Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.5

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 21, 2019

Fans of the legendary Doctor Who can tend to become excited around the holiday season (when this particular review is being published), since quite often “new” Doctors have been introduced during so-called “Christmas special” episodes. There's no new Doctor on tap this year (that I'm aware of, anyway, and in fact the current Doctor's return is evidently slated for New Year's Day in 2020), but there is a kind of interesting "non- holiday" transformation from one Doctor to the next in the annals of Doctor Who history. Typically the “regeneration” of Doctor Who takes place over the course of just a couple of episodes, but there’s one rather notable exception in the by now decades’ long history of the series: the “arrival” of Ninth Doctor in 2005, which took place over fifteen years after the Seventh Doctor shuffled off the (im?)mortal coil (or at least the BBC airwaves) in 1989. Some perspicacious readers may be wondering why Doctor Who’s return to a weekly television schedule in 2005 offered a “non-sequentially” numbered Doctor, and for fans or neophytes who have either forgotten or who never knew in the first place, there was an Eighth Doctor, albeit one limited to a single appearance (on screen, anyway) in a 1999 outing that was an initial attempt to return Doctor Who to television. While that pilot didn’t lead to a series, it did lead to a rather interesting array of other multimedia offerings, including a bunch of audio entries, which sought to keep the Doctor Who fanbase at least somewhat satisfied.

There was therefore a lot of excitement that engendered considerable buzz in a certain demographic of the United Kingdom when Doctor Who's return was announced, an excitement which might be comparable to the same kind of reaction from folks in the United States who started to hyperventilate back in the day when Star Trek: The Motion Picture was announced in 1979, or perhaps when Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Complete Series came along several years later. That excitement is quite obviously shared by a number of the cast and crew who show up in this set’s nice array of supplemental material, and in that regard it’s interesting to note that the Ninth Doctor’s portrayer, Christopher Eccleston, is on record here as stating how (appropriately, given the Doctor’s space travelling expertise) over the moon he was about being the Doctor that a new generation of kids would grow up with. That turned out not to be the case, as fans of the series will know Eccleston actually ended up having one of the shorter tenures in the role, ultimately handling the reins over to David Tennant by the end of this season.

This therefore might be seen as a transitional season for Doctor Who in more ways than one. Eccleston fulfils the duties of the role with decent aplomb, but I personally liked the rapport between cohort Rose (Billie Piper) and the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) a bit better, even though each Doctor had more or less the same amount of time with her. This season has the expected return of the Daleks, and it also works in a number of more ambitious episodes that have (for Doctor Who, anyway) more epic special effects. As some of the supplements offered on this three disc set get into, this was the first Doctor Who “series” (as the Brits call their seasons) to really get out of the studio quite a bit, and as such, there’s more of an opened up quality to this year.

Note: BBC seems to be almost willfully random in how they've been releasing the various "standalone" Doctor Who series. For those wanting to know "what happens next", Doctor Who: The Complete David Tennant Collection provides the continuation of the tale. It looks like Doctor Who: Sylvester McCoy: Complete Season Three is due in March of 2020, and would offer the season prior to Eccleston's reign, albeit a season that initially aired in 1989, as per the information offered above.

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of BBC with a 1080p transfer in 1.74:1 (you'll note thin black "pillarboxes" on the screenshots I've uploaded to this review). As "advanced" a Time Lord as Doctor Who the character is, this season of Doctor Who is still a relic of the standard definition era, and as such the image quality is often plagued by the kind of typical things we mention in our reviews of upscaled material. The best thing about these transfers is probably the palette, which still pops with considerable energy and gives things a bit of authenticity it's probably lacking in the sharpness, clarity and detail level arenas. I'm assuming that this series partook of the Doctor Who tradition of having both captured and filmed scenes (depending on location work), as there are sudden spikes in grittiness at occasional moments here that are unfortunately further exacerbated by the upscale, which can tend to produce almost squiggle looking artifacts. CGI is somewhat variable, with some scenes, as in "the end of the world" in the second episode, looking rather good, all things considered, but some other moments (like what might be thought of as living gargoyles or harpies in a later episode) looking pretty soft and even cartoon like. Fans of Doctor Who who have watched other series that feature upscaled video presentations will probably have a good baseline as to what to expect here, but hopefully the screenshots can give an adequate idea of what things look like.

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series features a rather robust sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one that can emphasize some nicely rumbly LFE at times. Some of the big special effects sequences, like the destruction of a certain London landmark, or even "the end of the world", offer good panning effects and nicely wide dynamic range. There are some decent ambient environmental effects populating several episodes that have at least some scenes taking place outdoors. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout all of the episodes.

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• BBC Breakfast Interview with Christopher Eccleston (480i; 11:45)


• Destroying the Lair (480i; 3:24) looks at a special effects sequence.


• Making Doctor Who with Russell T Davies (480i; 15:34)


• Waking the Dead (480i; 18:10) features writer Mark Gatiss.


• Laying Ghosts (480i; 18:25) offers more of Gatiss discussing the "ghost story" he wrote for this season.


• Launch Trailers (480i; 2:46)


• Storyboard of Opening Trailer (480i; 00:49)


• Deconstructing Big Ben (480i; 4:52) has some fun behind the scenes footage of one of this season's more alarming (sorry) special effects sequences.


• Commentary tracks are available under the Setup Menu.

Disc Two

• On Set with Billie Piper (480i; 19:04)


• Mike Tucker's Mocks of Balloons (480i; 5:32) looks at a big "flying" special effects sequence.


• Designing Doctor Who (480i; 20:52) is a fun piece that focuses on production design, including some time lapse photography of sets being built.


• The Adventures of Captain Jack (480i; 8:31) is for Torchwood aficionados.


• Trailers (480i; 3:30)


• Commentary tracks are available under the Setup Menu.

Disc Three

• Doctor Who Confidential (480i; 2:35:45) offers a really interesting array of a "baker's dozen" of behind the scenes featurettes, one each ostensibly for the 13 episodes in this season, but which really also tend to focus on other individual aspects like coming back to the series after a long break, casting and special effects.


• Commentary tracks are available under the Setup Menu.

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This "reboot" of the venerable Doctor Who is often audaciously ambitious, but it's also kind of silly at times, per Doctor Who tradition. Eccleston never quite seems to completely settle in the role, and as such this may not be one of the top seasons for even diehard Whovians. This is another BBC release of this much beloved series that can't really overcome the limitations of the source video, but audio is fine and the supplementary package (while in standard definition) is also great, for those who are considering a purchase.