder.
• Can't set filename.

The idea is simple. You bring along some of your old DVDs that you think other people will enjoy. You get a token for each DVD you bring. You look through all the DVDs everyone else has brought along. Swap your tokens for some awesome new films!

We're still working out where we'll hold it and how many people we need to make it viable. If you've got any suggestions, let us know.

FAQs

How much does it cost? Entry is free but we ask that you bring a minimum of 2 DVDs.

What Can I Bring? Any DVD you think someone else will enjoy. Movies, Music, TV Shows are all fine.

What about a free DVD I got with a newspaper? As long as you think someone will get value out of it - go ahead.

What condition should the DVD be in? It needs to be playable (no heavy scratches) and in its original packaging.

What region should the DVDs be? Any region, including Region Free, is fine.

What can't I bring? No R18 - that's porn to you or me. Nothing that's banned from this country. No "backup" copies - original DVDs only. No heavy scratches; must be playable.

Caveat Emptor: Check that the DVDs you want to take home are compatible with your equipment & are in good enough condition to play.

Technicalities: 1 film on 2 discs (special features etc.) counts for 1 token. Several films on 1 disc or in a single case counts for 1 token. Box sets will be counted as a single film - you may wish to separate them, but you don't have to.

If there are any leftover DVDs, you may purchase them for the princely sum of £1 - all the money goes to Oxfam. Anything DVDs not swapped at the end of the night get donated to the nearest Oxfam shop.

Well, those are the basics. Interested? Got a suggestion? You know where the comment box is.