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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Doctor Who-The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)

Doctor Who-The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967)

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Released 28-Mar-2002
Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Title Sequence Tests Featurette-Late Night Line-Up: Special Effects Gallery-Photo Featurette-The Final End Featurette-Tombwatch Featurette-Remastering For DVD Featurette-Morris Barry Interview Informational Subtitles Audio Commentary-Frazer Hines & Deborah Watling
Rating
Year Of Production	1967
Running Time	96:28 (Case: 95)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Morris Barry
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Patrick Troughton Frazier Hines Deborah Watling
Case	Amaray-Transparent	Starring	Patrick Troughton Frazier Hines Deborah Watling
RPI	$34.95	Music	Ron Grainer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary English Information	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

Okay, it's time to bring out the patented Doctor Who plot synopsis kit:

The Doctor: the clown-like one that looks as if he's been borrowed from The Three Stooges, alias the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)
The Companion(s): Scottish Highland warrior Jamie McCrimmon (Frazier Hines) and whiny girl Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling).
The setting: the planet Telos, where the serial's main nemesis has lain dormant for a period of five centuries.
The serial's main nemesis: The Cybermen, towering humanoids that have been cross-bred with machinery.

After listening to the complaints of Drummond G and some other Doctor Who fans about the period in which John Nathan-Turner produced the program, I was curious to see whether this man's killing of the series extended beyond fooling too much with serial formats and timeslots. After seeing the Cybermen in The Tomb Of The Cybermen, I have to come to the conclusion that the butchery extends way beyond those borders. Sure, the Cybermen look rather silly in this serial, but unlike later serials such as The Five Doctors, this is where the limit of the silliness ended (which is just as well considering the appearance of the Cybermats).

This serial sees the Doctor and Jamie giving their new travelling companion, Victoria, a quick tour of the TARDIS before they land on the planet Telos, where an expedition is searching for the fabled tomb of the Cybermen. There is no specific reference to the time setting in this serial, except to say that the Cybermen have been thought extinct for the last five centuries. As the small expedition uncovers and attempts to get into the tomb, the Doctor and his companions join them, with the Doctor hoping to stop whatever these people unleash before it extends beyond the world of Telos. However, amongst these people, there lurks an enemy who intends to unleash the Cybermen for their own purposes, little realising that these mechanised beasts do not negotiate, even under duress.

This particular serial makes an excellent introduction not only to the Second Doctor, but also to one of this hero's most terrifying enemies. It's somewhat sad that the Patrick Troughton years have been hit the hardest by the missing episode problem, as there are definitely some great adventures in this era. Still, if you're like me in that you feel that Doctor Who is one of the few television shows available that treats its intended audiences with respect, then there is no valid reason for hesitation when contemplating the purchase of this serial. Now that we've got that part behind us, let's dive right in...

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Transfer Quality

Video

Having seen slightly older serials (specifically 100,000 BC and The Daleks) on VHS cassettes this time last year, I was expecting the worst in terms of transfer quality for this one, given its age and the cheap budget allocated to it by the BBC. While the transfer quality is a pleasant surprise, it does show every little bit of the serial's thirty-five years of age.

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the ratio that all Doctor Who serials with the exception of the Eighth Doctor's failed pilot were meant to be seen in. It is not 16x9 Enhanced.

This is not a sharp transfer, thanks in no small part to the methods that were used to shoot the serial. This serial was intended to be shown on television screens long before the advent of such nifty things as UHF, and the resolution available is not great. It is, however, at a level where the details of the story generally make sense, which is all we can ask for under the circumstances. Sharpness is occasionally lost when smoke bombs are used, and the line structure of the picture occasionally becomes visible at such points as 10:58 in Episode Two, just after the Doctor bows. The shadow detail of this transfer is good for such an old serial, and there do not appear to be any serious problems with low-level noise.

Being a black-and-white serial, there is not much to report on in terms of colour with this serial. There are no problems with colours bleeding beyond their natural borders, and none of the rampant cross-colouration artefacts that often plague VHS cassettes of black and white Doctor Who serials.

MPEG artefacts are not apparent in this transfer, which is amazing when the quality of the original source material is taken into account, and a real credit to the restoration team. Some motion blur was discernable during the expedition's walk around a hill to investigate the landing of the TARDIS at 6:02 during Episode One, but one of the extras leads me to believe that this might have been a side-effect of the restoration process. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor aliasing throughout the episodes, where the edges of tables or other rounded lines become jagged. At most points, this would appear to be inherent in the source material, and unfortunately cannot be eliminated from the picture. Film artefacts consisted of some minor black and white marks during the credit sequences and outdoor location shots, but even these were mostly unobtrusive. The only objectionable film artefact I found was a vertical line through the left of the picture at 5:34 in Episode Three, which would suggest a lot of effort has gone into cleaning up the source material here.

There are English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles provided on this disc, and they are about ninety-nine percent accurate to the spoken dialogue.

This disc is dual-layered, with no discernable layer change taking place during any of the episodes.

