Doctor Who, Story 29: The Tenth Planet

At long last...
If you only own one other Dr. Who video, your collection is incomplete without The Tenth Planet. It depicts, of course, the most significant turning point in the history of the show, the departure of William Hartnell as the Doctor. That, in itself is more than enough reason to buy this video.

As a special bonus, there are the Cybermen. Don't be fooled as I was by the still photos which gave them a cheesy appearance. They don't appear terrifying at all until you see them in action. The lip action and voice characterization are nothing less than chilling. I first saw the Cybermen in "Revenge" then later in "Earthshock" and "Attack" and found them scary enough then. Now that I've seen "Tenth" I realize that they actually got less and less scary as time went on, which makes this one the scariest ever.

The reconstruction of the unfortunately missing final episode is surprisingly and absolutely brilliant. The audio track is complete and...
A Must For Fans, But Over-Hyped
Make no mistake: Doctor Who fans are well justified in purchasing this video. The first appearance of the wonderful Cybermen and the final regular appearance of the legendary William Hartnell is now finally available to own and the reconstruction of the missing final episode is superb. But what has been overlooked for all these years is the fact that the actual plot concocted by the talented Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler is hardly amazing. The storyline has all the requisite misunderstandings and escapes and diabolical schemes, but very little of it is executed with any real enthusiasm. Until the Cybermen arrive the first episode is surprisingly slow, with many scenes involving two incredibly dull actors portraying two incredibly lifeless astronauts in trouble. Things are not helped by a hammy performance by the actor portraying General Cutler, whose road to madness is unconvincing to say the least. While William Hartnell gives a bravura performance, he is not entirely essential to the...
A new body, at last!
Whether you grew up watching "Doctor Who" as it was first broadcast in the UK, or in endless 1980s US PBS reruns, "The Tenth Planet" is one of those stories you were dying to see again and again. Annoyingly, you couldn't, because the BBC destroyed all prints of the fourth and final episode, and the story was thus "incomplete" and never re-aired.

The recent BBC releases of stories featuring William Hartnell, the First Doctor, have been exemplary, and this VHS continues the trend. The first 3 episodes of "Tenth Planet" -- long seen only on dim, bootlegged, Nth generation copies of the original -- are nearly pristine. Episode 4 is reconstructed using existing still photos, the audio track, and a few well-used video effects which serve to add to the pictures, not detract from them. (It's heartening to note that for this story, the "restoration" team did not seek to alter the existing footage by replacing scenes with outtakes, or...
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