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A friend of mine recently asked me which of the original 26 seasons I felt represented Doctor Who at its finest. Without hesitation, I replied, “Season seven,” and I think that surprised him. Small wonder! In 1970, Doctor Who had just seen the departure of my favorite Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and was just starting on its way toward the muddy morass I have often felt is one of the most boring periods in the show’s history: the early-70s, mostly-stuck-on-Earth, high-color, high-action Jon Pertwee era, with flashy vehicles and shiny gadgets and karate chops to spare. The show’s descent into juvenile James Bond territory was just a bit tiresome, nostalgic only for those who grew up with it, and not standing up to much in the way of serious examination. Doctor Who wasn’t quite a kids’ show anymore, but it hadn’t transitioned into the spookier show of the early Tom Baker era, so for three or four seasons the most you could hope for was an on-the-nose environmental parable to break up the glam rock invasions of Earth.

But for one brief, shiny period, through 1970 and on about halfway into the 1971 season, Doctor Who tried something different. For about six stories, it completely abandoned space-age hi-jinks, Cybermen and bright swathes of silver and gold for something a little grimmer, a little more meditative, and altogether more eerie. The change was intentional: with budget concerns keeping the brand new, third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) stuck on Earth as scientific adviser to the peacekeeping force of UNIT, the show stopped being science-fantasy and focused, for one of the only times in its history, on truly being science-fiction. And it told some of the best stories it ever dared.

The inspiration for the new “feel” of Doctor Who was the famous trilogy of Quatermass serials, broadcast on the BBC in the 1950s and later adapted into Hammer Horror films for the world market. These were tough, serious science fiction stories for adults that followed the British scientist, Professor Bernard Quatermass, as he investigated a failed rocket mission with just one survivor, an astronaut slowly transforming into an alien creature; a series of meteorite showers that spearheaded a takeover attempt by an otherworldly intelligence; and a long-buried, extra-terrestial craft that awoke humanity’s most primal fears. Although the Quatermass serials continue to inspire the show to this day - the 2008 season’s own “Midnight” owes more than a nod to The Quatermass Experiment - this was the beginning of a period where some Quatermassian element would find its way into each and every script, and the story on this DVD is no exception.

Doctor Who and the Silurians - so named thanks to a technical error in on-screen titles - is the second of four stories from Doctor Who‘s seventh season, and takes its cue from Quatermass and the Pit, where men are driven insane from “race memories” of ancient, Martian visitors. Here, though, Martians aren’t the problem, but a species native to Earth: the so-called Silurians, a race of reptile men from before the ascendancy of man, who put themselves into cryogenic sleep to avoid destruction by an ecologic disaster. A group of Silurians have re-awakened in some English caves, and found an ally in Dr. Quinn, a top scientist at the Wenley Moor nuclear power facility. With Quinn’s aid, they are draining energy from the plant to revive their fellow Silurians, and although one old Silurian scientist hopes for peace between species, the younger, more aggressive males are set on destroying the human race for good. Those who venture into the caves are driven mad by the experience, and found scribbling cave drawings on the walls. It’s only when UNIT is called in to investigate the power drains, and the Doctor starts to snoop around, that the young Silurians find themselves faced with a real threat…

“The Silurians” is a wonderful story, for my money the best of the season and a personal favorite. Its immediate predecessor, “Spearhead from Space,” has a wealth of atmosphere, but “Silurians” finds new Doctor Jon Pertwee, along with his co-stars Caroline John (as Dr. Liz Shaw) and Nicholas Courtney (as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), hitting the ground running. At seven episodes - far too long for a typical Doctor Who - “Silurians” threatens to lose its momentum, but right at the middle it switches gears and sets the plot in an entirely new direction: The Silurians decide to release a deadly contagion upon mankind. Can the Doctor and Liz stop it in time? It’s this kind of invention by writer Malcolm Hulke that sets the story up above its peers. Hulke is always concerned to show the viewpoints of all the different characters - the Doctor, the military, the scientists, the Silurians - and how they counterpoint each other. He is quick to point out that from the Silurians’ point of view, it is we humans who are the alien invaders, and the Doctor’s desperate attempts to find a peaceful solution are shown to be not just morally superior, but tragically naive. The Brigadier, a character who would later descend into pompous comic stereotype, has one of his finest moments as a man trying to fulfil his job as the first line of defense for mankind, even if that means making hard decisions. This is 1970s writing-by-archtype, certainly - the Doctor taking filling his prescribed role as the intellectual, the Brigadier as defender, other characters as reactionary, mercenary, victim, aggressor - but it is strong, mature writing, all the same. The actors, including guests Fulton Mackay, Peter Miles and Geoffrey Palmer, play up to the qualities of the script and the result has all the verisimilitude and drive of a well-performed theatrical play.

