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

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		3.5

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

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 27, 2022

It's time for more of that "New Math", Doctor Who style, with those "in the know" already understanding that Complete Season Six for us former colonists is the same as the Complete Season Seventeen for those still part of the British Commonwealth (and, yes, this is obviously said in jest). This season and or series (as the Brits might prefer to say) of the incredibly long running Doctor Who first aired in late 1979 and early 1980, and it's another often pretty daffy exercise in supposed science fiction, albeit (as one of the extras itself jokingly describes) "on a shoestring" budget. There are some downright goofy episodes in this set of Doctor Who adventures, including at least one that might seem like a late seventies update on the fare now deemed as "camptastic" originally seen in such much earlier serials as Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. As with many of the other BBC standalone releases of this venerable series, video quality is compromised by standard definition sources, but this particular volume will probably be a must buy for devoted Whovians due to its inclusion of a set of episodes that actually never saw the light of day during the series' original broadcast run.

That particular episode (in American vernacular, multi-episode miniseries) is called Shada, and as is gotten into in some of the copious supplements included in this seven disc set, it fell victim to a strike by technicians which shut down production shortly before it was finished. This Blu- ray edition features what the back cover of this release calls "the definitive presentation of the unfinished season finale, in six epsiodes with newly enhanced animnation to fill in the gaps, plus the 1992 VHS and 2017 DVD versions". Whatever almost inherent allure Shada will have due to its history, there are both returning nemeses like the Daleks (and Davros, albeit portrayed by a new actor), and travels to both a "present day" earth and several alien abodes.

You can frankly kind of feel the lethargy beginning to creep into these "latter day" episodes featuring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, and even the supposed "regeneration" of Romana in the guise of actress Lalla Ward, comes off as a kind "necessity is the mother of invention" plot device owing to the fact that previous Romana portrayer Mary Tamm didn't want to continue with the series. If taken as it was probably initially at least partly intended, namely as kids' entertainment, there's silliness and supposed danger here that will probably intermittently engage the younger set, but none of the six (multi) episodes in this set will strike many fans as being overly innovative or ambitious.

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

Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete Season Six is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of BBC with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.32:1. I know I probably sound like a broken record with regard to this Doctor Who releases, but all of the BBC sets from this same general era have been hobbled by the same deficiencies directly tied to the attempts at upscaling. There are anomalies aplenty to be spotted here, including some "baked in" video artifacts like ghosting, but also telltale signs of the technologies employed to supposedly deliver a "high definition" viewing experience, including things like aliasing and moiré. As with many of the other volumes in this seemingly endless set of releases from BBC, some of the filmed elements (typically location shots) may arguably be a bit better looking than the video elements shot in a studio, but even some of the filmed sequences here frankly don't look all that hot, with some chroma bleeding and inconsistent contrast. Fans of the series who have bought other volumes from this general time frame will probably know more or less what to expect, but for any newcomers, it's probably best to set the expectations bar pretty low. I've included a couple of screenshots of the newly done animation added to Shanda, which is probably the one time that this presentation looks like "real" high definition.

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

Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete Season Six continues the BBC's tradition of offering nice sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono tracks for all of the episodes, plus newly done DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks for Destiny of the Daleks and Shada. Much as with the advertised "enhanced special effects" (see the supplements section below for more information), the surround tracks here are not going to set any audiophile ears on fire, but they do noticeably open up some of the effects work as well as the goofily enjoyable synth drenched scores. Otherwise, dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly throughout all of the episodes. Optional English subtitles are available.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker - Complete Season Six 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 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: Destiny of the Daleks

• Making of Documentary (HD; 44:10)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 31:16)


• Directing Who (SD; 9:27) features Ken Grieve.


• Terry Nation Documentary (SD; 27:51)


• The Dalek Tapes (SD; 53:20) has some great archival footage and stills of the little beasties.


• 1979 Season Launch Trailer (SD; 2:00) comes with a warning about video quality.


• 2021 Blu-ray Trailer (HD; 4:14)


• Nationwide (SD; 8:43)


• Blue Peter: Abseil (SD; 8:12)


• Blue Peter: Dalek (SD; 8:09)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 8:04)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 13:03)


• Studio Clocks (SD; 00:24)


• 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 Two: City of Death

• Making of Documentary (SD; 44:05)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 27:50)


• Directing Who (SD; 8:27) features Michael Hayes.


