I just finished the DVD special edition of "Day of the Daleks." Wow! What an improvement! IMO, the special edition kicks the story up from a C- to a solid B! It's not perfect. Some of the new effects stand out a bit too much. In particular, the new establishing shots of the Dalek base look very fake and very CGI. However, they're still more impressive than the bland, modern apartment buildings used in the original version. Also, the ray guns now have actual rays coming out of them, which makes the actors look considerably less silly when firing them. The disolving effect when the guns vaporize someone looks a little too modern but it's still better than the simple vanishing that they used to have. The Dalek battle scene at the end is a lot better despite the fact that so little has been changed. There were a couple shots were they digitally added another Dalek or two to make the Dalek task force a little more impressive. But mostly, they just added a lot more laser beams & smoke to make the whole battle scene look a lot more intense & chaotic and hide the fact that there are only 3 Daleks there. They also added some logical new exterior views of the Ogrons advancing on the house in Part 2. This new footage seamlessly blends in with the existing footage because it feels like these shots should have been in there from the beginning. And if you want a glimpse of how much something can be improved with just a little bit of editing, I direct you to the ATV chase in Part 3. In the original, the whole thing just looks a little silly. But by quickly intercutting between closeups & wide shots and adding more laser beams & smoke, they make the whole thing look a lot more intense, exciting, & dangerous. Or at least, as intense, exciting, & dangerous as a 1970s Doctor Who ATV chase could ever be. It's also amazing what a difference the Dalek voices can make. By having Nicholas Briggs re-dub all the Dalek voices, the Daleks feel like proper Daleks again and not 2nd rate immitations. I only have 2 real complaints about the special edition: First, they shouldn't have updated the Dalek beam effects. Or, at least, they shouldn't have updated them in quite the way that they did. The skeleton effect simply looks far too modern for a 1970s story. The traditional negative effect would have been preferable. Second, at the beginnings of Parts 2 & 3 (and maybe Part 4, I don't remember), when they repeat the tail end of the previous episode, you can still hear the music stinger where the previous episode ended. It sounds weird and I'm surprised they didn't do anything to fix it in the special edition. "The Time Monster" or "The Time Warrior"?
Those were all real Daleks and new Orgons in the battle at the end. You should see the special on the DVD, it was a nice low budget special edition.
While they may have all been practical Daleks, some of them were definately digitally comped into existing shots from the original version. But it's hard to tell because the new Daleks are mostly at the edge of the frame and are obscured by the added smoke. Edit: Like the 4th Dalek at the edge of the frame in this photo:
Good news. According to http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Doctor-Ambassadors-Of-Death/17216 , "The Ambassadors of Death" is coming out on DVD in Region 1 on October 2. After that, the only remaining Jon Pertwee story yet to be released on DVD will be "The Mind of Evil." And the only other surviving episodes from other Doctors that we're still waiting for on DVD are the mostly complete stories "The Reign of Terror," "The Tenth Planet," & "The Ice Warriors;" "Terror of the Zygons;" the never completed "Shada;" and the recently rediscovered episodes "Air Lock" & "The Underwater Menace, Part 2." Plus, later charity or online specials like "Dimensions in Time," "Curse of Fatal Death," "Scream of the Shalka," & the animated Paul McGann verson of "Shada."
1 Green Death 2 Daemons 3 Planet of the Daleks 4 Spearhead from Space 5 Silurians or Inferno 7 Sea Devils 8 Death to the Daleks 9 Peladons 11 Frontier in Space 12 Colony in Space 13 Ambassadors of Death The Others I like all the same apart from Mutants and Time Warrior, because they are a wasted space in the Pertwee Era. I love Pertwee Episodes when it was Brig, Benton, Yates and Jo because they just seem the best U.N.I.T team. But I think Brig was at his best in Season 7. I also really like Liz and Sarah. I thought the three Doctors was alright but I dont know why people find so amazing about it? I think that one is overrated for no reason. Much prefer Five Doctors or Two Doctors.
Omega is awesome! Plus, the whole episode is founded on the interplay between the 2 Doctors, something sorely lacking in the other multi-Doctor stories. In "The Five Doctors," most of the Doctors don't meet each other until the very end. In "The Two Doctors," the 2nd Doctor spends most of the story drugged & tied up in the basement while the 6th Doctor, Peri, & Jamie try to rescue him. Whereas "The Three Doctors" has tons of scenes of the 2nd & 3rd Doctors getting on each others' nerves. It's also fun to see how the Brigadier seems to have such a difficult time coping with the whole situation. Sgt. Benton's reaction to entering the TARDIS for the first time is equally priceless. "Aren't you going to say it's bigger on the inside? Everyone else does." "Well, it's obvious, isn't it?"
