Product Description

Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 03/04/2008

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4997 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2006-03-28
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 311 minutes

Amazon.com
The "unearthly" strains of Ron Grainer's soon-to-be-famous title music announced the arrival of Doctor Who to British TV screens on Saturday, November 23, 1963. It must have been quite a baffling experience for first-time viewers: the swirling abstract graphics, the weird electronic sound effects courtesy of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, the very oddity of the show's title. This really was groundbreaking TV. "I think you'll find there's a very simple explanation for all of this", says schoolteacher Ian Chesterton (William Russell) condescendingly, shortly before being taken on board the TARDIS and transported to an alien planet. For audiences, too, this was something entirely unfamiliar, yet obviously appealing: Doctor Who ran for almost 30 years and remains one of the BBC's most popular shows. His later incarnations were all eccentric in their different ways, but William Hartnell's original Doctor is an irascible and distinctively alien character, not at all happy having to put up with ignorant 20th-century humans. The "Unearthly Child" of the title is his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), temporarily attending school on Earth. She is conspicuously different from her classmates and attracts the attention of two of her teachers who resolve to find out why. After an encounter with her mysterious grandfather they are whisked away on an adventure to a different time and place where angry cavemen are trying in vain to learn the secret of fire. Thus the show's trademarks are established from the outset: the Doctor and his more or less reluctant human companions, the mechanical unreliability of the TARDIS, the cliffhanger ending of each episode. It was a formula that rarely changed but that allowed apparently limitless variation, the only constraint being the BBC's budget. In later years the show tried vainly to compete with blockbuster special effects movies; but its original low-key incarnation relied more on inventive scenarios and good writing--qualities that are just as important now as then. --Mark Walker

The Daleks (sometimes called "The Dead Planet") is the second-ever Doctor Who serial. First broadcast between December 1963 and February 1964, the seven-episode story ensured the program's success by introducing the Doctor's most iconic enemies. Five hundred years after a nuclear war has devastated the planet Skaro, the Doctor (William Hartnell), Barbara, Ian, and Susan materialize in a petrified forest where the pacifist, and decidedly camp, Thals face starvation. Our heroes visit a nearby city, the home of the last remaining Daleks, terrifyingly cold-blooded mutants encased in armed, pepper-pot-like shells, and become involved in a desperate battle for survival. Given a nightmarish atmosphere by Tristram Cary's surreal electronic score, The Daleks proved the template for many a future Doctor Who adventure. Hartnell's Doctor is a surprisingly self-serving hero and the ambitious storytelling, which reflects the Cold War fears of the time, belies a tiny budget. The remastered picture sometimes looks digitized, but this story, remade for the cinema as Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and starring Peter Cushing, is still both an effective, if at times unintentionally hilarious, entertainment and an essential piece of television history. A superior sequel, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, was screened in late 1964. --Gary S Dalkin

One of the rarest of the early Doctor Who series, with William Hartnell as the crusty old Doctor, Edge of Destruction is entirely based in the TARDIS, which has stopped somewhere between worlds and times. The Doctor blames Ian and Barbara, the two teachers who came aboard in search for answers about his granddaughter, Susan, assuming they have committed sabotage in an attempt to return to their own time. They, in turn, in spite of recent shared escapes from Cavemen and Daleks, have no particular reason to trust his sanity. Something is causing one after another of them to act with violent irrationality, and the clock is ticking towards their destruction... This is a claustrophobic two-episode plot in which the series examines closely some of its more beloved assumptions. --Roz Kaveney

Customer Reviews

Who would have thought?
Doctor Who - The Beginning, is a DVD box set that all fans of the series MUST have. Starting from the very first episode, "An Unearthly Child" the Doctor has some unwelcomed guests on the Tardis and because of what they have seen, he cannot let them leave. This box set also introduces the sinister Daleks, in the episode "Dead Planet". The series is in black and white and although many of the sets, looked and probably are, cheap and unreal, the story lines and plot twists, will keep you clued to the screen. The acting also is performed brilliantly, with each actor having been cast perfectly in his or her role. William Hartnell (the first Doctor), sets the tone of the series and it is easy to see how generations of children and adults alike, have become avid followers.
Doctor Who - The Beginning, where the adventure begins and the action unfolds

Solid Retro Scifi
First, I want to make clear that untill I purchaesd this set I never actually saw this program before,I actually heard the theme song once and felt I had to see the show, so I would like to think that I might be more objective than some people. So, on with the review. First, for such an old program this has a solid look that still stands the test of time. Other than the models the special effects and especially the set work is sitll hold up even when compared wit hmoder effects. As I mentioned before only the models and the Daleks really show their age. But, that is not why this DVD set is a good buy. The primary reason that this set is so good is the casts performance. Compared with most shows that came out that period and even today the acting is quite good. It's not perfect but very solid and in most episodes is actually beleiveable. Now, the special features are ok but not great. I find that the music vedio is rather neat as are some of the comedy skits. But, most of the rest of the material will be of intrest only to those who would wish to make a study of Dr. Who. The only other complaint I had is that there wern't enough episodes I really would have liked to see at least one more. Other than that I recomend it to any one who likes old scifi or wants something that has a appeal to people of all ages.

Early Doctor Who
Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Smith, the Daleks, et.al. have become my favorite weekend fare. In the interests of finding out where it all started I purchased a DVD set of the first Doctor Who stories. I was not disappointed. What has always fascinated me about the Doctor Who series is that all the stories are interrelated and each episode has at least one tidbit that serves to knit the tales together. The question of why the Tardis always looks like a police call box is neatly answered in the original Doctor Who. I love it!