Invasion of the Dinosaurs
Encyclopedia
Invasion of the Dinosaurs is a serial in the British
science fiction television series Doctor Who
, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 12 January to 16 February 1974.
to find that it has been evacuated, due to the mysterious appearance of dinosaur
s. It turns out that the dinosaurs are being brought to London via a time machine
in order to further a plan to revert London to a pre-technological level.
arrive in a deserted London plagued by looters and lawlessness where UNIT
is assisting with maintaining martial law. The regular army, headed by General Finch, has evacuated the entire city and issues a command that any looters in London will be shot on sight. The Doctor and Sarah are soon arrested on suspicion of being looters themselves but are identified from the photographs by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
, who is heading up the UNIT operation, and arranges that the pair are freed to help combat the monsters that have necessitated the evacuation of London. Dinosaur
s have started appearing all over the city – but that is not all, as the Doctor comes across a medieval peasant from the days of King Richard
, who disappears in a time eddy. It seems the dinosaurs have been present for several months, but nobody can account for their sudden appearance or the havoc they are causing. The British Government has been relocated to Harrogate
during the crisis, and the army has taken charge to ensure an orderly evacuation and to try and maintain some sort of control in the city. The dinosaur appearances are various – pterodactyls, Stegosaurus
, Tyrannosaurus Rex – but the creatures seem to vanish as mysteriously as they appear.
The Doctor ventures out around the city with a UNIT escort, hoping to learn more of the curious phenomenon, and they encounter a Stegosaurus moments before it disappears. He starts to suspect someone is deliberately bringing the dinosaurs to London – and in a hidden laboratory a pair of scientists, Butler and Professor Whitaker, are shown operating the Timescoop technology that is making the situation possible. They are being aided by Captain Mike Yates from UNIT, who is revealed to be recovering from a nervous breakdown caused by the events depicted in The Green Death
. Mike feels the Doctor could help them achieve Operation Golden Age, but Whitaker is unconvinced, and tells Mike to sabotage the stun gun, which the Doctor is building for use on the dinosaurs. He does this, imperilling the Doctor when he encounters a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but the situation is saved and the creature is stunned and captured. Hours later, however, General Finch sets it free, evidently part of the conspiracy too.
Sarah Jane has meanwhile set off to gather her own evidence and meets with Sir Charles Grover, an ecologist MP who is acting as Minister with Special Responsibilities in London. She is drugged by him and when she wakes up is astounded to find herself on a vast spaceship. The crew include Mark, Adam and Ruth, all famed British minor celebrities who have adopted new aliases and lives. They tell her they en route for a New Earth where mankind can begin again, closer to nature. They left Earth three months earlier and the ship is one of a fleet that is carrying over two hundred people to a new life. Sarah is committed to the re-education programme to enable her to think like them.
The Doctor now focuses on more searches of London using his new vehicle, the Whomobile, as transport. Under Trafalgar Square tube station he finds the base used by Whitaker and Butler, but is scared away when they use a pterodactyl to defend their lair. When he returns with the Brigadier, the signs of occupation have been removed. Operation Golden Age is revealed to be a broad conspiracy containing Whitaker, Butler, Yates, Grover and Finch as its core co-ordinators. They have emptied London to enable it to revert to a more natural state, after which the people on the spaceships (in reality they are in vast bunkers and not in space at all) will be allowed out and enabled to repopulate a clean and free planet. Whitaker also works out how to reverse time, so that soon none of humanity apart from their own chosen specimens will ever have existed.
Finch tries to frame and discredit the Doctor, whom he knows will not support their plans, and the Doctor soon twigs that an over-zealous Yates is the UNIT mole. Sergeant Benton
lets the Doctor escape, for which Finch threatens a court martial. The Doctor uses his freedom to track down more monsters, but when he is recaptured the Brigadier asserts his authority and takes the Doctor into UNIT custody rather than the regular army’s.
