Doctor Who 0070 The Time Warrior Four part story that aired December 12 1973 to January 5 1974. Written by Robert Holmes and directed by Alan Bromly.
A Sontaran crash lands in the UK in the middle ages, he convinces a scummy rascal with a castle into letting him stay there to repair his ship. He'll give the scummy rascal some better weapons for his soldiers. The Sontaran uses a device to send himself forward to the modern day. He kidnaps scientists and steals their equipment to help with the repairs. Back in the middle ages the Sontaran hypnotizes the scientist into working on his ship.
The scummy rascal has been robbing his neighbors, sadly most of their soldiers are off fighting for the king. The local lords have little by way of manpower for defense. Lucky for them the Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive to help. Despite some false starts they manage to get that job done.
When I watched it years ago I liked the story and still do. I was bummed to find that the UK DVD I had bought has skipping problems on the LG player. I have yet to test it in other DVD or Blu-ray. I did order a copy of the US disc. I figured I might as well, if I wait until I watch the series again I might not find a copy that easily. Eventually the whole batch will be replaced by the Blu-rays. They started releasing them at a quick pace but seem to have slowed down. It's never good to count on any media releases continuing over time. So many reprint schemes fall apart. I couldn't count how many I've seen fail over the decades. Not that I would bother.
Update: I got the US version on DVD and found that they are now releasing discs on DVDR. Not happy to see that but it happens quite a bit. The disc skipped in the exact same place as the UK DVD. That's a real manufactured DVD not a DVDR. I had tested the UK DVD in the all region Blu-ray player, after I had posted this, and it played fine. I tested the US version in the same Blu-ray player and it played just fine. Since it does the same exact skips I can only assume that it must be a mastering issue that the LG player I use on my PC has trouble dealing with.
I prefer watching the discs on my PC so I can take advantage of the variable playback speed when using VLC Player. I used to have a DVD player that had a 1.5 speed option with sound that is lacking on the DVD and Blu-ray players I have now. VLC also skips the junk ads and trailers that play when a DVD is loaded, VLC skips right to the main menu. Definitely going to add a Blu-ray player to my next PC, VLC will play Blu-rays.
Doctor Who 0071 Invasion Of The Dinosaurs Six part story that aired January 12 to February 16 1974. Written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Paddy Russell.
The Doctor and Sarah Jane return to London to find the city deserted but for some soldiers. They get arrested for looting but Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart gets them back to Unit. The Doctor thinks someone is monkeying with time and of course he's right. Some nut jobs want to roll back time on the Earth and make the planet a paradise for the couple of hundred people they've fooled into following them. The people have been told that they are on a spaceship headed for a nice clean new planet. They are foolish people.
The nut jobs have built a control center and fake spaceship below some government offices, an MP and an Army General are in league with a couple of mad scientists. They've sadly fooled Captain Yates into following along. The Doctor and Unit get investigating but they are being sabotaged by Yates and the General. Sarah Jane snoops around and is nearly killed by a T-Rex. Though the Doctor foils most of the baddies plans there's still a fair bit of catch and release going one. That's one way to pad out a story in a six parter.
I enjoyed the story even though the dinosaur models weren't too good. I posted more pictures in the 2013 blog post and linked it in the title. There's only three more stories with Jon Pertwee, I'll miss him but I'm also looking forward to seeing Tom Baker take over.
Comments