Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		3.0

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 20, 2024

Lionsgate's often baffling "strategy" vis a vis its 4K UHD release regimen has led me to joke repeatedly that the studio has some low level employee whom they blindfold and then have throw darts at prospective titles to decide what to bring out next. I've come to the inevitable conclusion that the same employee evidently temps at BBC to "help" them with regard to their equally random releases of the long running Doctor Who series. So far BBC has given fans of Tom Baker's tenure in the title role Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season One, Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Three, Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Six, and Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Seven. Those linked seasons are offered here chronologically, but it's probably salient to note that they were not released that way (you can see their original release dates by clicking on the individual listings). And so, in true "Back to the Future" mode, after the gauntlet of (in original release order) Season 1, Season 7, Season 3, and then Season 6, we're now offered Season 4.

As is at least alluded to in some of the bounteous supplements included in this set, Doctor Who was in a bit of a transitional period during this particular season, and the result is the overall consistency of this season may not be quite at the level of its immediate predecessor. It's kind of ironic in a way that one of the serials this season is called "The Sun Makers", since several episodes feature dark, dingy, dank and foggy / misty environments, though perhaps another serial title, namely "Underworld", provides a bit of "balance". If some serials like "Horror of Fang Rock" may somewhat hilariously seem like Doctor Who doing The Lighthouse, that particular serial is endemic of a certain tendency this season to keep things limited to unit sets, and often in those aforementioned dark, dingy, dank and foggy / misty environments, which may have "helped" to cover up budget deficiencies. Louise Jameson's kind of semi-feral Leela makes for a rather interesting companion, though the scuttlebutt is that she and Tom Baker did not get along very well.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of BBC with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.32:1. Those who have seen any of the other upscaled seasons BBC has released of the venerable series will know pretty much what to expect here. While there are once again noticeably distinct quality variances between the videotaped and filmed sections, for whatever reason this particular season can also show some pretty dramatic quality differences in the video sections as well. Some actually look relatively good, to the point that they might even approach what I'd call 3.0 territory, but other moments are littered with remnants of the upscaling process, combined with what look like some baked in video issues like ghosting. That particular "combo platter" can lead to some pretty unattractive moments, especially in the TARDIS when characters are looking at various display monitors. The palette is almost always nicely suffused, though large swaths of the image are often soft. As with some of the other seasons offering "new, improved" special effects, the similar strategy offered here on some episodes needs to approached with realistic expectations.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four follows the tradition set by several other Blu-ray releases of the series by offering DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono tracks for the season, along with a repurposed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track for Horror of Fang Rock. The mono tracks all sound relatively spry, with fine fidelity supporting sometimes bombastic score choices and the typically goofy sound effects. The tracks are obviously inherently narrow, but they show no real signs of the same kind of less than stellar quality the video aspects of this release do. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with some of the previous multi-disc releases of other seasons of Doctor Who, this one also includes some supplement "series", like Making Of documentaries on the separate episode arcs, or the enjoyable Behind the Sofa offerings which feature cast members doing an almost MST3K commentary on various episodes. I'm not going into huge detail on any of these, since their outlines are so well known to Whovians by now. Some of the standard definition supplements can have moments of image instability. Also, for those who can access the data, all of the discs save the Bonus Disc have really fascinating promotional and other material (like scripts) available as PDFs in a ROM_CONTENT_PDFs folder that you can open when viewing the disc's file structure.

Disc One: Horror of Fang Rock

• Making of Documentary (HD; 42:41)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 34:30)


• Terrance Dicks Documentary (SD; 36:05)


• Paddy Russell Interview (HD; 14:04)


• Denys Fisher Toy Advert (SD; 1:10)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 2:07)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 4:12 )


• Audio Archive (HD; 2:03) features Tom Baker and Louise Jameson.


• Updated Special Effects can be toggled on or off via the Main Menu.


• DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Mix is accessible under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Commentaries can be accessed under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Info Text can be accessed under the Subtitles and Info Text Menu.


• PDF Written Archive is accessible via a BD-ROM drive.

