Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series (5DVD)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was a huge fan of Doctor who has a kid growing up on Tom Baker. Towards the end of it's run though the show had in my view run out of magic and was a shadow of the Tom Baker ERA. With a terrible 1996 film version nailing the coffin into the series for good I never gave much thought to the possibility of a new series.

Skeptical as I was hearing that the show was being made again I decided to watch the show to see the beloved blue box travel through time. Indeed, I was curious. After watching the show on the CBC run it began to grow on me more and more. Gone were the laughable sets to a more sophisticated visually impressive slicker production.

More importantly though is the improved writing by Russell T. Davis who has made the best supporting character the show has ever had with the beautiful and exceptionally talented Billy Piper who unlike the damsel in distress is anything but in this series. The show Dalek which is the 6th episode in is the point where the show finds its true footing and begins to take off in political and social satire, the actors are in their groove and the show seems surer of itself. There are human stories here not the usual mania wants to destroy the universe repetitiveness of the older shows.

There is a lot of heart in this series and by the end of it I found myself truly caring about Rose and the Doctor.

The DVD has very clear picture excellent sound, and a lot of goodies sprinkled in like commentaries for every episode. There are 13 episodes here but in reality this would be the equivalent of 26 episodes for a normal half hour program in the old series. Each episode here is ~45 minutes. Add to this 14 segments of making of featurettes and 2-3 additional ones in each of the episode discs as well as a behind the scenes with the tenth doctor David Tennant who stars in the Christmas Special then it's a pretty fair deal.

Tom Baker is still king of the Doctors but Eccleston by the end is second best. The writing, overall cast performances, and effects are leagues better and more up to date than any I've seen from the old series. Episodes like Father's Day create genuine emotion that even a big tough guy like me had me go for a hanky.

Why is it that amazon.com has this DVD much cheaper even in U.S. funds???? Double shame on you amazon.ca!

By the time the BBC "rested" the show back in the late 1980s, it had for most people become a shadow of its former glorious self. Gone were the epic adversaries of the early Tom Baker stories, and in their place were 3rd rate foes and a 7th rate actor in the lead role.

Fast forward 16 years to 2005.... Russell T Davies' re-imagining of the classic show for the 21st century hits all the right buttons. An almost perfect combination of a new approach with classic themes and situations, humour and seriously strong acting, sets and production values. And finally the special effects are up to the task of doing justice to the stories.

Acting which was often a weak point in the late 1980s, is solid in the 2005 season. Billie Piper captured the imagination of viewers with her interpretation of Rose and actually managed to steal much of the limelight from Christopher Eccleston as a result. Quite an accomplishment when her relative lack of experience is taken into account.

The 9 stories that make up this set go from strength to strength, which is not to say there aren't some stories that are weaker (rather that they are weak in comparison simply to the stellar competition provided by their counterparts). Generally the weak episodes involve the Slitheen, which were generally not well realized. Other than those episodes, highlights of the season would be The End of the World (ep2), The Unquiet Dead (ep3), Dalek (ep 6) and The Empty Child (eps 9 & 10), along of course with The Parting of the Ways (ep 13).

Eccleston apparently decided late in the day that he wanted to bail out of the show instead of becoming perhaps the most favourite Doctor of all time. Whatever the real reason behind his leaving, fans were left with David Tennant taking over the role of the Doctor at the end of the series. Having watched The Christmas Invasion and all of the 2006 series, I can safely say that the 10th Doctor does not take a back seat in presence compared to the 9th!

A top set to get if you are a Doctor Who fan. Imagine, a new series, with at least another two more to follow in 2006 and 2007. Something no fan had dared to hope for 24 months ago!

When I first saw Doctor Who when I was a small girl I hated it. Not so much the series, but the music! It was so scary. So I never really watched any of the episodes, although I do remember a long scarf! However, when I happened upon a repeat of the first new series: I was hooked. Fortunately BBC3 (I live in Europe) broadcast the whole new series with 2 episodes every evening: I stayed home for it! As soon as I had seen the first series, the second series was broadcast and repeated twice in the same week. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. It had me laughing at some of the funny one-liners and at times crying at the relationship between Rose and the Doctor. I bought the box-set (well, it was a gift from my sister), and have seen all the episodes at least 3 times now. Fantastic... The only thing that does bother me? The fact that the box in which the dvd's came was already damaged before I had completely unwrapped it. I have heard of this problem for the European release more often, I hope it is not the same in Canada.