Even with all the qualities I have ascribed to it, though, some will certainly find “The Silurians” slow going; seven 25-minute episodes is an awfully long time to tell a story, and I would never suggest anyone sit through more than two or three at once. Those who aren’t interested in the more theatrical aspects of moral debate may find whole sections of the story tedious, and while the Silurians’ costumes and voices are very nice for the standards of 1970, “convincing” doesn’t really enter into the argument (even less so for their pet dinosaur!). Additionally, some issues with the color quality of “The Silurians” (see below) may serve to put off even a dedicated Who fan. So depending on your individual taste, your mileage could certainly vary, but for my money, this is top stuff. Doctor Who should be aiming for the level of “The Silurians” every single time. 

Doctor Who and the Silurians has been brought to DVD as a two-disc set by 2entertain and BBC Video (through Warner). The story has been split over both discs, four episodes on one and three on the other, with a smattering of special features on each. First and foremost, we should talk about video quality. Thanks to BBC policy of the day, this story was only retained in the archives as a black-and-white film copy (for overseas sales), not a color video master. Through the magic of VidFIRE, used so successfully for the 1960s stories on DVD, the “look” of the original video has been re-instated for all of the applicable sequences (the majority of the story) - but the result is still only a clean, crisp black-and-white transfer. The only existing color copy comes from a fan in North America, who recorded the story with an early Betamax machine. This somewhat dicey color signal has been re-converted to European standards and overlaid on top of the black-and-white episodes. The result is...fairly smudgy, but certainly watchable. Episode one is actually quite serviceable indeed, and it’s only when you get down to about episodes five and six that you might start to feel as if you’re watching an old VHS (thankfully, things improve once more for the final episode). Due to the sub-standard quality of that fan recording, the color becomes progressively grainier, bleeding a bit more and definitely exhibiting stronger and stronger examples of “rainbow banding” (where skin tones break into blotches of pinks and yellows, for instance). Despite the fine work of the Restoration Team, this is not the cleanest-looking product ever released to DVD, and probably amongst the worst of how any Doctor Who will look on DVD. (There’s also about a minute’s worth of footage that doesn’t exist at all in color, which has been colorized by computer...it shows, and that’s probably the true nadir of the disc.)

...There is, however, one alternative. If you’re not particularly fussed about the color - and as I’ve always said, season seven looks like it was shot in various shades of brown, anyway - I highly recommend simply turning the chroma down on your TV and watching the story in black-and-white. The occasional shot will look a little dark, but overall the viewing experience should be pleasant and atmospheric, without the aesthetic limitations of the color element. After all, there are an awful lot of British households - and foreign countries - that saw this story in black-and-white when it was originally broadcast.

Sound options include the original mono sound and a isolated music track featuring Corey Blyton’s...er...unique musical score. Considering large portions of the score sound like the same lilting melody performed again and again on a child’s kazoo, I don’t think I’ll be subjecting myself to the experience any time soon, but it’s a good addition for those who like it (and, indeed, one of the earliest existing incidental scores for the show). English subtitles have been provided not just for the episodes, but for all the special features (hooray!), and a separate information subtitle track has been compiled by Dr. Martin Wiggins. This features all kinds of information, from shooting schedules, to changes in the script, to behind-the-scenes information and problems, to alterations made by Malcolm Hulke for the ultimate novel adaptation of the story. It’s an exhaustive track, and I highly recommend it for any fan of “The Silurians.”

The commentary track for this story is a rotating panel including producer Barry Letts, director Timothy Combe, stars Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney, guest actors Peter Miles and Geoffrey Palmer, and script editor Terrance Dicks. Unfortunately, two of the better contributors - Combe and Courtney - were only available for half of the commentary each (recorded on separate days), and are not heard together. The resulting track isn’t bad, but it’s nothing that great: Caroline John has some interesting things to say, and it’s great to hear from Combe, but they are overshadowed by the well-known anecdotes of Terrance Dicks and general weirdness of Peter Miles. I have never felt comfortable with actors who refer to their characters as themselves (as in, “I had to protect my nuclear plant from those terrible Silurians!"), and Miles takes it uncomfortably far. You can tell he’s putting the others off, too, and I was so happy when he was moved out of rotation for episodes 3 and 7. In general, you’d probably be safe just listening to the commentary on the first disc - very little of substance really gets added during the second disc’s episodes.

