• Hello and welcome to MSFC. We are a small and close knitted community who specialises in modding the game Star Trek Armada 2 and the Fleet Operations modification, however we have an open field for discussing a number of topics including movies, real life events and everything in-between.

    Being such a close community, we do have some restrictions, including all users required to be registered before being able to post as well as all members requiring to have participated in the community for sometime before being able to download our modding files to name the main ones. This is done for both the protection of our members and to encourage new members to get involved with the community. We also require all new registrations to first be authorised by an Administrator and to also have an active and confirmed email account.

    We have a policy of fairness and a non harassment environment, with the staff quick to act on the rare occasion of when this policy is breached. Feel free to register and join our community.

Doctor Who DVD's in AU

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
Arc of Infinity Part 4 DVD notes:
A minor quibble with the notes here. At one time it referred to a frontage on Omega's left. Actually it's left from the viewer's perspective because for Omega it would be on his right.

An interesting thing from this episode is that the Doctor could not find a coin to use a pay phone which is in contrast to much later on in The Runaway Bride when the Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to use another pay phone.
Back in the Arc of Infinity the Doctor would not have been able to use the sonic screwdriver for the pay phone in this story as his original one was destroyed four stories earlier in The Visitation. It is too bad that in the commentary Peter Davison did not mention this possibility even though he did mention Donna and The Runaway Bride was her first (full) episode!
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
In the Anti-Matter From Amsterdam special feature on the Arc of Infinity DVD it was mentioned there was a lot of running more than usual in the story. This make me wonder whether Arc of Infinity was the story that was on Russell T Davies' mind in particular when he wrote Utopia which also had lots of running around.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
On the Arc of Infinity DVD there is a feature call The Omega Factor looking at Omega's character in The Three Doctors & Arc of Infinity as well the Omega audio story from Big Finish.

The Omega Factor is an allusion to the short-lived 1979 TV series of the same name which had Louise Jameson (Leela) as a regular.

While I am not trying to complain about the use of this name for this feature as it is appropriate given the subject matter of Omega's character development, it would have been better if Arc of Infinity had been released prior to the current TV series in 2005 when there would have been an even chance of people who bought it of knowing what the allusion of The Omega Factor was (I said even chance as I don't know how well known The Omega Factor series is among Doctor Who fans [at least with non-British fans] in comparison to say Blake's 7).

However since the classic series DVDs is now also being bought by people who became fans as a result of the current TV series they may not understand the allusion of The Omega Factor and may not occur to them to look it up.

The Omega Factor feature has interviews with key contributors including original Omega Stephen Thorne. I was hoping that Thorne might give an answer of why he did not play Omega again in Arc of Infinity but alas there was none because as I said before this was about the character's development not about the process in casting the character.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
I am currently re-watching Arc of Infinity as a result of the CGI effects and I am also re-reading the DVD notes:
As it has been noted Arc of Infinity was filmed in Amsterdam and the previous story that was filmed overseas was City of Death. Whereas John Nathan-Turner was the producer on Arc of Infinity, the notes says that on City of Death, he was the Production Assistant. He was actually the Production Unit Manager. A manager is hardly the same as assistant. I think a mistake like this undervalues the work that JNT has done on Doctor Who prior to him becoming producer.

Interestingly the City of Death notes did not mention JNT by name at all. It only refers to him as the (nameless) Production Unit Manager.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
Arc of Infinity Part 4 DVD notes addendum:
Maya Woolfe played the hostel receptionist in Parts 1 and 4. In between her scenes in those two episodes the notes said that she changed her top to reflect that a few days had passed. However according to a dialogue spoken by her fellow receptionist only a day had passed.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
I have been reading the DVD sleeve for Arc of Infinity, which is something I do after I finished with a DVD, and for the brief bio of Peter Davison it says that he took over Tom Baker as the Fifth Doctor. What a slight error here, and imagine Tom being the Fifth Doctor!
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
Recently I listened to the DVD commentary of the season 33 episode Blink with writer (and incoming showrunner) Steven Moffat and composer Murray Gold. Quite enjoyable but a little disappointed that Moffat made no mention of his short story What I Did on My Christmas Holidays By Sally Sparrow which became the basis for Blink.

