Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47372 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-09-24
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 7
• Running time: 634 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Uniting six complete stories across a full series of Doctor Who in one quest, the Key To Time saga is an ambitious, sometimes too ambitious, piece of television that nonetheless has plenty within it to recommend it.

Starring Tom Baker as Doctor Who he's given a quest by the White Guardian to track down the six constituent parts of the Key to Time. Thus, each of the six stories sees the Doctor and Mary Tamm's Romana hunting down one of the segments.

In many ways showing the highs and the lows of Doctor Who in the late 1970s, the Key To Time has some very distinct highlights. The Pirate Planet, for instance, is a cracking story in its own right (written by Douglas Adams), and we're also fans of The Androids Of Tara and the story that wraps the saga up, The Armageddon Factor. Ironically, it all gets off to a low start with the tepid The Ribos Operation, while The Power Of Kroll is just silly. Even by Doctor Who standards!

Nonetheless, this is a significant and very worthy entry in the Doctor Who canon, with both Tamm and Baker on top form. There's also some cracking episodes within the Key to Time, and a real feeling of risks being taken with a long-running property. --Jon Foster

Synopsis
Taken from the 16th series of the popular science fiction show, this collection includes 'The Ribos Operation', 'The Pirate Planet', 'The Stones Of Blood', 'The Androids Of Tara', The Power Of Kroll' and 'The Armageddon Factor'.

Customer Reviews

"He probably looked more convincing from the front."
I was not really looking forward to the materialisation of this boxset, thinking that I was already too familiar with these 6 serials from 1978. Isn't it lovely to be wrong sometimes? This is one of the best old-school DR WHO DVD releases this year and not just because the extras are so great(more on them later). From the moment the Doctor is hired by Cyril Luckham's godlike White Guardian to search time and space for the all-powerful Key to Time, this sequence of 6 stories is never less than fun, if occasionally silly.

Seeing THE RIBOS OPERATION again after several years was probably the biggest surprise for me as I'd previously dismissed it as a bore. Yes, it's a little stagey, containing polystyrene snow and rubbery monsters but it's also a sweet little character study. There's an effective balance here of mildly amusing comedy, along with characters chasing each other around in corridors or catacombs looking like they actually mean it. Tom Baker appears to be enjoying himself, and his delight in the schemes of rogueish intergalactic con-man Garron, played by the excellent Iain Cuthbertson, mirrors my own. Written by popular WHO veteran, Robert Holmes, the show is really about long term working partnerships (or "Holmesian double acts", if you must).

THE PIRATE PLANET is a love it or hate it affair. I'm inclined to defend it as I've always liked Douglas Adams' humour and inventiveness. It also features the best monster of the season (sort of) in the form of Bruce Purchase's Pirate Captain, who's a blustering, bellowing, eye-rolling nutter with an interesting motivation. The fight between his robot parrot and K-9 is a highlight of the season and again Tom Baker looks like he's having fun but not at the expense of his performance - witness the blistering "then what's it for?!" scene between him and Purchase in episode 3. Yes I suppose some of the supporting cast are a little dull, but when everything else is so bonkers yet engaging you can mostly forgive it.

Thanks to this boxset, the third story, STONES OF BLOOD, is again, one for which I've rediscovered my appreciation. The villainous Cessair of Diplos apparently doesn't have much motivation for what she's up to, but there is also the intriguing suggestion that she might be an agent of the Black Guardian (she seems to know that the Doctor is after the Key anyway). Even if the hyperspace scenes don't always work, the initial set-up of pagan cults,ancient stone circles and blood-drinking monsters is a welcome return to the kind of horror tale that the show seemed to be largely in favour of ditching at the time.

Story number 4, ANDROIDS OF TARA is the best of the set. It's a sci-fi rip-off of Anthony Hope's PRISONER OF ZENDA which is by turns elegant, witty, charming and pacey. Tom Baker gives one of the best performances of his "middle" period, probably only equalled or surpassed by his turn in CITY OF DEATH a year later. He's helped by a strong supporting cast and of course, an outstanding one-off villain in the form of Peter Jeffrey's charming but ruthless Count Grendel. It's quite right that this scheming devil of a man should escape at the end but it's also criminal that there was never a rematch.

THE POWER OF KROLL on the other hand is the weakest story here. It is however, fairly watchable if you're in the mood. There is a certain hilarious magnificence about men painted green running around Norfolk Marshes (doubling as an alien world) worshipping a quarter-mile wide man-eating squid! It feels like Robert Holmes is on auto-pilot here, not really bothering to create characters for whom one really cares, and this is reflected in the under-powered performances of the cast. But I guess anyone painted green or menaced by rubbery tentacles will have a job creating verisimilitude. POWER OF KROLL may be a bit rubbish, but at least it might make you smile indulgently.

