Product Description

The new series of Doctor Who features Christopher Eccleston as the re-incarnated Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose, his trusty sidekick.

Episodes comprise:

7. The Long Game: Adam discovers the wonders of travelling in the Tardis. In the far future, Satellite 5 broadcasts to the entire Earth Empire. But anyone promoted to Floor 500 is never seen again, and the Doctor suspects mankind is being manipulated. Does Adam have what it takes to become the Time Lord's companion?

8. Father's Day: Rose travels back to 1987, to witness the day her Father died. But when she interferes in the course of events, the monstrous Reapers are unleashed upon the world, and a wedding day turns into a massacre. Even the Doctor is powerless, as the Human Race is devoured.

9. The Empty Child: London, 1941, at the height of the Blitz. A mysterious cylinder is being guarded by the army, while homeless children, living on the bombsites, are being terrorised by an unearthly child.

10. The Doctor Dances: The Child's plague is spreading throughout wartime London, and its zombie army is on the march. The Doctor and Rose form an alliance with the intergalactic con-man, Captain Jack, but find themselves trapped in the abandoned hospital. The answer lies at the bomb site, but time is running out...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10333 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-08-01
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 180 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It was always going to be a risk for the BBC to revamp Doctor Who--few television programmes inspire as much rabid and cultish adoration. With the 2005 series, however, the BBC have really outdone themselves. Their updated Doctor Who is a revelation: a cult science fiction series that has real mass appeal, and works for both children and their parents. Christopher Eccleston is an inspired and charismatic Doctor--he leaps around the sets with an unrestrained glee, like he’s a child running amok in a toy shop. His enthusiasm in downright infectious. His sidekick Rose (Billie Piper) adds a real human touch, particularly as she gradually and believably matures from in-over-her-head city kid to tough-minded interplanetary hero. Much of the credit must go to writer Russell Davies, who has a much-practiced knack for finding popular appeal without dumbing-down his ideas, and who appears to have let his imagination run riot. Even the special effects, whilst not of a big-budget cinematic quality, still manage to strike a balance between cheesiness and realism. Thrilling, funny and thoroughly entertaining, this Doctor Who is a hero for the new millennium. --Robert Burrow

Synopsis
The Doctor and Rose continue to explore time and space in the next four adventures of the BBC television series. In 'The Long Game' the Doctor discovers that a satellite is manipulating the future of mankind.

Customer Reviews

Once more into the Tardis dear friends
Into volume three of the Eccleston series, and you can see that the writers and production crew are growing in confidence, becoming almost blasé about their potential to deliver a good story. This is Dr.Who with attitude.

"The Long Game" is an ironic spin on the ability of a corporate network to exercise control over the news - hard to believe it's not reflecting on efforts of Blair's cabinet to manipulate news and demand that the BBC come to heel? Humanity is shaped and guided by its consumption of news, by the ability of the media to define what shall reach the public consciousness. Here we have news as the religion of the universe, information as the opiate liturgy of life. And only the Doctor can peel away the spin and reveal that by creating a climate of fear, the ruler of the media can manipulate people to do whatever he wishes. Beautiful performances from Simon Pegg and Tasmin Greig enliven an excellent story.

"Father's Day" has Rose return to meet her long dead father. The Doctor succumbs to her sentimental urge and is not unduly surprised to discover that, yet again, one of the monkeys has fouled up the timeline and plunged the universe into disorder. It's a good story, a bit maudlin in places, but entertaining enough.

"The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" are the halves of a two-parter, neatly split by a cliff-hanger end to the earlier episode. This is a seriously good piece of drama, set in London during the Blitz, the special effects creating both a realistic atmosphere and a comic book feel, with Rose flying above London courtesy of a rogue barrage balloon. This could become an iconic image.

This is excellent: a gas-masked child roaming the streets searching for its mummy transforms science fiction into horror and creates a strong, cross-genre narrative. It's a wonderfully choreographed story, tension and humour used with commendable skill, plot and subplot woven tightly together.

All in all, the new, revived Doctor Who has proved outstanding, able to use special effects to good effect, to weld quality storytelling with a new, riskier direction and production outlook, and to present science fiction as not simply speculating about arcane scientific developments but as a vehicle for dissidence, for a fresher understanding of the contemporary world ... and an opportunity to satirise and ridicule. Eccleston, of course, is a very fine actor, and he has brought real authority back to the character, his persona beautifully complementing the dissident dynamic of the series.

Excellent production, well worth waiting for ... but then, what's time to the Doctor?

Who's the mummy?
The episodes on this DVD mark the turning point into true quality. The two previous DVDs contained episodes that were very hit ('The Unquiet Dead') and miss (the dreadful second episode 'The End of the World'). Happily, all four episodes on this volume are superb and they display a cohesion, intelligence and emotional impact sadly lacking in previous stories.

Writer Russell T. Davies delivers some of his best work on the series with the prescient 'The Long Game', a story about the news media shaping the culture that it purports to serve. A great story with a satirical edge to it.

Billie Piper has been a revelation in this series. Her portrayal of Rose has been one of the high points. She takes centre stage in 'Father's Day', one of the best episodes of 'Doctor Who' ever, in my opinion. It's rare in the show's history that a storyline has packed such an emotional wallop on a major character. We perhaps feel it more because, in this case, that character is the Doctor's companion: the person the audience most easily identifies with. In this story, Rose, whose father was killed when she was a baby, goes back in time and saves his life. This has disasterous consequences, causing a wound in time. Admittedly, the story is derivative, but it's beautifully acted and only the coldest of hearts could fail to be broken by it.

Having met her daddy, Rose (and everyone else) is suddenly being asked, "Are you my mummy?" by a small boy in a gas mask. The last two episode on the DVD are 'The Empty Child' and 'The Doctor Dances'. Set in London during the Second World War, this is a delightfully atmospheric and creepy story about a plague that descends on the city thanks to a derelict alien space craft. We are introduced to the mysterious Captain Jack (John Barrowman) who joins the Doctor and Rose in the Tardis. We also have the spectacular sight of Rose dangling from a barrage balloon during an air raid while wearing a T-shirt with a huge Union Jack on it. This is one of the most visually effective stories in the series and the depiction of wartime London is excellent.

Four of the best episodes in the new series. Great stuff!

Almost perfect
Three of the most clever, emotional and brilliant episodes came from this dvd but it's a shame about''The Long Game''.''The Long Game'' isn't a bad episode it just isn't at all good.''Fathers Day'' is one of my favourite episodes. ''The Empty Child'' and ''The Doctor Dances'' are probably the most thrilling and scary episodes in the series.The plot of these two episodes is ingenious.Although I don't think ''The Long Game'' is great, this is still probably my favourite dvd in the series and I really reccomend it.