In terms of more visual special features, disc one includes What Lies Beneath (35 mins.), what may be the single most interesting documentary to be made for a Doctor Who DVD yet. I loved it. Taking us back to 1970, it sets up the climate - both behind the scenes, and more generally in terms of culture - that led to the revamp of the show for its seventh season, and the influences that fed into the development of “The Silurians” as a story. All of the commentary participants return to contribute, along with New Who writer Paul Cornell and former MP Roy Hattersley. The Quatermass serials get their due, along with Cold War tensions, racial violence, and even writer Hulke’s own political tendencies. This is a much more in-depth piece than I ever would have expected on a new DVD title - as, nowadays, they are supposed to appeal as much to casual child viewers as hardened fans - and is invaluable to anyone interested in the social or political makeup of early 1970s Britain, and how its entertainment was influenced. As an American born in the early 1980s, this is the kind of thing that practically invites me to go back and re-evaluate old Doctor Who afresh.

Moving on to disc two, with the groundwork in place, Going Underground (19 mins.) follows the production of “The Silurians.” The usual suspects from the commentary are back, this time joined by designer Barry Newbery and several of his design sketches - which are pretty cool. Some of the information is definitely duplicated from the commentary and information subtitle track, but there’s more than enough original material here. It may not be anything revelatory, but it’s a solid making-of featurette.

Now & Then: The Locations of Doctor Who and the Silurians (10 mins.) is the latest in the recurring series of featurettes dedicated to examining filming locations as they appear today. Clips from the film sequences of the story are compared to modern video footage of the locations, with a little on-screen map and running narration by actor Geoffrey Palmer. Certain fans will find this very interesting.

Musical Scales: An Era of Experimentation (14 mins.) examines the evolution of Doctor Who‘s specially-composed incidental music, with special emphasis on the early seventies and their...um...more unique scores. Comments from late ‘80s composer and sound guru Mark Ayres form the backbone of the piece, with additional input from producer Barry Letts, directors Christopher Barry, Michael Briant and Timothy Combe, and archive interview material from composer Malcolm Clarke. They focus specifically on “Doctor Who and the Silurians,” “The Sea Devils” and “The Mutants” alongside a more general overview of the early seventies and their ...erm...unique scores. Combe rather quaintly refers to Blyton’s score as “music you notice” - yes, yes it is. Overall, this is a neat featurette, even if, like me, you find some of that early music a bit...trying.

Colour Silurian Overlay (5 mins.) rather charmingly plays on the initials of color separation overlay (chroma-key), but in point of fact it is a brief featurette describing how “The Silurians” was restored from black-and-white archive film to its present quality. I would’ve preferred a little more personal content, like an interview with some of the Restoration Team, but however brief, it’s nice to have something to help explain the quality issue to viewers.

Photo Gallery (6 mins.) displays production and publicity photographs for this story, most of them black-and-white, set to a suite of Corey Blyton’s music. “Coming Soon: The Time Meddler” (1 min.) is an extremely fast-cut trailer for the eponymous 1965 adventure starring William Hartnell, expected this August on Region 1 DVD; I have no idea why they make these trailers so apoplectic, as it’s rarely representative of the story in question.  Finally, for viewers with a DVD-Rom drive, disc two also includes a PDF of material from Radio Times (Britain’s TV Guide), including the original listings for “Doctor Who and the Silurians,” and a brief article on Jon Pertwee and his Doctor’s new car, Bessie, which was printed the week of episode one’s transmission.

There is a rather obscure easter egg on disc two, a quiet little gem in its own right, that deserves to be found: suffice to say, you’ll be rewarded for watching “The Silurians” in individual episodes instead of all at once.

Both discs open with the trailer for Doctor Who: The Complete Third Series on DVD. Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of that one, lately, too.

I think Doctor Who and the Silurians is nothing short of a masterpiece, one of the really great stories in the program’s long history, coming at a time of change and a brief period of real innovation. Unfortunately, the quality of the color episodes is somewhat lacking, but this is more than made up for by the excellent special features content. At an individual SRP of $34.98, as with all of the two-disc Doctor Who sets, “The Silurians” is certainly a touch expensive. However, it is also available in the new Doctor Who: Beneath the Surface box set, which also includes the single-disc releases of its sequels, “The Sea Devils” (again starring Jon Pertwee) and “Warriors of the Deep” (starring Peter Davison). Available variously online for around $40-$45, the box set is - in my opinion - a real steal, even if you only like two of the three stories. Treat yourself and enjoy a classic slice of British science-fiction from the good old days...that is, the very, very old days, before the dawn of man! 

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