Disc Two: The Invisible Enemy

• Making of Documentary (SD; 20:35)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 32:03)


• Studio Footage (SD; 20:32) is in black and white and features timecode captions.


• Blue Peter (SD; 4:31)


• 50th Anniversary Archive (HD; 10:37) features John Leeson.


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 5:26)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 10:11)


• Coming Soon (SD; 1:05)


• Updated Special Effects can be toggled on or off via the Main Menu.


• Episode Commentaries can be accessed under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Info Text can be accessed under the Subtitles and Info Text Menu.


• PDF Written Archive is accessible via a BD-ROM drive.

Disc Three: Image of the Fendahl

• Making of Documentary (SD; 26:20)


• Deleted and Extended Scenes (SD; 11:28) come with a warning about quality and are in black and white with timecode captions.


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 31:03)


• Hammer Horror Featurette (SD; 13:06) looks at the studio's influence on Doctor Who.


• Tom Talks (HD; 36:24) features Mr. Baker.


• Emu's Broadcasting Company (SD; 11:34)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 2:11)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 8:18)


• Coming Soon (SD; 1:11)


• Episode Commentary can be accessed under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Info Text can be accessed under the Subtitles and Info Text Menu.


• PDF Written Archive is accessible via a BD-ROM drive.

Disc Four: The Sun Makers

• Making of Documentary (SD; 24:49)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 32:54)


• Outtakes (SD; 00:34)


• Louise Jameson in Conversation (HD; 1:13:18)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 5:06)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 6:38)


• Episode Commentary can be accessed under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Info Text can be accessed under the Subtitles and Info Text Menu.


• PDF Written Archive is accessible via a BD-ROM drive.

Disc Five: Underworld

• Making Of Documentary (SD; 30:45)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 31:03)


• Studio Footage (DVD Highlights) (SD; 17:30) comes with a warning about quality, and once again features black and white footage with timecode captions.


• Studio Footage (Expanded) (SD; 48:14) is in color this time and in at least marginally better shape.


• Doctor Who Exhibition Rushes (SD; 8:20)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 2:19)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 7:42)


• Coming Soon (SD; 1:04)


• Episode Commentary can be accessed under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Info Text can be accessed under the Subtitles and Info Text Menu.


• PDF Written Archive is accessible via a BD-ROM drive.

Disc Six: The Invasion of Time

• Making of Documentary (SD; 16:53)


• Deleted Scenes (SD; 5:55)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 33:27)


• The Rise and Fall of Gallifrey (SD; 9:58)


• The Elusive David Agnew (SD; 5:17)


• Scene Around Six (SD; 7:35)


• The Final Battle (HD; 6:50) is a newly produced short with DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Dolby Atmos audio options, which may seem like a bit of overkill, since this features snippets of the show interspersed with a Tom Baker interview.


• Doctor Who Stories (SD; 17:21)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 3:45)


• DVD Easter Egg (SD; 1:05)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 10:02)


• Coming Soon (SD; 1:30)


• Updated Special Effects can be toggled on or off via the Main Menu.


• Episode Commentary can be accessed under the Audio Options Menu.


• Episode Info Text can be accessed under the Subtitles and Info Text Menu.


• PDF Written Archive is accessible via a BD-ROM drive.

Disc Seven: Bonus Disc

• Graham Williams Documentary (HD; 1:37:24)


• The Panopticon Archive (HD; 29:12) features Louise Jameson and John Leeson.


• The 50th Anniversary Archive (HD; 33:09) features Louise Jameson, Katy Manning and Sophie Aldred.


• Monstercon II Convention (SD; 59:19) is from 1986.


• Studio Clocks (HD; 12:01)


• Audio Archive (HD; 10:03) features Louise Jameson.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Four Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is another patently silly season of Doctor Who, one that may have been at least intermittently hobbled by production tensions and roiling interrelationships. As with so many of the other standalone seasons of Doctor Who offered by the BBC, video quality is iffy a lot of the time, but audio is fine, and once again the supplements are outstanding, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.