When I heard BBC Enterprises were releasing this video I had to buy it , I had no choice in the matter , I just had to buy it on two accounts
1 ) DOCTOR WHO is my all time favourite show and Jon Pertwee is my all time favourite Doctor
2 ) The video contained my all time favourite episode , namely episode 5 of The Daemons which contained a really great battle scene between some soldiers and a stone gargoyle
THE PERTWEE YEARS was the third " YEARS " tape to be released by the BBC and in many ways is a precurser to the DVD era as the tapes contained unseen footage and extras and the extras in this tape included the unused title sequence and theme tune for Jon Pertwee`s era on top of my all time favourite episode of the show . Boy was I looking forward to seeing all this , so I wrote out my cheque to a video retailer and counted the seconds till I recieved it . It arrived one march morning about 7.30 am and I stuck it in my video recorder
The extras were adequete I suppose and I`m really glad the unused theme music and title sequence remained unused , but the episodes themselves were very disappointing especially when there is no exposition or explanation as to what the plot to the episodes are about . The episodes are
INFERNO episode 7 : This story is a masterpiece of telefantasy . It`s a serious and downbeat story involving an alternative universe that can easily be described as " QUATERMASS on acid " . Unfortunately the alternative universe plot doesn`t actually feature in the final episode ( Nor does Pertwee who introduces the tape mention this which will confuse casual viewers ) of the story which sees The Doctor spend most of the episode on a garage floor in a coma . The final episode is also something of an anti climax compared to the previous six
FRONTIER IN SPACE episode 6 : The Daleks use the Master in order to start an interplanetary war between Earth and Draconia . Again there`s no referrences or explanation as to what the plot has involved for the previous five episodes of the story which probably means this video is targetted to die hard fans . Mind you it features Daleks , Ogrons and Draconians three of the finest creations ever seen on the show not to mention the fondly remembered Roger Delgado as the Master
THE DAEMONS episode 5 : Oh dear . Remember I mentioned there was a really great battle scene between some soldiers and a stone gargoyle ? Well in reality it`s a rather crap battle scene . When I saw it twenty years earlier it was like something out of APOCALYPSE NOW with a body count of hundreds . In reality it has a body count of one soldier getting killed in a really rubbish special effect
If you`re a casual fan you might be confused by the lack of plot explanation on this tape . If you`re a die hard fan like me you`ll probably be very disappointed