• Design Featurette (HD; 4:17) features Richard McMann-Smith.


• Douglas Adams Documentary (HD; 48:24)


• Prehistoric Landscapes (HD; 2:28)


• Film Trims (HD; 9:58)


• Visual Effects Footage (HD; 2:46)


• Studio Footage (SD; 20:08) is in black and white and features timecode captions.


• Blue Peter (SD; 6:26)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 4:53)


• Tom Baker & John Cleese Skit (SD; 00:20)


• DVD Easter Egg (SD; 6:34)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 13:04)


• Coming Soon (SD; 00:41)


• 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: The Creature from the Pit

• Extended Part Three (HD; 24:01)


• Making of Featurette (HD; 14:51)


• Visual Effects Featurette (SD; 14:48)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 28:39)


• Deleted Scene (SD; 00:26)


• Animal Magic (HD; 2:38)


• Lalla Ward Remembers Season 17 (HD; 55:21)


• BBC Choice Backstage (SD; 4:32)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 2:56)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 8:02)


• Coming Soon (SD; 1:56)


• 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: Nightmare of Eden

• Making of Featurette (HD; 13:24)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 24:46)


• Bob Baker in Conversation (HD; 1:08:25)


• Going Solo (HD; 7:45) features Bob Baker again.


• Nationwide (SD; 3:25)


• BBC Trails and Continuities (SD; 2:57)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 10:38)


• The Doctor's Strange Love (SD; 15:44)


• 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 Five: The Horns of Nimon

• Behind the Sofa (HD; 30:22)


• Anthony Read Interview (SD; 6:29)


• Williams' Era Documentary (SD; 1:00:02)


• The Doctor's Composer (SD; 18:04) profiles Dudley Simpson.


• Music Demos (SD; 2:57)


• Swap Shop (SD; 14:43)


• Nationwide (SD; 2:33)


• Ask Aspel (SD; 11:03)


• The Panopticon Archive (HD; 40:23) features Tom Baker in 1997.


• Audio Archive (HD; 1:02:19) features the LP version (remember those?) of Genesis of the Daleks.


• BBC Trails and Continuities (480i; 2:11)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 10:00)


• Coming Soon (HD; 00:42)


• DVD Easter Egg (SD; 1:20)


• 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: Shada

• Making of Documentary (SD; 25:38)


• Behind the Sofa (HD; 28:01)


• Strike Strike Strike (SD; 27:47)


• Now and Then (SD; 12:43) looks at some locations.


• Tom Talks (HD; 41:25) features a somewhat whimsical interview with Tom Baker.


• What's On Wogan: K9 SD; 2:24)


• What's On Wogan: Lalla Ward (SD; 2:45)


• Clean Opening & Closing Titles (HD; 2:25)


• Photo Gallery (HD; 10:07)


• 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: Shada - Extras

• VHS Episode Selection (SD; 1:49:33)


• Enhanced Movie Version (HD; 2:18:21)


• Special Features

  1979 Studio Footage (SD; 2:28:29)

  
  

  1979 Visual Effects Footage (HD; 4:00)

  
  

  2017 Dialogue Sessions (HD; 14:07)

  
  

  2017 Deleted Scenes (HD; 1:13)

  
  

  2017 Model Filming (HD; 4:32)

  
  

  2017 Animation Reference Footage (HD; 2:38)

  
  

  2017 Photo Gallery (HD; 2:44)

  
  

  Coming Soon (HD; 1:52)

  
  

  Nationwide (SD; 4:32)

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


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

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

I'm an inveterate and longtime fan of Doctor Who, and so I may be giving the series more credit than it deserves even with my middling 3.0 score for the overall season. There's a kind of laziness to the writing, and I'd argue maybe even some of the performances, by this point in the Baker era that is pretty noticeable, though there are of course still weird little enjoyments to be had despite the general silliness. Fans will delight in another outstanding aggregation of supplemental material, though as with all of the other BBC releases of the series from this general era that I've personally reviewed, the video side of things is pretty iffy, for those who may be considering making a purchase.