Sarah has meanwhile escaped from the fake spaceship having learnt its true nature, but is apprehended by Finch, who tracks her down and returns her to Whitaker’s custody. While she is away Mark works out that the ship is a fake too and exposes this to the other passengers, but he is not believed. When Sarah is returned to the ship she and Mark use the fake airlock to convince Ruth and the others of the depth of the deception
Shortly afterward Finch and Yates reveal their hands to the Doctor, Benton and the Brigadier, and reveal the nature of their plans. The Doctor and the Brigadier get away once more and head back to the base, evading dinosaurs en route, where they confront Grover and Whitaker. The duped environmentalists from the fake spaceship also appear, along with Sarah, and demand an explanation. In the ensuing fight Whitaker and Grover are transported back through the Timescoop to the Golden Age they sought to bring to modern Britain.
Back at UNIT HQ, the Brigadier confirms to the Doctor that the crisis is over, but there are still some human casualties to deal with. Finch will face a court martial while Yates is being offered the chance to resign and given extended sick leave. The Doctor reflects that people like Grover may have had good motivations in wanting to fight pollution and environmental degradation, but they took their schemes too far and endangered all mankind and its civilisation. He decides it is time for a holiday and offers to take Sarah Jane to the holiday planet of Florana.
.
Doctor Who: The Television Companion (by Howe and Walker, BBC Publishing
, 1998) quotes a contemporary review (from a fanzine
) that describes the dinosaur special effects thus: "After escaping they [the Doctor and Sarah] came up against the first dinosaur and, oh dear, shades of Basil Brush
! A glove puppet nervously skiing about London streets didn't exactly fill me with fright..."
, was published by Target Books
in February 1976 as Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion. In 1993 it was reprinted with the title Doctor Who - Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The novelisation features a prologue about the dinosaurs and ends with the Doctor consulting the Book of Ezekiel
to determine the final fate of the Golden Age time travellers. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Martin Jarvis was released on CD in November 2007 by BBC Audiobooks.
on VHS
, in 2003.
The story is to be released on DVD in the UK on 9 January 2012 alongside the 1975 Tom Baker story The Android Invasion
, together forming the UNIT box set. The DVD will feature a restored black-and-white version of Episode 1 as the default and also a 'best-endeavours' attempt at colour recovery of this episode as a branched-extra feature.
In contrast to other wiped colour episodes from the Pertwee era where the missing colour information had been inadvertently recorded on the surviving black and white film copies as a sequence of visual artifacts/dots or chroma dots
, in the case of Episode 1 of this story this information was found to be incomplete, and only the red and green colour signal information was recoverable, requiring the missing blue signal information to be obtained via other means.
The new colour version of Episode 1 featured on the DVD thus employs approximated blue colour information, and although the outcome is not up to normal DVD quality, it gives an impression of what the episode would have looked like when originally broadcast.
Target novelisation
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science fiction television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 12 January to 16 February 1974.
Synopsis
The Doctor and Sarah arrive in 1970s LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to find that it has been evacuated, due to the mysterious appearance of dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s. It turns out that the dinosaurs are being brought to London via a time machine
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
in order to further a plan to revert London to a pre-technological level.
Plot
The Doctor and Sarah Jane SmithSarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane Smith is a fictional character played by Elisabeth Sladen in the long-running British BBC Television science-fiction series Doctor Who and its spin-offs K-9 and Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures....
arrive in a deserted London plagued by looters and lawlessness where UNIT
United Nations Intelligence Taskforce
UNIT is a fictional military organisation from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures...
is assisting with maintaining martial law. The regular army, headed by General Finch, has evacuated the entire city and issues a command that any looters in London will be shot on sight. The Doctor and Sarah are soon arrested on suspicion of being looters themselves but are identified from the photographs by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, generally referred to simply as the Brigadier, is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by Nicholas Courtney...
, who is heading up the UNIT operation, and arranges that the pair are freed to help combat the monsters that have necessitated the evacuation of London. Dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s have started appearing all over the city – but that is not all, as the Doctor comes across a medieval peasant from the days of King Richard
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
, who disappears in a time eddy. It seems the dinosaurs have been present for several months, but nobody can account for their sudden appearance or the havoc they are causing. The British Government has been relocated to Harrogate
Harrogate
Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...
during the crisis, and the army has taken charge to ensure an orderly evacuation and to try and maintain some sort of control in the city. The dinosaur appearances are various – pterodactyls, Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus is a genus of armored stegosaurid dinosaur. They lived during the Late Jurassic period , some 155 to 150 million years ago in what is now western North America. In 2006, a specimen of Stegosaurus was announced from Portugal, showing that they were present in Europe as well...