Final segment of the quest, THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR is so-so. The money has now all but disappeared and writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin don't quite know how to keep matters tense enough to sustain 6 episodes. On the other hand, the last episode isn't bad and there are some good ideas at work. It's great for example, that K-9 is used in a more interesting way than is the norm as he is the only one who can communicate with Mentalis; and the jury-rigging of the nearly-completed Key to Time is a minor stroke of genius.

Overall then the season is the strongest for which producer Graham Williams was responsible, even though admittedly, most of the monsters on offer(especially the Shrivenzales, Ogri and the appalling Taran Wood Beast) are well below par. The Doctor's relationship with the uppity, cerebral but inexperienced Romana appears to inject a new vitality into the Doctor/companion relationship as does the fact that the Doctor is for the duration a man on a mission rather than a feckless wanderer.

My enjoyment was turbo-charged by the sheer wealth and quality of extras in the package. The jewel in the crown is the hour long documentary A MATTER OF TIME charting the history of the 3 Graham Williams seasons. This is one of the best of its kind which takes a refreshingly positive and celebratory approach. It reminded me of how literate and intelligent many of these serials are. There is also a fascinating amount of behind-the-scenes gossip nicely complimenting the more objective analysis. My favourite anecdote is Lalla Ward's rueful remembrance of the disastrous experience making 1979's NIGHTMARE OF EDEN, and Tom Baker's uncontrollable annoyance at director Alan Bromly.

As for the other extras, there are some nice "Making of" documentaries and a few shorter, more general theme-based features looking at for example, horror in DR WHO, or doppelgangers or renegade Time Lords. The Mary Tamm and Philip Madoc interviews are agreeable and if all this isn't enough, some of the discs have multiple commentary options (special mention has to go to the Tom Baker/John Leeson commentary on the KROLL disc as they don't seem to be able to stay on the topic of the story for more than 30 seconds at a time!). Some of them are highly informative and it's nice, for example, to have Bruce Purchase and director Pennant Roberts on the PIRATE PLANET commentary. A pity that writer and script editor Douglas Adams has passed away as one imagines that he would have been a wonderful contributor here.

A Season Long Story
The Key To Time season was the idea of Graham Williams, the producer of Doctor Who to do something that had never been attempted before on the series, that was to essentialy have an entire season length story of 26 episodes but divided into six seperate, but loosely linked narratives.

The William Hartnell era of the show regularly had stories link into one another but prior knowledge of the previous story was not necessary, with The Key To Time season however, it is necessary to a certain extent.

The format for the season is a variation on the 'Quest scenario' for an enormously powerful object that has been split into six segments and scattered throughout time and space, each of the six stories is the Doctor's attempt to locate one of the segments and reconstruct the Key.

The Doctor is sent on his quest by the White Guardian one of the two controlling higher beings of the cosmos, the White Guardian is the Guardian of light in time and is essentialy there to maintain the balance between good and evil, he has an opposite number the Black Guardian who is of course the embodiment of all that is evil and dark. The balance between light and darkness or good and evil is slipping out of phase into the favour of darkness and the White Guardian needs the key to restore the balance, the two Guardians are forbidden to directly involve themselves in universal affairs and must recruit agents whom they can manipulate and carry out their will, thus the White Guardian has recruited the Doctor and the Black Guardian, who also requires the Key, has agents placed in position to prevent the Doctor from carrying out his mission and seize the Key themselves.

The Key To Time boxset was released in America on Region 1 some years ago with limited extras and although I was tempted to buy it I resisted, because I had a feeling that it would'nt be too long before there was a Region 2 release. The special features for this release are awesome, they are without a doubt the most comprehensive package ever put together by the Doctor Who Restoration Team and are clearly designed to tempt the people who bought the region 1 release to double dip and buy this version of the set.

As stated above this season comprises six stories and I will just give a few details about them without revealing the plots, I don't like reading reviews about things that give the game away and I'm sure that most of the readers don't either.

'THE RIBOS OPERATION' is the story that introduced, not only the quest but a new model of K9 and Mary Tamm as the Time Lady, Romana. Now Mary Tamm has lived in the shadow of Lalla Ward who portrayed the second Romana for some years but is in actual fact just as good as if not better than her successor. She plays the part with a superior know-it-all attitude which irritates the Doctor greatly and there is real friction between them which is refreshing.
This story was written by Robert Holmes, who was without a doubt the greatest writer ever to work on the show, the script simply drips with humour and sophistication and features a trade mark Robert Holmes double act and is the best story of the season.
SPECIAL FEATURES: include a commentary and two documentaries detailing the influence of the producer of the time, Graham Williams, and the making of this story. Continuities and trailers are also presented.

