The story begins with several of the Doctors earlier selves being taken out of time and space and placed in the Death Zone on Gallifrey where several of their oldest foes have also been taken. The then present Doctor (Peter Davison) is drawn to the zone where he joins up with the others as they make their way to the Tower of Rasillon at the heart of the zone, avoiding encounters with Daleks and Cybermen along the way. They soon discover that a rogue Time Lord is behind their abductions as he wants Rassillon's power of Immortallity for himself.

Special Edition

The version of 'The Five Doctors' presented on this DVD isn't the original 90 min special which was transmitted back in 1983 though. In 1995 a group of fans who worked at the BBC decided to create a new version of the story for the upcoming video release and as a result they inserted several additional scenes, replaced some existing scenes with new alternate footage and more importantly they replaced the old BBC Micro inspired special effects with brand new state of the art ones. They also remixed the old Mono soundtrack into Dolby Surround. This is the version which has now been released onto DVD, with one notable exception.

A couple of years ago Encore released three 'Doctor Who' titles onto Laserdisc and the fans were amazed at the clarity of the picture, however those releases are now well and truly put into the shade by the picture and sound on this disc. The picture is simply gorgeous with everything looking incredibly sharp (especially the TARDIS console room) and the sound has been given yet another remix, this time into 5.1 and it sounds great.

Disappointing Extras

The only disapointment with this excellent disc is the lack of extras. When it was originally slated to be released, the behind the scenes bods at the Beeb began preparing all sorts of goodies to go onto the disc, including outtakes, other unused footage and special effects comparisons with the original version. Unfortunately the BBC decided that it wasn't viable to include these as it would cost to much and they wouldn't be able to recoup their money, so the idea was dropped. What we do get is a really neat animated menu system of the TARDIS console and an option to listen to music tracks from the story. This is a nice idea but due to an almighty cock-up by the people who authored the disc for the Beeb, the music plays 10% slower than it should do and sounds terrible.

Still for all Doctor Who fans out there this is a must buy as they'll never get a better copy of this story. For non-Who fans it still might be worth a try, even if it is just to see how good an old TV programme can look on this new medium. Highly recommended.

Mark Eldridge