, Tyrannosaurus Rex – but the creatures seem to vanish as mysteriously as they appear.
The Doctor ventures out around the city with a UNIT escort, hoping to learn more of the curious phenomenon, and they encounter a Stegosaurus moments before it disappears. He starts to suspect someone is deliberately bringing the dinosaurs to London – and in a hidden laboratory a pair of scientists, Butler and Professor Whitaker, are shown operating the Timescoop technology that is making the situation possible. They are being aided by Captain Mike Yates from UNIT, who is revealed to be recovering from a nervous breakdown caused by the events depicted in The Green Death
The Green Death
The Green Death is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast in six weekly parts from 19 May 1973 to 23 June 1973. It was the last to feature Katy Manning as companion Jo Grant in Doctor Who...
. Mike feels the Doctor could help them achieve Operation Golden Age, but Whitaker is unconvinced, and tells Mike to sabotage the stun gun, which the Doctor is building for use on the dinosaurs. He does this, imperilling the Doctor when he encounters a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but the situation is saved and the creature is stunned and captured. Hours later, however, General Finch sets it free, evidently part of the conspiracy too.
Sarah Jane has meanwhile set off to gather her own evidence and meets with Sir Charles Grover, an ecologist MP who is acting as Minister with Special Responsibilities in London. She is drugged by him and when she wakes up is astounded to find herself on a vast spaceship. The crew include Mark, Adam and Ruth, all famed British minor celebrities who have adopted new aliases and lives. They tell her they en route for a New Earth where mankind can begin again, closer to nature. They left Earth three months earlier and the ship is one of a fleet that is carrying over two hundred people to a new life. Sarah is committed to the re-education programme to enable her to think like them.
The Doctor now focuses on more searches of London using his new vehicle, the Whomobile, as transport. Under Trafalgar Square tube station he finds the base used by Whitaker and Butler, but is scared away when they use a pterodactyl to defend their lair. When he returns with the Brigadier, the signs of occupation have been removed. Operation Golden Age is revealed to be a broad conspiracy containing Whitaker, Butler, Yates, Grover and Finch as its core co-ordinators. They have emptied London to enable it to revert to a more natural state, after which the people on the spaceships (in reality they are in vast bunkers and not in space at all) will be allowed out and enabled to repopulate a clean and free planet. Whitaker also works out how to reverse time, so that soon none of humanity apart from their own chosen specimens will ever have existed.
Finch tries to frame and discredit the Doctor, whom he knows will not support their plans, and the Doctor soon twigs that an over-zealous Yates is the UNIT mole. Sergeant Benton
Sergeant Benton
Sergeant Benton is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, played by John Levene. He was the senior NCO of the British contingent of UNIT , an international organisation that defends the Earth...
lets the Doctor escape, for which Finch threatens a court martial. The Doctor uses his freedom to track down more monsters, but when he is recaptured the Brigadier asserts his authority and takes the Doctor into UNIT custody rather than the regular army’s.
Sarah has meanwhile escaped from the fake spaceship having learnt its true nature, but is apprehended by Finch, who tracks her down and returns her to Whitaker’s custody. While she is away Mark works out that the ship is a fake too and exposes this to the other passengers, but he is not believed. When Sarah is returned to the ship she and Mark use the fake airlock to convince Ruth and the others of the depth of the deception
Shortly afterward Finch and Yates reveal their hands to the Doctor, Benton and the Brigadier, and reveal the nature of their plans. The Doctor and the Brigadier get away once more and head back to the base, evading dinosaurs en route, where they confront Grover and Whitaker. The duped environmentalists from the fake spaceship also appear, along with Sarah, and demand an explanation. In the ensuing fight Whitaker and Grover are transported back through the Timescoop to the Golden Age they sought to bring to modern Britain.
Back at UNIT HQ, the Brigadier confirms to the Doctor that the crisis is over, but there are still some human casualties to deal with. Finch will face a court martial while Yates is being offered the chance to resign and given extended sick leave. The Doctor reflects that people like Grover may have had good motivations in wanting to fight pollution and environmental degradation, but they took their schemes too far and endangered all mankind and its civilisation. He decides it is time for a holiday and offers to take Sarah Jane to the holiday planet of Florana.
