Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7113 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-06-16
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 150 minutes

DVD Description
This box set of Doctor Who: K9 Tales unites two classic Doctor Who stories: The Invisible Enemy and the first Doctor Who spin-off K9 and Company. It's also packed with a host of fantastic extras.

Starring Tom Baker, The Invisible Enemy is a four-part story featuring the screen debut of K9, the robot canine. When The Doctor answers a distress call from a shuttle crew who have been infected with an intelligent virus, he too becomes contaminated. The only solution is to create clones of The Doctor and his companion Leela (Louise Jameson) to enter his body and fight the virus.

K9 and Company sees the Doctor’s two companions, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and K9 appearing together. Also known as A Girl's Best Friend, this was the first bona fide TV spin-off from Doctor Who.

In this one-off special, Sarah Jane pays a Christmas visit to her Aunt Lavania in the village of Moreton Harwood. But something is horribly wrong. Lavania is missing, leaving Sarah Jane in charge of her aunt’s ward Brendan. When Brendan is kidnapped by an evil cult of witches, Sarah Jane and K9 find themselves in the middle of a mystery.

Extras are as follows:
The Invisible Enemy:
Commentary - with actors Louise Jameson and John Leeson, visual effects designer Mat Irvine and co-writer Bob Baker.
Dreams and Fantasy - artistes and production crew recall the making of this story and even take the original K9 for walkies. With actors Louise Jameson and John Leeson, director Derrick Goodwin, co-writer Bob Baker, visual effects designers Tony Harding and Mat Irvine, K9 operator Nigel Brackley, journalist Gary Gillatt.

Customer Reviews

Disc problem has been fixed
Purchased this item from Amazon 25/07/08, checked the disc and found no problem at the end of episode 3 of 'Invisible enemy' as reported by earlier users. It seems that the problem has been sorted and it is now safe to buy this series!

Disappointing
This Doctor Who boxed set comprises of Tom Baker's The Invisible Enemy, and a doctor who spin-off called K9 and Company. This release has been quite controversial for two reasons. The first being the fact that 2Entertain somehow managed to make an authoring mistake, much to the horror of Doctor Who fans, which meant that two scenes on Episode 3 of The Invisible Enemy were the wrong way around - ruining the episodes cliff-hanger. While 2Entertain did offer support for anybody who had purchased a faulty disk (offering a helpline number and an address to send the disc back to them.) The fact remains that not only should this not have happened in the first place (quality control anyone?) but a lot of faulty discs still remained on sale in various retailers including Amazon.co.uk and Woolworths, so I personally don't understand why they didn't undertake an entire recall instead of allowing the faulty items to be sold. The second reason why this release was controversial was because the spin-off K9 and company was never very popular. There are plenty of brilliant Doctor Who stories still to be released that feature K9, it therefore seems rather cheeky to create a boxed set called K-9 tales that in fact offers so little to the viewer. The first reason was why I held off buying the boxed set for so long, but after finally doing so, I'm not entirely sure if I'm happy doing so.

The best way to describe the best part of this boxed set (The Invisible Enemy) is to say that it's essentially a mediocre rip-off of The Fantastic Voyage, except with your classic doctor who budget and more plot holes. The story involves around The Doctor becoming infected by a virus after passing through a region in space. As a desperate measure The Doctor and his assistant Leela clone themselves which are then shrunk down and inserted into his body. The story is very irregular and doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny (something I feel most Doctor Who stores actually do). On the plus side it is first ever appearance of K9, but I feel that this is not Tom Baker's best. The revamped special effects actually work to the favour of the story. But the giant prawn sadly still doesn't work for me. This story is definitely one that is a matter of personal taste, and while for me it's not the greatest Doctor Who, it's still not the worst. There are good special features which was a welcome surprise - especially anything to do with K9. But The Invisible Enemy is a bizarre (but still fun) story. Needless to say K9 is the real star of the story, and I enjoyed his debut appearance.

The first problem with K9 And Company is the opening theme music, which will most likely put you off straightaway. But the story involves Sarah Jane Smith and K9 investigating a black magic cult. Sadly it doesn't really work at all. The characters are shallow and to be honest - boring, just like the actual story. You'll most likely want to fast forward through half of it.

The picture and sound quality of both stories has been restored nicely and is at least something to be thankful for.

If you have been unlucky enough to receive a faulty disc of The Invisible Enemy below is the telephone number and address for 2Entertain, so you can send it back to them. However, saying that I should also point out that the faulty disc might actually be worth a lot of money in the future. When DVD's go the way of Betamax, it might be a collectors item. I'll leave the choice entirely to you.

DVD Support
2entertain
33 Foley St
London
W1W 7TL

020 7612 3186

dvd.support@bbc.co.uk

Not the best stories ever
Firstly before I review the dvd set my copy was faulty like so many others. If you have a faulty Invisible Enemy dvd you need to post just the dvd to DVD Support, 2 Entertain, 33 Foley Street, London, W1W 7TL and a corrected disk will be sent.

To be honist neither The Invisible Enemy and K9 Tales are very good stories. The Invisible Enemy is greatly improved by new CGI effects which improve the dreadfull original ones. I mean how scary can a giant shrimp be? The story is basically Fantastic Voyage done on a very low budget. Even worse is K9 And Company. It starts with an awful theme some which has you reaching for the fast forward button. It is badly shot (rather like a stage play) and very very boaring. Normally I love the audio commentary tracks but the people on this one sound as board speaking about it as I was watching it.

This year has not been a great year for decent Doctor Who releases. With any luck next year will see some of the great stories released - Terror Of The Autons, The Seeds Of Doom or The War Games would be nice.