Product Description

The TARDIS lands in London in this classic TV soundtrack adventure, starring William Hartnell as the Doctor with linking narration by Anneke Wills. 'There's something alien about that Tower...' It's 1966, and London's brand new Post Office Tower looms over the Doctor and Dodo as they step from the TARDIS. When the Doctor meets Professor Brett, creator of a new, superintelligent computer called WOTAN, he is intrigued to hear of a plan to link all the major computers around the world. But there is more to WOTAN than meets the eye: it secretly believes humans to be inferior to machines, and already has a number of Post Office Tower staff under hypnotic power. WOTAN is planning the widespread construction of War Machines, large armoured computers bent on taking over the world!With the help of two new companions - sailor Ben Jackson and Professor Brett's secretary, Polly - the Doctor races against time to outwit the War Machines and break WOTAN's power. If he can't, then the end of humanity is in sight...This remastered soundtrack of the original four-part BBC TV adventure is narrated by Anneke Wills, who plays Polly in the story. She also recalls her time in "Doctor Who" in a bonus interview.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #527602 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-06
• Released on: 2007-08-06
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

This Version Is OK, But Nothing Really Special
Some Doctor Who stories are better suited to an audio release than others, stories like 'The Massacre' and 'Marco Polo' are perfect because they are character and dialogue driven, on the other hand adventures such as 'The Celestial Toymaker' and 'The Space Pirates' are not so good, the reason being that they are too visual. There are many scenes without dialogue and require masses of narration to cover this.

The War Machines falls somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, there is plenty of speech within the story to allow the listener to follow events without the narration stating the obvious but there are also many battle scenes and the sound of the war machines themselves travelling around London making buzzing, beebing noises that are very confusing and frankly, boring. There is a scene on video of the Doctor and Ben capturing a war machine but on audio without the pictures it's just indistinct, it could be anything. This is where the narration plays a vital part because it is here that the listener's attention can wander, the trick is not to give too much away but at the same time keep the listener interested enough in what is happening until such time as the material in the story becomes self-explanatory.

This version of 'The War Machines' is interesting because it is the full length edition of the story, the adventure can never be released in full onto DVD because there are scenes missing from the archives, but the soundtrack exists in full and is of value to Doctor Who fans for this reason alone.

I agree that a DVD version would have been better, but on the whole this is not bad and is probably worth investing in.

why not release it on DVD?
This is a strange release. I have a lovely video of this and have been waiting for an even nicer DVD. to release an audio of it is very very strange. It is a really good story and very well made and exciting.