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Web of Fear DVD
Virgil Tracy
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just rented this from lovefilm , but there's no extras on it , every other DW dvd I've ever watched was chock full of extras , this doesn't even have commentaries .
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Enemy and Web have no extras. Lots of theories about why: making the extras would risk leaking the stories had been found; different production company involved in DVDs nowadays; not enough time to make extras; etc etc etc. The key thing is: ENEMY OF THE WORLD AND WEB OF FEAR ARE OUT ON DVD!!!!!!!!!
Rumours abound that there's a commentary already recorded for Marco Polo, but that's another issue entirely ...
What did you think of Web? I loved it. Such an exciting time, to be able to see it!
Why bother recording a commentary for Marco Polo, if the story doesn't exist? There isn't any point animating the story. To most people, it will seem like a kiddies cartoon. Not many people will buy it.
Plus, it will be expensive to animate every episode of MP.
There are more important things to spend the money on these days, rather than spend hours animating episodes of a story, that most people will ignore, when it gets on the shelf in entertainment stores.
The implication is that the episodes have been found, but it is for now being kept under wraps. That is a rumour that has been going for about a year now. No-one is suggesting they've recorded a commentary for a reconstruction ;-)
Rumours abound not only that Marco Polo has been rediscovered, but also that the commentary track has been recorded.
This suggests that any future DVD of Marco has been produced with (a) more lead time and/or (b) less of a worry about the news leaking than was thec ase with Web/Enemy.
That's if the rumours of it being found are true. Do I believe that its been found yes but other rumours of it being restored by another company instead of the restoration team I don't. And I don't believe the restoration team have restored it either. I just think Phil hasn't handed it back yet. Steve Roberts has denied restoring it far too many times for me not to believe him. As I don't believe that its been any way restored or handed in to the BBC yet I don't believe a commentary has been recorded
first thing - why is the music from The Shining in the first episode??! . (ok I'm assuming that this music existed long before The Shining , but what is it ?)
2nd - episode 3 is a telesnaps episode , I didn't mind because I'm familiar with that but there's nothing on the disc explaining what this is or why , some viewers are gonna be a bit confused probably thinking their dvd player is freezing up !
tbh - it's not a great story , but it's worth a watch .
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The music is "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta" by Béla Bartók - great isn't it? Some of his music had also been used in Enemy Of The World.
Good point about the telesnaps. There ought to be something on the disc that explains why part three is only still pictures.
But I must disagree with your last point - not a great story?? It's magnificent!! Are you and I watching the same DVD???
well , it's good but not great . I guess I kinda got bored with them going up and down the same tunnel set for 6 episodes !
but deborah watling is super-cute , with her little legs , and the Yetis are kinda cute as well somehow , some classic bits where the soldiers somehow manage not to outrun these furry guys who can barely walk !
so what's the next story after this one that features The Intelligence ?
btw- what year is this story set ? because I'm sure someone said 40 years had passed since they last saw the professor in 1935 , so was it sposed to be 1975?
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The intelligence doesn't appear again until the 2012 christmas special: the snowman
It's mentioned on the back of the box in black writing that ep 3 is telesnaps. As the majority of people that buy classic who are fans that are aware of the lost eps situation I doubt its necessary to explain why ep 3 is missing.
I rented it , the sleeve just said that it had been fully restored - (so not entirely accurate !)
Previous story with The Intelligence is Abominagble Snowmen. There's a Yeti in The Five Doctors, and the Intelligence is back in some of the more recent stuff (played by Richard E Grant).
What year is it set? ... this opens a major can of worms ... one of the most tangled knots of DW is "When are the UNIT stories set?" ... this is 1975. All sorts of other stories provide all sorts of clashes and contradictions. A thread in itself, i reckon ...
Yes, the idea was that the UNIT stories were all set in a kind of near future (maybe 5 to 10 years). So they had videophones and strange vehicles and a female prime minister (there's precience for you
So far in my rewatch (up to Leela's first story, Face of Evil), I don't recall seeing anything to contradict this but, as I understand it, at some point the continuity of this idea gets broken.
I think Day of the Doctor had an oblique reference to the issue, with UNIT mentioning something about a different dating system (I can't remember the exact comment now but it was clearly included for the fans
Mawdryn Undead is the main culprit in the UNIT Dating Controversy as it has the Brigadier retiring from UNIT in 1976 even though earlier dialogue (from Web of Fear and The Invasion) suggests UNIT wasn't actually formed till 1979.
As well as Day of the Doctor the Sontaran Stratagem has he Doctor saying he's not sure if he worked for UNIT in the 70's or the 80's.
When I re-watched Pyramids of Mars last year on DVD, I clearly remember Sarah Jane Smith mentioning that she came from 1980. So if that's the case, when she joined UNIT/The Doctor, the 20th Century scenes in The Time Warrior would be from 1980.
Web Of Fear was assumed by the production team to be a few years in the future, but costumes and the Underground maps (crucial to the story) itself were firmly 1968.
The Invasion at least made a few concessions to the 'few years in the future' setting - notably some of the costume designs and the use of videophones etc.
Neither Troughton story was dated on screen however.
The early Pertwee era was also intended to be set just a few years into the future - the UK's Space Programme was just one indication of this. But right from Spearhead onwards there's virtually nothing on screen to indicate that the stories aren't simply set in the year in which they were made. Things like car number plates, flares, hairstyles, the level of everyday technology, the achingly fashionable clothes that Jo sometimes wears - all these things date the stories firmly to the years and even months in which they were made. Later throwaway comments like Sarah being from 1980 are overwhelmed by the sheer weight of visual evidence that more readily dates the UNIT stories to being utterly contemporary to when they were made, despite the original intentions of the production team.
By the time we get to Mawdryn Undead it's clear that JNT was unaware of the idea that the Pertwee / UNIT days were meant to be 'near future' and, from what he could see on screen, he regarded these stories as being set in the early 1970s, when they were made - hence the idea that the Brig retired and took up teaching before the Queen's Silver Jubilee. Any dates could have been used for Mawdryn, the actual use of 1983 and 1977 has no relevance on the plot, we simply need two time zones. They could have used, say, 1983 and 1989, it would have made no difference.
Interestingly the next time we see UNIT, in Battlefield, the story is explicitly set in the near future and some effort has been made to portray this - different coinage, the fact that the UK now has a King etc - exactly the sort of things the 70's UNIT stories ought to have done if they were really serious about the near future idea.