Just listening through the all the Classic Era DVD audio commentaries at the moment and just wondered if people have listened to them and what they think of them.

I'm listening to them in order and most of them contain valuable insight into how the show was made and gives you a general insight into some stories. They even contain info I hadn't heard before, such Michael Robbins playing Richard Mace in The Visitation, who thought it was the worst acting job he'd ever done!

However, I also find them a bit repetitive. I have lost track of how many times I've heard:

1)Louise Jameson's story of how she accidentally threw a knife at a cameraman in Robots Of Death and nearly killed him.

2) Tom Baker going 'There I am!' at the start of nearly every episode.

3) Terrance Dicks 'Bouffant Hairstyle' story.

Plus there's many more!

There are also certain actors who I shall not name who are over critical of the stories they are in as well!

Overall, definitely worth a listen. (Maybe not in order though)

So what are your thoughts for those who have listened to them?

It all depends on the story and the people involved

I enjoyed Frazer and Debbie's commentary on the original release of Tomb Of The Cybermen

I listen to them when I first buy a DVD but never revisit them. Just watch the episodes again and a select few extras.

From the handful I have dipped into I have enjoyed Peter Davison the most, Earthshock was one I enjoyed from what I remember. He is not shy in pointing out the good and bad points in the production either, even other actors work I recall he pointed out that a guest actress nearly looked at the camera there! Possibly Peter Davison is one of the actors Daveyboy mentioned as being one of the overcritical ones.
Tom Baker tends to go off on a tangent, I remember on The Hand of of Fear the actress who played Eldrad got a lot of praise for being attractive and such like , among others during his commentaries.
Not that particularly disapprove just pointing it out, it's good to hear some of the stories of where they knew actors from before and some of the tales in and around filming. Which is one of the attractions of doing the audio commentaries I have found from the few I have done.

Both Davision and Fielding have been critical on DVD commentaries.

They can be hit and miss but generally I'm a big fan of the commentaries. The best for me are the Davison/Fielding ones, particularly The Visitation, Kinda, Earthshock & Arc Of Infinity. Yes they are critical in places but it's mostly done in an affectionate piss taking atmosphere and they are happily critical of themselves as well. For me Liz Sladen, Lalla Ward and Matthew Waterhouse are more dismissive with their criticism and more of a pain to listen to.

Also good

Peter Purves and Maureen O'Brian work well together as do Fraser Hines and Wendy Padbury. I'm not a massive fan of any Pertwee era ones. Maybe Colony In Space and the the Katy Manning/RTD one on Green Death is good. For Tom Brain Of Morbius, Image of the Fendahl and Logopolis are the highlights. The latter with a very introspective appearance from Tom paired with a more subdued than usual Fielding which works here. Almost every Davison one is good, Mark Strickson is great on the Black Guardian trilogy and all 3 commentaries on the Five Doctors are worth a listen. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant are also a good pair with the Twin Dilemma probably the best thanks to Kevin McNally's guest role. Oddly McCoy and Aldred can be a bit dull but Battlefield and Delta And The Bannerman are fun.

I really like some of them. Davison, Fielding and co are good fun - Sarah Sutton's rather cruel impression of Beryl Reid is my favourite commentary moment - but they can get a bit bored and irritable at times and the criticism can stray away from the affectionate. I quite like Liz Sladen's commentaries. Katy Manning's baby voice is like nails on a blackboard to me (with Barry Letts clearly sharing that opinion...) and Christopher H Bidmead really knows how to ruin a party.

I find a few really awkward, where people either clearly don't like each other or are on very different wavelengths.

You do tend to hear the same anecdotes over and over again, often with significant changes from one retelling to the next!

Agree about Peter Purvis. I was listening to the episode commentaries recently for the Chase and the Time Meddler and liked Peter Purves a lot - he was very positive about the show and the quality of the episodes.

Maureen O Brien couldn't remember doing the Space Museum though although she was quite polite. I think Doctor Who was just a job she thought wouldn't last and she was very young. I felt a bit sorry for her though going on holiday for a week and coming back to find out she was written out in The Mythmakers. Verity Lambert is always good to listen too as well.

Whenever Tom Baker talks about Adric is gold. He variously calls him 'that little boy' or, when talking about Matthew Waterhouse the actor, 'Adric' :P It's hilarious.

Yes, they get repetitive when you've heard a few and the usual suspects trot out the usual anecdotes but they're worth listening to even then. It's great when they have directors or writers to supplement the usual anecdotes from the cast.

It isn't actually as I think Peter Davison and co(whom I'm listening to at the mo) are critical yes, but I think it's often done in a light hearted and slightly mocking way.

All I'm saying is that the actor concerned has been mentioned already and I think has been way over critical of the stories he was involved in......

Must be Matthew Waterhouse?

Or Peter Purves, who does seem over-critical in his commentaries. But yes, Matthew Waterhouse is a possibility. I must say I don't like it when he criticises other actors' performances, not being the greatest actor himself. I forget which DVD it's on but there are a couple of remarks about Lalla Ward, although maybe there are deeper motives as there doesn't seem to have been a great deal of love lost between the two. To be honest, I feel Lalla herself can be over-critical in her commentaries.

Another person whose criticisms I'm not too fond of is Christopher H. Bidmead, who'll happily criticise the contributions to the production of those sitting in the audio booth with him! I don't suppose you could accuse him of being two-faced but, all the same, his dissection of Lovett Bickford's direction on the Leisure Hive commentary is a little uncomfortable to listen to.