Also I saw (appropriately) the Easter Egg for Blink. For those who do not know it is on the season 33 set on Disc 4. On Disc 4 it is on the last scene page for Blink and you will find it by hightlighting the word Blink.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
Just saw A Matter of Time, documentary on The Ribos Operation DVD included in the Key To Time set:
- Found out here that just as Graham Williams replaced Philip Hinchcliffe as Doctor Who producer, Hinchcliffe replaced Williams as producer of the police series Target. Talk about producer swapping.
- The Androids of Tara was inspired in plot by The Prisoner of Zenda. A Matter of Time showed a clip from the 1984 BBC mini-series of The Prisoner of Zenda to showed a similarity with The Androids of Tara. This version of The Prisoner of Zenda also featured John Woodvine. Woodvine had appeared in the final Key To Time story The Armageddon Factor directed by Michael Hayes and Hayes had also directed The Androids of Tara!
If Hayes had a crystal ball at the time of The Androids of Tara I am sure he would have cast Woodvine in The Androids of Tara instead of The Armageddon Factor.

Curiously there are some errors with the subtitles of A Matter of Time with the words "crinoids" (correct spelling Krynoids) and castrians (Kastrians).
Also in a clip from the season 17 story City of Death the Doctor mentioned the year 1505 but the subtitles correlated it as 15:05.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
On The Ribos Operation DVD saw The Ribos File in which Paul Seed that designer Ken Ledsham later worked with him on The House of Cards mini-series which Seed had directed. They were not only contributors of The Ribos Operation to have done something together outside of Doctor Who.

Prentis Hancock mentions that he had already worked with director George Spenton-Foster before for the Survivors episode A Little Learning. Hancock says that Survivors episode was written by an actor. That actor is Ian McCulloch who played Greg in the original Survivors series and eventually appeared in Doctor Who in Warriors of the Deep.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
Saw the Campion story The Case of the Late Pig. Peter Davison plays the title character Campion and in this particular story it reunited him with his Arc of Infinity co-star Michael Gough.

In a clear oversight the Arc of Infinity DVD notes made no mention of Peter Davison's reunion with Michael Gough in this Campion story despite the fact it did mention Davison's reunion with Neil Daglish (Damon) in another Campion story Flowers For The Judge.

Incidentally Campion: The Case of the Late Pig also featured Moray Watson, Davison's co-star in Black Orchid.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
Sometime last year at the Restoration Team forum I remember someone saying that the DVD notes for The Time Meddler made an error regarding the story's writer Dennis Spooner.

I finally read the notes for myself and the error was made about his age and his year of death -
The notes said that he was born in 1932 and died at the age of 56 in September 1987. The number of years between 1932 and 1987 is 55 not 56 and Dennis Spooner actually died a year earlier in September 1986.

Although the notes said that Spooner had created The Champions, Man In A Suitcase & The Adventurer it neglected to mention that he also created Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased). Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) is mentioned in the notes but says that he was the story consultant for that series. Surely being the series creator is more notable than being the story consultant.
 

Theta Sigma

Captain
Joined
26 Apr 2006
Messages
2,572
Age
44
The DVD notes for The Armageddon Factor Part 5 said that Bob Baker and Dave Martin had asked Graham Williams if they could bring back Drax but it did not make it clear Drax's return never materialised.

The DVD notes for the R2/R4 of Key To Time released in 2007 is a straight copy from the notes that was written for the R1 release in 2002. This meant that the notes as presented in the R2/R4 release did not take into account any updated information.
In the notes on The Armageddon Factor Part 5 it says that Bob Baker had co-written the Wallace and Gromit films The Wrong Trousers & A Close Shave.

However between the R1 and R2/R4 releases of the Key To Time, Baker had also co-written Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit but this very fact was not updated for the R2/R4 release.
 
Top