Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8970 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-11-18
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Doctor Who adventure "Resurrection of the Daleks" marked the Doctor's first encounter with his most famous foe since 1979's "Destiny of the Daleks" five years earlier, and Peter Davison's only full-scale battle with the cybernetic aliens. Weakened by a Movellan virus the Daleks assault a space station prison where Davros is being held. The Daleks plan to use duplicates of the Doctor and his companions to assassinate leading Timelords, and further duplicates to take over the Earth. The action is split between the space station and abandoned London riverside warehouses, and is notable for its grim tone and high body count. The duplicate police-assassins recall the Autons from the Jon Pertwee "Spearhead from Space" (1970) and proved controversial on original broadcast. Also notable is that although the show was designed as a four-part adventure it was transmitted in two double-length episodes.

This edition presents the story in the original four parts. Meanwhile there are more than the usual quota of name guest stars, including Rodney Bewes, Rula Lenska and Lesley Grantham. The tale also marks Janet Fielding's final appearance as Tegan. In every respect this is a key adventure in the history of Doctor Who, even if the tense, incident-packed story is ultimately weighed down by too many elements to resolve them all satisfactorily.

On the DVD: Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks is accompanied by a warm and highly jocular commentary from Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and director Mathew Robinson. A new 18-minute "On Location" documentary intriguingly revisits the now upmarket waterfront locations with interviews featuring producer John Nathan Turner, writer Eric Saward and Matthew Robinson. A seven-minute clip from Breakfast Time spotlights Janet Fielding and John Nathan-Turner, and composers Brian Hodgson and Malcolm Clarke. Also included are seven minutes of deleted and extended scenes, a BBC1 trailer and a photo gallery that plays automatically for three minutes, set to sound effects. There is optional on-screen information text and selectable subtitles for the programmes and commentary. The sound is available in broadcast mono, a remarkably effective Dolby Digital 5.1 remix, and as a mono music only track. TARDIS Cam No. 4 is a very short new digital animation. --Gary S Dalkin

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Those dastardly Daleks are at it again, devising a devilish trick to play on Doctor Who (Peter Davison) and his intrepid band of time-travellers. In the 20th century, Davros, leader of the Daleks, is about to reenter the fold of time. He plans on destroying everything in his path--even his own subjects! Of course, only the Doctor can stop the sinister creature.

Customer Reviews

Peter Davison's Doctor meets the Daleks
The writer of Resurrection of the Daleks, Eric Saward, stated that his story was the worst one in the programmes history. This is far from true. Resurrection boasts some excellent scenes, an engaging if somewhat convoluted storyline and good pace direction from Matthew Robinson. Broadcast as part of Peter Davison's final and best season, Resurrection never pauses for breath, and is a real contrast to other stories from this period such as Terminus and Four to Doomsday which seemed slow moving and padded out. This probably makes it more appealing to viewers today who want to see fast moving television. The dark and gritty adventure has an air of gloominess about it, from the opening scene in which a group of escaped prisoners from the far future, are ruthlessly murdered by Police officers, in the derelict docklands of 1980s London, to the final scene in which long serving companion Tegan unhappily works away from her life with The Doctor. The docklands of London are a central location for this story, prior to their redevelopment as luxury apartment blocks. Here they present an image of a decaying, haunted area of London, abandoned for nearly a century. An ideal location then for The Daleks to hide some canister's of a virus, which has infected their race. Meanwhile in the far future, The Daleks rescue their creator Davros from his prison on a space station, with the intention of getting him to develop an antidote to this virus. The Doctor and his companions, having been dragged in the Tardis to modern day London via the Daleks time corridor, come across the lone survivor of the earlier massacre Stein, but is he all he seems, and why are The Daleks so intent on capturing The Doctor.
In contrast to his previous story, Earthshock, here the writer and also the script editor, Eric Saward, does compact too many story threads into this serial. Certainly, a few elements could have been eliminated from his script. It also has quite few famous faces, such as Rodney Bewes as Stein, Rula Lenska as Styles, and Leslie Grantham as a dalek mercenary, cast just months before he achieved national fame as Den Watts in EastEnders. Mel Smith was the original choice for the role of Stein and maybe would have been better than Bewes, who is often remembered by fans for the bad delivery of his line, "I can't stand the confusion in my mind".
All in all this is highly recommended.

Dark and depressing
This is what the 1980s turned Doctor Who into. All of a sudden, after all the puns and clowning around we have this story, in which pretty much everyone dies and a pervading sense of hope is hard to find. Yet isn't that what the Daleks are about?

There's a moment here when the Doctor reaches the overrun space station, picks up a weapon and uncomfortably announces his intentions to kill Davros. This is a fine moment, both in terms of acting on Davison's part but also in Doctor Who chronology. The Daleks could easily have slipped into self-parody after two decades as TV's biggest bad guys, yet this injection of nihilism and fatalism reaffirms them as the baddest of the bad.

In terms of production values, they only get slightly creaky on the space station, but never to the point where it shatters the illusion of reality. This is an absorbing story, written and acted by people who totally believe in what they're doing. Those who accuse the series of being TV's answer to a Christmas panto need only watch this particular story.

One of the best ever
Undoubtedly the Daleks in their most classic form and in their greatest outing. The Story is well worked and the whole build up to the end seems to lead to very little escape for Davros who the Daleks once again wish to recover for their own ends.

Peter Davidson is excellent as the Doctor, and he interacts well with the pepperpot monsters. The Daleks are shown as much more than one dimensional killing machines and the programme makes them appear as the master manipulators they should have always been.

The programme is filmed in London in the year of the programme's release and this cuts down on the amount of tacky inconsistences in the set, however the space arena where the rest is shot does resemble an early episode of Star Trek.

This doesn't detract from the programme, which is undoubtedly well written and well presented.