Product Details
Doctor Who - The Trial Of A Time Lord [1986] [1963]

Doctor Who - The Trial Of A Time Lord [1986] [1963]
From 2 Entertain Video

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Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #536 in DVD
  • Released on: 2008-09-29
  • Rating: Parental Guidance
  • Format: PAL
  • Number of discs: 4
  • Running time: 349 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Few of Doctor Who’s long-standing fans will tell you that The Trial Of A Time Lord is a story that hits their top ten list, and with good reason. A 14-episode opus that formed an entire series of Colin Baker’s reign in the Tardis, it’s a patchy production, that does have some qualities to it, but is probably one for the hardened Who fan rather than the casual viewer.

The key to the story is that the Doctor is on trial, facing a potential death penalty, and the courtroom saga works as a backdrop to a collection of stories that sit on top. So there’s The Mysterious Planet, which is a decent enough yarn, the weak and puzzling Mindwarp, the surprisingly enjoyable Terror Of The Vervoids, and then the twisty The Ultimate Foe.

While The Trial Of A Time Lord does have a few notable missteps, with some occasionally muddled writing, and while it does introduce arguably the worst companion the Doctor has ever travelled with (Bonnie Langford’s Mel), it’s still a fascinating series to watch, warts and all. Fortunately, it’s backed by a substantive collection of extras, including numerous commentaries and documentaries, that provide an honest glance back at a story that arrived in the midst of one of Doctor Who’s most troubled periods. All that, ultimately, makes it a worthwhile purchase for Who fans, even if after reacquainting themselves with it, they’re still not likely to put The Trial Of A Time Lord near their aforementioned top ten list… --Jon Foster

Synopsis
This four-disc set features the episodes - "The Mysterious Planet", "Mind Warp", "Terror Of The Vervoids" and "The Ultimate Foe" - that make up the Trial of a Time Lord storyline. The TARDIS is drawn to a space station where the Doctor (Colin Baker)is subjected to a Time Lord inquiry into his behaviour, presided over by an Inquisitor. The prosecuting counsel, the Valeyard, presents the first piece of his evidence, which consists of a recording played back on a screen linked to the Matrix. It concerns a visit by the Doctor and Peri to the desolate planet Ravolox...

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly good5
I didn't expect nothing good of this. The trial of a Time Lord has a very poor fame, and the idea I had so far was that this was a huge crap. Well, after watching it camly, I don't agree. OK, it is a flawed show: The mysterious planet is routinely done, Mindwarp improves greatly, but Brian Blessed is completely over the top, Terror of the Vervoids is highly watchable if you don't start making questions (err, from the future? And "edited"? COME ON!!), and The ultimate foe gave us one of the best stories for Ainley's Master but leaves lots of plot holes. After watching the making of each program, I must say the final result is surprisingly good, considering the amount of trouble the production team had to face.
Colin Baker is much more relaxed and mellow here than in the previous season, and I must say that he plays the "crazy Doctor" (in Mindwarp) ten times better than Tom Baker in The invasion of time, when I have to wait until the Production notes and commentary to realize he was simulating he was insane. The rest of the cast has very good acting (Nabil Shaban, Patrick Ryecart, Honor Blackman) and very bad (Joan Sims, Bonnie Langford)
The trial of a Time Lord is not the best Doctor Who story, not even the best of Colin Baker's tenure. But it has moments that are amongst the best of the original series (Nicola Bryant's departure, the initial shot, the cliffhanger from part 9 to 10, the cliffhanger from part 13 to 14...)

TIME TRIAL3
TRIAL OF A TIME LORD is never going to win awards as the greatest piece of television ever made, and certainly when you realise it was supposed to be a relaunch of the show after an enforced absence, you tend to find that it's essentially much the same as before. Having had the VHS for a while and not having watched it often, I didn't regard this as an essential purchase, and wouldn't see it as the best way to be introduced to old-style DOCTOR WHO, but ultimately it was a very enjoyable purchase as TRIAL OF A TIME LORD has simply never looked better. The picture and sound quality are so much better than the VHS release, and the excellent extras package gives a fair and honest appraisal of the series as it was at the time, and you are left with the sense of professional people really trying their best and giving their all to produce the best show they could. That it ultimately fails to live up to their expectations is a shame, but it's by no means the total turkey that people would have you believe. It was never going to be the sci-fi equivalent of Bochco's MURDER ONE for example, but then that's not what DOCTOR WHO is supposed to be, and as a few hours' entertainment for youngsters it has thrills, tragedy, humour and a certain intelligence that you would like to see in more modern dramas aimed at that age group. Be aware though, of the PG certificate, there are some bits that parents might consider too gruesome for their children (the children will, of course, love those bits!)

A good story, Mindwarp was terrible though.4
Well Doctor Who story Trial of a Time Lord is good, the dr basically gets involved in court for interfering with other worlds, basically he had already doen this before, they exiled him to Earth and made Patrick Troughton regenrate into Jon Pertwee, these two doctors are good doctors, i mean colin baker wasnt a very bad dr, but he was a bad dr in his 1st season, and basically they probably put him in trial because they wanted to disrespect the "true" classic dr who stories of the 60s and the 70s with the new ones of the 80s, now peter davison is a good dr with a good era and so is sylvester mccoy. Colin Baker was the last good dr with the least good era. Now as for the story. The first part is The Mysterious Planet, this is good, the court is witnessing some of the doctors life events, and the dr visits the planet ravalox. This stoory is well written. Minwarp after this, a condfusing story, terrible. All the other parts were very good. Basically id reccomend stories from the new series and the jon pertwee and tom baker eras, i suppose the last DVD a collecctor should buy are terrible stories like Four to Doomsday.