Continuity
- Sarah Jane Smith refers to her encounter with real dinosaurs in a conversation with Rose TylerRose TylerRose Marion Tyler is a fictional character portrayed by Billie Piper in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was created by series producer Russell T Davies...
during the episode "School ReunionSchool Reunion (Doctor Who)"School Reunion" is the third episode in the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It first aired on 29 April 2006. The episode's narrative takes place some time after the events of "The Christmas Invasion"...
". The Seventh DoctorSeventh DoctorThe Seventh Doctor is the seventh incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Sylvester McCoy....
also mentions the events of this story to AceAce (Doctor Who)Dorothy Gale McShane, better known by her nickname Ace, is a fictional character played by Sophie Aldred in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
in The Happiness PatrolThe Happiness PatrolThe Happiness Patrol is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in three weekly parts from 2 November to 16 November 1988.-Plot:...
. - A clip on the website of The Sarah Jane AdventuresThe Sarah Jane AdventuresThe Sarah Jane Adventures is a British science fiction television series, produced by BBC Cymru Wales for CBBC, created by Russell T Davies and starring Elisabeth Sladen...
refers to the events of this story as having been explained as mass hallucinations caused by a contaminated water supply. - An alternative version of the events of this serial is mentioned in the Big FinishBig Finish ProductionsBig Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on cult British science fiction properties...
Doctor Who Unbound audio play Sympathy for the DevilSympathy for the Devil (Doctor Who audio)Sympathy for the Devil is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Doctor Who Unbound dramas pose a series of "What if...?" questions.-Plot:What if.....
. - Some time has elapsed since The Time WarriorThe Time WarriorThe Time Warrior is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from December 15, 1973 to January 5, 1974. This serial introduced Elisabeth Sladen as new companion Sarah Jane Smith. It also marked the debut of the Sontarans...
as Sarah Jane Smith has been issued UNIT credentials (she had carried a temporary pass in her aunt Lavinia's name in The Time Warrior) and is well-known to UNIT staff, including Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates, neither of whom appeared in the preceding serial.
Production
- Working titles for this story included Bridgehead from Space and Timescoop.
- The first episode has the story title contracted to Invasion in an attempt to conceal the central plot device. However this was undermined by the BBC listings magazine Radio TimesRadio TimesRadio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
who gave the full story title. See: Doctor Who story title controversy - In the original novelisation, no reference is made to the "Whomobile" and the Doctor uses a military motor bike with electronic scanning equipment attached to it.
- Malcolm Hulke protested against the use of the title Invasion of the Dinosaurs, preferring the original working title of Timescoop, and felt the contraction for the first episode was silly, especially because the Radio Times listing used the full title. In a response letter after transmission script editor Terrance DicksTerrance DicksTerrance Dicks is an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s.- Early career :...
pointed out that all the titles used for the project had originated in the Doctor Who production office. He agreed that the contraction to Invasion was a decision he now regretted but noted that "Radio Times are a law unto themselves". - Locations used in London included: Westminster BridgeWestminster BridgeWestminster Bridge is a road and foot traffic bridge over the River Thames between Westminster on the north side and Lambeth on the south side, in London, England....
, WhitehallWhitehallWhitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
, Trafalgar SquareTrafalgar SquareTrafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
, Haymarket, Covent GardenCovent GardenCovent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, SouthallSouthallSouthall is a large suburban district of west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Yeading, Hayes, Hanwell, Heston, Hounslow, Greenford and Northolt...
and Wimbledon Common
Missing Episodes & Archive
- All episodes of this story bar episode 1 exist on their original PALPALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
colour master tapes, with the first episode only existing as a monochrome 16mm film print. There is a longstanding fan myth that the tape of episode 1 was erased by mistake, having been confused with an episode of the Patrick Troughton serial The InvasionThe Invasion (Doctor Who)The Invasion is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in eight weekly parts from 2 November to 21 December 1968...
. In reality, BBC Enterprises issued instructions to wipe all six episodes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs in August 1974, just six months after the story's transmission; for reasons unknown, however, only episode 1 was actually junked. As far as the BBC was concerned, the story had been wiped in its entirety; researchers for the 1976 documentary Whose Doctor Who found that none of the episodes was listed as existing in the BBC library. - The surviving film recording of Episode 1 is the only telerecording of a Season 11 episode known to exist.