Oh, and whatever the cost: It is soooooo worth it!!

I don't know what the guy who blasted this DVD set is thinkinb but he obviously has no clue as to what good television is. The stories are amazingly well written and the acting is top notch. The effects are out of this world. I just don't understand how anyone was is a fan of Dr Who or sci-fi in general can't like this show. All I have ot say is....AMAZING!. So whoever you are Mr I Hate This New Dr Who, your an idiot.

Doctor Who is awesome, I just started watching it one night in the middle of an episode and I was hooked... So hooked. Ordering the box sets is the only decent way to watch it in Canada though, CBC sort of fails us by showing it so late. I don't care what it cost it was worth it to buy from a reputable site.

I didn't expected much from this series but I was very positively surprised. I never watched the old series and can't compare them but I really liked this one! I would be interested in buying a box set, but not this one.

The price is discouraging, especially for a 12 episode season and, like the previous commenter mentionned, I'm surprised to see that the French track (which exist) wasn't included. I'll just wait to see if another version will be released. I guess all I can do now is to hope for Z Télé to repeat the season and record it the old fashionned way!

This is a FABULOUS new series for Doctor Who - generally agreed to be the hit of 2005 in the UK and possibly the most successful the show has ever been. I am SO incensed by the review on the same page by someone who clearly hasn't bothered to watch it properly that I just want to make a few things clear...
1) You will not see ANY Daleks with wings in this series.
2) The TARDIS set is brilliant.
3) Eccleston is possibly the best actor to play the Doctor since Tom...and David Tennant could turn out to be even better!
4) The Doctor does NOT dance to Britney Spears, unless you count a slightly self-mocking shoulder shuffle for about a millisecond.
5) What would it have nattered if he'd danced to Spears anyway?
6) Politically correct storylines? What, you want politically incorrect ones? Sorry, the world's moved on. Some of these episodes are really moving in a way the original series never was.
I could go on.
Buy it, watch it, love it - it's better than the original in almost every way. The naysayer's comments above are not really about anything IMPORTANT - they're all superficial, fannish things...and it was absolutely right to discard some of the more embarrassing baggage of the old TV show. It's actors like Eccleston and the storylines by Davies that has made this one of the top ten shows of 2005 in the UK - if they'd brought it back exactly like the old show, it wouldn't have lasted a fortnight. And six episode stories? Give me a break - NO casual viewer in the UK has that kind of attention span any more. It would have been ratings suicide.
I CANNOT PRAISE THIS SHOW ENOUGH. AT ANY PRICE!

That is, don't waste your money on this site! A large well-known change store is selling it for $82.00!! Shame on you Amazon.

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series (5DVD)

First of all let me preface this review by saying that I never was the most avid Dr. Who fan. I would watch it, sure, but a lot of the cheesy effects really, really irritated me. I like some cheesiness, but some of those Dr. Who things were beyond ridiculous. I could have made better in my living room. So I was pleasantly surprised with the return of the series, which has just the right blend of cheesy and pretty darn good special effects, plots that range from good to great, and just enough humor to keep the whole thing in an official feel-good category. Russel T. Davies seems to have an endless supply of script ideas for the good doctor, who is ably played by Christopher Eccleston (I prefer David Tennant but Eccleston is just fine). The Complete First Season is a must for anyone who has an interest in the Dr. Who series--it explains a ton of later plot twists and in-jokes, even in later seasons. And all 13 episodes feature Rose, played by Billie Piper, the kind of girl everybody in the world wants to hang out with. The collector's edition has some great special features and behind-the-scenes info no Who fan in their right mind would miss out on. Pick this collection up, if you don't have it already. You'll be a fan of the good doctor's in no time. Beware the Daleks!