Doctor Who: The Tom Baker Years

THE TOM BAKER YEARS differs very much from the previous three YEARS tapes , all of Baker`s episodes existed in the BBC archives unlike the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton eras ( Which was the original idea behind the Hartnell and Troughton YEARS tapes )so here we see Tom Baker commenting on a clip from every story he starred in .

You could vaguely describe this as a precurser to the commentary tracks used on present day DVD features but that would probably be too kind as I get the feeling it was released just to fleece DOCTOR WHO fans . The clips shown are more often than not poor choices with a clip from Genesis Of The Daleks being devoid of any Daleks or their creator Davros while The Invasion Of Time clip doesn`t feature the Sontarans who are one of the most popular villains from the series . Worst of all THE TOM BAKER YEARS was released on a two tape set costing £20 when it could have easily have fitted on a single tape for ten quid

Baker makes a gives a few anecdotes and has a dead pan sense of humour , but often he fails to remember details or names of stories , forgets the name of aliens and even fails to recall the name of one of his assistants ( She`s called Leela ) which leads me to believe it`s a tape designed just to cash in on the show`s popularity amongst die hard fans . It`s worth watching if you can borrow a copy for free but I`d certainly avoid paying money to see it