As has been said, the Peter Davison crew (specifically Peter himself and Janet Fielding) can be merciless in their criticisms but I find their commentaries laugh out-loud funny and their criticisms are rarely without validity. The interplay between them is lovely.

I enjoy Lis Sladen's commentaries. In response to an earlier poster, the only commentaries where I think she's being at all critical are those for K9 & Company and The Five Doctors. On all her other commentaries she's effusive in her praise for the stories. Louise Jameson is always interesting to listen to as well.

And, of course, there's Tom. What can be said about his "Tommentaries"? Flights of fancy into the absurd, veering wildly off-topic with quite probably completely untrue but hilarious anecdotes - it's basically what you'd expect off the great man. Some of the commentaries he does with Mary Tamm and / or John Leeson for the Key to Time stories are quite wonderful. Whole minutes pass as they discuss all kinds of nonsense, with barely a reference to what's going on on screen or even what went on behind it. It certainly makes sitting through The Armageddon Factor a more enjoyable experience than it is without the commentary!

You can always tell when Tom fancied one of his femaile co-stars. He's obviously waiting for Harriet Philpin (Bettan) to make an appearance in "Genesis", for instance. He bellows "Harriet" when she comes on (after several false starts when she's not yet due to appear).

The usual telltale that Tom fancied them is that they have ovaries

I sometimes listen to them, but tend to prefer the information subtitles. Indeed my pattern with a new Classic Story is

1) Normal watch
2) Watch with information subtitles
3) Commentary

So I don't always reach the 3rd watch!

I tend not to watch with commentaries, but I normally do watch all the extras on a DVD or Blu Ray at least once when I first watch the disc. I found the extras on The Mind Robber very interesting, for example, except for the lamentable Basil Brush segment. It was a tenuous link to Doctor Who at best.

I'm a big fan of the commentaries, but they're very variable.

It's most problematic when the commentators are unprepared. The ones where Tom has no memories of it and hasn't seen it in advance to refresh his memory can get a bit tiresome. His occasional "Ah! There I am!" comments are not constructive. There's one (Aztecs maybe???) where William Russell and Verity Lambert sit in silence for whole five minute segments before muttering "This is really awfully good", and then sitting schtum again til the end of the episode. I think they started doing them with moderators shortly after that one.

Peter Purves is a pro. He's clearly used to interviewing and presenting, and he has researched and prepared thoroughly. He's very welcome, and he keeps things on track and keeps people motoring along nicely.

Peter Davison and Janet Fielding get very negative, which gets tiresome after a few minutes.

The Katy/Terrance/Barry ones are identical. Just as there are a dozen stories that have a lot in common, so there are a dozen commentaries that seem to work from the same script.

The only one that really sticks in the mind offhand is Jacqueline Pearce on The Two Doctors. She has clearly never ever seen the production before in her entire life, and occasionally cackles "oh darling!" at something utterly random onscreen. Gloriously OTT and camp, but I hope she wasn't paid for it.

Favourite moment of any commentary.

3mins in to The Brain of Morbius, the Sisterhood of Karn are giving it some welly and Tom blurts "Look at all that whirling crumpet!"

Ok, I'll be up front, it was Peter Purves I was referring to. I agree he does moderate extremely well but for me he seemed to be overly critical and negative about stuff, though whether it was intentional I'm not so sure.

Matthew Waterhouse I agree about too, he has an annoying habit of reading out the credits which gets even more tedious after the umpteenth time!

My biggest regret is Lalla Ward and Tom Baker not able to share an audio commentary together. Shame that what happened between them has denied us that pleasure, but guess it's understandable in that situation. Tom Baker is only on one commentary in his last two Seasons and that is Logopolis and that's a shame as would loved to have heard his commentary on The Horns Of Nimon and City of Death etc.

Moderators couldn't always turn a sow's ear into a silk purse... there's one with Paddy Russell where she just responds to everything with one-word answers, which gets extremely tiresome. I was actually looking forward to hearing from her because she had done a very open/candid interview with DWM where she described some of Tom's behaviour towards Louise Jameson, for example. Her DVD commentary was thus very disappointing.

Somebody also mentioned Jacqueline Pearce, who is useless on these things. She keeps doing the, "Oh darling!" bit on her "Blake's 7" commentaries too.

But you've also got Colin Baker and how "peerless" Maurice Denham is.

Oh, did I forget to add that Maurice Denham was peerless.

He's peerless, that Maurice Denham.

But he isn't bouffant.

Same here.

And with isolated music scores I do something else while the music plays in the background.

This is pretty much what I did, though I always made it to the third watch (and often to subsequent viewings, with or without the commentary).

I do (in general) value the commentaries, and am still disappointed - and resentful - over the paucity of commentaries In the boxed set of the first three stories, particularly for The Daleks, which is described as "the single most important story in the history of Doctor Who", but has commentaries for only three out of its seven episodes.

On a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised by Bonnie Langford's contribution to the commentary on Time and the Rani. More from her would have been welcome.

I find it a mental barrier, if it's a 4 parter, then I'm more likely to watch (separately) the information subtitles AND the commentaries, whereas if it's a 6 parter (or more) then it seems too much!

On a related topic, the lack of cast commentaries on recent new series box sets has been very disappointing. Peter has done none so far, while Jenna did none on her 3 years on the show.

Most bizarrely, there was no commentary at all for Day of the Doctor, such a special and important episode the for the show. Imagine Matt and David together for this...

Is there only one Bonnentary? I love me a bit o' Bonnie.