- A black-and-white film print exists of the film sequences from part one. This includes one scene of a scared scavenger stealing money from a dead milkman's satchel omitted from the transmitted version, this would have been part of the deserted London montage. The black-and-white prints were used as practice for the film editor to make cuts before they cut the colour negatives.
- Colour 35mm film sequences from Episode five also exist.
- Episode 3's first edit (also known in the BBC as a 71 edit) also exists, without sound effects or music on the soundtrack.
Cast notes
- John Bennett would later return to Doctor Who as Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-ChiangThe Talons of Weng-ChiangThe Talons of Weng-Chiang is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 26 February to 2 April 1977.-Synopsis:...
. - Peter Miles has also appeared in Doctor Who in other roles in Doctor Who and the SiluriansDoctor Who and the SiluriansDoctor Who and the Silurians is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in seven weekly parts from January 31 to March 14, 1970. The story is the first appearance of a recurring family of Earth-dwelling reptiles...
and Genesis of the DaleksGenesis of the DaleksGenesis of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who that was originally broadcast in six weekly parts from 8 March to 12 April 1975. It marks the first appearance of Davros, the creator of the Daleks.-Plot:...
. - Martin Jarvis had earlier appeared as Hilio in The Web PlanetThe Web PlanetThe Web Planet is the fifth serial in the second season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 13 February 1965 to 20 March 1965...
and would later appear as the Governor of Varos in Vengeance on VarosVengeance on VarosVengeance on Varos is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts from 19–26 January 1985.-Synopsis:...
. - Carmen Silvera had previously appeared in The Celestial ToymakerThe Celestial ToymakerThe Celestial Toymaker is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 2 April to 23 April 1966.-Plot:...
.
Reception
After the episodes were broadcast, many children viewers of the show complained that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was actually an AllosaurusAllosaurus
Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...
.
Doctor Who: The Television Companion (by Howe and Walker, BBC Publishing
BBC Books
BBC Books is an imprint majority owned and managed by Random House. The minority shareholder is BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation...
, 1998) quotes a contemporary review (from a fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
) that describes the dinosaur special effects thus: "After escaping they [the Doctor and Sarah] came up against the first dinosaur and, oh dear, shades of Basil Brush
Basil Brush
Basil Brush is a fictional anthropomorphic fox raconteur, best known for his appearances on daytime British children's television. He is primarily portrayed by a glove puppet, but has also been depicted in animated cartoon shorts and comic strips...
! A glove puppet nervously skiing about London streets didn't exactly fill me with fright..."
In print
A novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm HulkeMalcolm Hulke
Malcolm Hulke was a British television writer and author of the industry "bible" Writing for Television in the 70s...
, was published by Target Books
Target Books
Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of...
in February 1976 as Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion. In 1993 it was reprinted with the title Doctor Who - Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The novelisation features a prologue about the dinosaurs and ends with the Doctor consulting the Book of Ezekiel
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
to determine the final fate of the Golden Age time travellers. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Martin Jarvis was released on CD in November 2007 by BBC Audiobooks.
VHS and DVD release
This was the final complete story to be released by BBC WorldwideBBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
, in 2003.
The story is to be released on DVD in the UK on 9 January 2012 alongside the 1975 Tom Baker story The Android Invasion
The Android Invasion
The Android Invasion is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 22 November to 13 December 1975. It marks the last appearance of UNIT Character Sergeant Benton...
, together forming the UNIT box set. The DVD will feature a restored black-and-white version of Episode 1 as the default and also a 'best-endeavours' attempt at colour recovery of this episode as a branched-extra feature.
In contrast to other wiped colour episodes from the Pertwee era where the missing colour information had been inadvertently recorded on the surviving black and white film copies as a sequence of visual artifacts/dots or chroma dots
Chroma dots
Chroma dots are visual artefacts caused by displaying an unfiltered analogue colour video signal on a black and white television or monitor. They are commonly found on black and white recordings of television programmes originally made in colour...
, in the case of Episode 1 of this story this information was found to be incomplete, and only the red and green colour signal information was recoverable, requiring the missing blue signal information to be obtained via other means.
The new colour version of Episode 1 featured on the DVD thus employs approximated blue colour information, and although the outcome is not up to normal DVD quality, it gives an impression of what the episode would have looked like when originally broadcast.
External links
Fan reviewsTarget novelisation