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Dom Robinson reviews

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani

Distributed by

Cert:

Cat.no: BBCDVD 1042

Running time: 99 minutes

Year: 1984

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, 4 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 24 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Mono)

Languages: English

Subtitles: English

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: No

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras: Exclusive Footage and Behind the scenes Documentaries, Photo Gallery, Music-only track, Trailer, News Features, On-screen Production Notes, Audio Commentary track

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Director:

Graeme Harper

Producer:

John Nathan-Turner

Music:

Roger Limb

Cast:

The Doctor: Peter Davison
Peri: Nicola Bryant
Sharaz Jek: Christopher Gable
Morgus: John Normington
Salateen: Robert Glenister
Stotz: Maurice Roeves
Chellak: Martin Cochrane
Krelper: Roy Holder
Timmin: Barbara Kinghorn
President: David Neal

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The Caves of Androzani was Peter Davison's last feature as the Doctor before he regenerated into Colin Baker, but no sooner has he and his assistant Peri (Nicola Bryant) arrived than they're being scheduled for execution by General Challek (Martin Cochrane) almost exactly at the end of episode one. Well, it's either that or suffer being eaten by the caves' own monster.

They're assumed to be gunrunners for Sharaz Jek (the late Christopher Gable who died in 1998). Then again, he's got his own problems being dolled up in a black-and-white gimp mask...

Of course, you know The Doctor and Peri won't die because there's three more episodes to come and just what is it about Spectrox that makes it the most valuable item in the universe AND the deadliest? Is it because it makes us live twice as long so we could splash out for a 50-year mortgage instead of the usual 25-year one?

The back cover states that The Caves of Androzani was first transmitted from March 8th-16th, 1984, but these things tend to last for four whole weeks.

---

Morgus found world domination impossible
with an early 80s TV remote control.

---

The picture quality is rather good considering the age of the programe, with little in the way of artifacts and a few scratches on the print. Presented in the original fullscreen ratio, I was unable to determine the average bitrate since some of the standard DVD features have been disabled such as this and the bookmark function.

The sound is the original mono. The theme tune is as recognisable as ever and there's nothing special about the special sound FX. A shame we couldn't have a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack here as we did with The Five Doctors

This disc contains a great wealth of interesting extras starting with an 8-minute Behind the scenes documentary about the regeneration in which Davison is replaced by Baker and the Original Opening Scene, which does exactly what it says on the tin complete with the now-removed jerky movement between the background mountain matte and the foreground film sequence. This utilises the multi-angle feature but the DVD doesn't make it selectable at will other than from the extras menu.

There's an Extended Scene in episode two between soldiers Stotz (Maurice Roeves) and Krelper (Roy Holder), a five-minute piece about the gimp in Creating Sharaz Jek and a Photo Gallery containing a massive 56 on-set stills.

Don't want to listen to the Doctor and Peri rambling on? Chose the Audio Commentary track instead with the actors discussing their parts alongside director Graeme Harper, complete with its own set of subtitles, or the Music-only track.

Information Text is a third set of subtitles that provides extra info about the programme as it runs and, in addition to the Original BBC1 trailer that preceeded the first episode are three News Features from late July 1983 when it was revealed that Davison was quitting the series. This sort of info is what I find most fascinating so please let's have more BBC!

There are 24 chapters spread throughout the 99-minute feature covering all the major scenes and breaks down to six per episode. The language and subtitles are in English, while the menus contain suitable animation and music from the theme tune.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

The following is a list of all the Doctor Who DVDs reviewed to date :

1977			The Robots of Death
1983			The Five Doctors
1984			The Caves of Androzani
1988			Remembrance of the Daleks
1996			Doctor Who TV Movie

Also visit Steve Roberts' Doctor Who Restoration site at : Restoration-Team.co.uk

Please tell him you found his site via my Doctor Who review.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: