A quick review of
Battlefield which I've almost exhausted since my Xmas holiday away.
As people may know, I'm a huge supporter of Sylvester McCoy's era in general, even some of Season 24 (Paradise Towers is a superb script which I feel could easily be adapted for modern WHO. It's a shame about some of the implementation, but I can easily see past that when viewing it. However, I never had much positive to say about Battlefield (although oddly, I liked the "Boom" bit everyone else seems to single out as the worst aspect of the production. Lordy, there's much worse than overenthusiastic "Booms" and pottery pig stories to pick on). This DVD has raised my appraisal of the story a little, but only a little.
The Movie Edit is no Curse of Fenric, but interesting. The new effects are hardly state of the art (not sure if this is down to budget, intent to retain the feel of the existing effects or both) but its amazing how even these add to the actual storytelling. More important is the new sound mix, which not only dials down the musical score, but adds significant sound effects. It's an improvement on the episodic original, but again when watched in one non-stop sitting, the flaws of the story are even more apparent.
Again, what saves this DVD is the frankness displayed in the supplements. Once again, this is no Hollywood style co-appreciation love in. Aaronovich is particularly scathing of his script both on his featurette and on the commentary. Cartmel goes someway to praise the script every time Aaronovich states his unhappiness but slates the production. Poor Aldred, Courtney and Bruce seem to be somewhat in the middle - they acknowledge the production problems, but still have plenty of good to say about the filming and the final production. However Aaronovich and Cartmel dominate the commentary, and I'm pleased that they do as its always more fascinating to hear about how the story was originally intended to be seen.
The other supplement of value is the interview/monologue with Jean Marsh where she discusses her three roles on the series. I don't know if it's me or her, but all three roles seem to imply some form of incest! Yes, even the 1965 tea-time showing of The Crusade!
The Season 26 Press Launch trailer is frankly appalling. No wonder season 26 got little publicity from either the BBC or the British mainstream media. Such a shame when it really was getting more mature scripts, concepts and ideas - how anyone could undersell Curse of Fenric or Ghost Light so badly is a question that can never be answered with a satisfactory answer.
I've yet to see the production notes or picture gallery (or listen to the isolated score... but I'm not sure anyone would want to do the latter; its not particularly good).
I have two labels for my Doctor Who DVDs - the first is where the story is go good, you just have to have it on DVD. The second is where the supplements are so good, you have to have it on DVD. Battlefield falls into the latter category.
Finally a not-so-complimentary review of the E-Space Trilogy DVD set.
http://www.denofgeek.com/Reviews/182026 ... eview.html
I'm still looking forward to this though - to see Warriors Gate in Restoration Team quality really will be a treat (even if I never understood the story as such). It was literally about 20 years ahead of its time.