The Pertwee era was simply superb, the stories were good, the villains were good and whoever thought of the Master was a genius. Pertwee saved the series, he gave the character credibility, as a viewer you really did believe he could save the Universe and he was the smartest Scientist in the world! The Brigadier and UNIT stories were a wonderful time in the show's history. There were some slow stories, but overall the show worked wonderfully well. He was the action man and the on screen rapport with Roger Delgado and Nicholas Courtney ensured the series success for many years to come. Tom Baker inherited a healthy show and lucky for him too as his Doctor fumbled his way through 7 years of some very dodgy scripts and story lines. Favourite stories are : Frontier In Space Inferno The Sea Devils The Silurians Terror Of The Autons The Daemons Day Of The Daleks Carnival Of Monsters The Time Monster Planet Of The Daleks
I'm not really a fan of Carnival or Time Monster, but the rest are good. As I've stated before, Daemons and Inferno are my favorite two Doctor Who stories of all time.
You might Think I have serious lake of taste and I dont know what I like but... I HAVE CHANGED MY MIND AGAIN!!! I JUST CANT HELP MYSELF!!! 1 Green Death 2 Mind of evil <<< Never realised its full greatness 3 Daemons 4 Inferno 5 Terror of the autons <<< Take back what I said about crappy Terror. Its so creative with the autons 6 Carnival of Monsters <<< I dont care what people say, its great and the most imaginative. 7 Spearhead from Space 8 Ambassadors of Death 9 Silurians 10 Sea Devils 11 Death to the Daleks 12 Five Doctors <<< count this if you want 13 Planet of the Daleks 14 Time Warrior 15 Colony in Space <<< People who are impatient hate this serial, I admite I used to be and on my first reply I was awful. I am developing taste. 16 Monster of Peladon <<< Why people hate this one so bad? 17 Frontier in Space <<< Orgons are great, their planet is awsome. 18 Curse of Peladon 19 Day of the Daleks 20 Three Doctors 21 Time Monster 22 Mutants 23 Invasion of the Dinosaurs 24 Claws of Axos 25 Planet of the Spiders <<< This is the only serial I dont like. It was just awful wasen't it? Lupton is one of the worst if not the worst villian in Dr who. A sales manager who has been made redundant thinks he can have revenge by joining a buddist temple and take it over the world? Dream on mate? Its odd to think that the Green Death is my Favourite and Planet of the Spiders is my least favourite bescause they are connected in a way. COMPANIONS Jo Grant and Sarah Jane ( If you count Sarah in Toms era) Brigadier ( before Invasion of the Dinosaurs) Liz Shaw ( Jo and Sarah annoying you? You can always rely on Liz) Mike and John ( 2 of the Finest male companions) All Pertwees Companions are Good Top 3 Monsters/Villian 1 Master 2 Auton 3 Underwater/Silurian and Drashig Plz comment to this took me ages!!!
An effect he quickly shed when expressing pain, I could never quite tell if he was in agony or needing to go to the loo.
I suspect "The Monster of Peladon" has a less than stellar reputation because it's basically just a rehash of "The Curse of Peladon" but less creative and dragged out to 6 parts. I like "Planet of the Spiders." At the very least, I like that one episode that is pretty much nothing but one giant vehicle chase. It's like Jon Pertwee realized his era was ending and there were so many kinds of vehicle chases that he still wanted to do, so they crammed them all into one episode. I've been watching "Frontier in Space" recently and I still think it's really good. However, there are some bad edits where it seems like they suddenly had to move where they put the cliffhanger. Like, I suspect part 4 was originally supposed to end with the Doctor getting lost on his space walk, but either part 4 ran short or part 5 ran long, so instead it ends with a rather uninteresting shot of an Ogron looking at a radar screen. I mean, it's probably the most unintimidating shot of an Ogron that we've ever seen. Similarly, I suspect Part 1 was originally supposed to end with the Ogrons attacking the ship, rather than the stunned crew members accusing the Doctor & Jo of being Draconian spies.