THE PIRATE PLANET is noticeable for being written by the late genius Douglas Adams just prior to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and you can instantly see just what a giant of a writer he would soon become, another top story with a great plot and characters, but no Arthur Dent sadly.
SPECIAL FEATURES: include two commentaries and a documentary about this story's production, film inserts, deleted scenes and outakes. These are complimented by continuities and a spoof science programme called Weird Science which looks at the science of the Key to Time.

THE STONES OF BLOOD was the 100th Doctor Who story to be transmitted and is a tale of two halves, one good one bad, the first two episodes are like something out of a Hammer horror, with moving, blood drinking stones, human sacrifices, death cults and a sinister old house, great stuff. However that last two episodes sees the action shift to a space ship and the thick cloying atmosphere of the first half of the story has given way to something a lot more light hearted and is a massive letdown, had the story carried on in the content of the first two parts we would be looking at one of the all time greats as it is now it can only rank as average.
SPECIAL FEATURES: include two commentaries and two documentaries detailing the making of... and the influence of Hammer Horror upon Doctor Who. There is a Mary Tamm visit to the location to discuss stone circles with the local expert and a Blue Peter celebration of the show's fifteenth anniversary. The usual deleted scenes and continuities are rounded off with a very bad tempered interview with Tom Baker on Nationwide.

THE ANDROIDS OF TARA is a spoof of the Prisoner of Zenda and features mustache twirlling villains, sword fights, maidens being abducted and rescued and of course as the title suggests a power struggle featuring androids as doppelgangers, very light hearted but brilliant fun, it is also Mary Tamm's best performance as Romana.
SPECIAL FEATURES: include a single commentary and the usual making of documentary followed by a feature on the use of doubles in Doctor Who. A look at the location is highlighted in Now and Then which compares location areas 30 years apart.

THE POWER OF KROLL is perhaps the weakest story of the season dealing as it does with a massive swamp creature and a race of green skinned savages that worship it, the storyline is actually OK but the realisation of the monster is what spoils the story, the CSO used is simply dreadful, I never compare effects and such like from the past with todays standards for the simple fact that I judge a programme by the standards of when it was made, but boy do I wish that this effect could be remade, the indications are that that is indeed what has happened, I hope so because this one effect is so embarrassing it drags an otherwise good story down with it. A shame.
SPECIAL FEATURES: include a commentary and timecoded b/w in studio footage, there is an item by the local news show of the time, Variations, and a retrospective look back at her time on Doctor Who by Mary Tamm. Philip Madoc, one of the guest stars, also looks back over his Doctor Who career.

THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR is the finale of the whole series and is on the whole quite good, it does attempt to portray the effects of a nuclear war but the BBC budget does let the side down a little bit. It is more well know for featuring the Black Guardian in person for the first time, who would later return, along with the White Guardian during Peter Davison's era of the show. And this was the final story for Mary Tamm as Romana but the character would return in the next season played by Lalla Ward, who played Princess Astra in this story. The idea was that Romana chose to imprint her next body upon the pattern of the Princess whom she liked.
SPECIAL FEATURES: include two commentaries three documentaries detailing the making of..., rogue Time Lords and sound effects. There are two Pebble Mill at One features, a discussion of directing Doctor Who by Michael Hayes and the usual continuities and extended scene, the whole thing is rounded of by an extract from the BBC christmas tapes and Tom Baker reading five stories from the 1970's show Late Night Story.

The Key To Time season was roughly the start of the second half of Tom Baker's reign as the Doctor and he just went from strength to strength and was and still is unbeatable. The six adventures that comprise this are a mixed bag in terms of quality and reaction from the fans, some like it some don't, I always have liked it and as a one off experiment it works because there is a hugh veriety of different stories and ideas that keep it fresh. It's interesting to note that when John Nathan-Turner tried the same thing with 'The Trial of a Time Lord' it was perceived as a failure by many fans through being too well linked. The Key To Time is linked only by the thinest of plot devices and really the only two episodes that have a direct bearing on each other are the first and last.

The Key To Time boxset, if only for the special features alone, is highly recommended.

don't pay silly prices for this
In the latest issue of DWM it is reported that it will be re issued - but not in a ltd edition numbered set.