Addendum April 4, 2002: Steve Roberts again contacted me about the difficulties posed by this transfer. Apparently, the original version of this serial was made for the 405-line standard PAL television of the 1960s (the 625-line standard was not used until the early 1980s if I am not mistaken), which explains the lack of sharpness. Apparently, the visible line structure can be explained by the fields on the original video master getting out of sync, and this would be inherent in the source material, as are most of the faults inherent in transfers of Doctor Who

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

There are two soundtracks featured on this DVD, both of which are in Dolby Digital 2.0 with bitrates of 192 kilobits per second. In order, these are the original English dialogue, and an English Audio Commentary. I listened to both of these soundtracks.

The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, with the only exception being the speech of the Cybermen, which was processed in order to give it a mechanical sound that reminds me of the old Speak And Spell toys that were so popular in the 1980s. Because of this, the speech of the Cybermen is a little hard to follow at times, but this is the fault of the production team going too far with an intended effect and not a transfer fault. The only discernable problem with audio sync is that the Cybermen's mouths do not really move at all when they speak - a most disconcerting effect.

The music in this serial was composed by Ron Grainer and performed by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. There are constant musical cues used throughout this serial, and some of them are quite atmospheric. Of course, the Doctor Who main theme also gets used during these episodes, and it can be heard evolving more into the elaborate electronic versions that were used during later seasons. What I would like to know is how they got that hissing sound in the background of this particular theme.

Being that this is a straight Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, and a fairly monaural-sounding one at that, there was no activity from the surround channels. The subwoofer also had the night off. Neither of them were particularly missed, with this serial originally being broadcast in mono and all.

*Audio Ratings Summary*
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Again, we have a comprehensive and enriching collection of extras as befits one of the greatest television series of all time. All of the extras are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Easter Egg - Unused Title Sequence

This is a thirty-eight second collection of footage that was not used for any particular Doctor Who title sequence. It is hard to discern any real difference from those that were used. It can be accessed by highlighting the Doctor Who logo in the upper left corner of the main menu (by pressing up on your remote control when the Play All option is highlighted) and pressing enter.

Easter Egg - Radio Ad

This is a fifty-three second advertisement, with a static background, that was broadcast by the BBC to advertise another serial, namely The Abominable Snowmen. It can be accessed by highlighting the Doctor Who logo in the upper left corner of the audio options menu (by pressing left on your remote control when the Audio Commentary option is highlighted) and pressing enter.

I was told by Steve Roberts that this is actually the soundtrack to an advertisement for which the video portion no longer exists, which was recorded by a fan.

Featurette - Morris Barry Intro

Director Morris Barry introduces the serial with a few comments about the Cybermen and Doctor Who during this three minute and seven second featurette.

Featurette - Remastering For DVD

Ever wanted to show other Doctor Who fans why spending forty dollars on a shiny disc will always be a better investment than ten dollars on a plastic cassette? Well, this is the featurette to do it with. Before this featurette, which begins with a page of text explaining, among other things, that over 16,000 faults had to be corrected to prepare the prints for DVD mastering, I had only a vestigial idea of how much we should be thanking Steve Roberts and his team for. During this five minute and nineteen second featurette, we get comparisons (some of them split-screen) between the old master that was used in 1992 for VHS release and the new restored effort for this 2001 DVD Video transfer. The results will shock and amaze even those of us who fully understand how complex the film-to-video transfer process really can be.

Featurette - Title Sequence Tests

This three minute and twenty-eight second featurette shows the different elements used to comprise the titles that were used during Patrick Troughton's tenure as the Doctor. It is interesting to see the dissolves of the Doctor Who title, Troughton's head shot, and the hallucinatory graphics separately.

Featurette - Late Night Line-Up

This two minute and fifty-one second featurette is in colour, and mainly comprises an interview with what appears to be the head of the BBC's special effects department.

Featurette - The Final End

This eighty second featurette is a reconstruction of the final episode from The Evil Of The Daleks, a serial that unfortunately no longer exists in the BBC archives. It basically shows how the destruction of the Daleks might have appeared.

Featurette - Tombwatch

This twenty-eight minute and forty-three second featurette appears to have been filmed at a Doctor Who convention. In essence, it is a group interview or discussion with several members of the cast and crew, and a very enlightening piece. It appears to have been somewhat clumsily edited in order to keep only the parts that are relevant to The Tomb Of The Cybermen. The video quality is somewhat on the poor side.

Addendum April 4, 2002: Apparently, this conference was recorded on an S-VHS camcorder, hence the videotape look without the composite artefacting.

Photo Gallery

A collection of unannotated stills from behind the scenes.

Audio Commentary - Frazier Hines (Actor) and Deborah Watling (Actor)

Rendered in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, this audio commentary features the two actors talking to one another about how each shot was accomplished and what they think of the serial after some thirty-odd years. While this is not the most informative commentary I've ever heard, it is well worth a listen, just to get more insight into the challenges of recording footage under such conditions.

Informational Subtitles

This subtitle track provides tidbits about how certain shots in the serial were accomplished (the information about the Cybermats is particularly interesting), and the conditions they were accomplished under. It is useful as an adjunct to the commentary track, in some cases even supplanting it.

Easter Egg - Retouched video sequence

Steve Roberts pointed out to me that when one moves their cursor along the Cyberheads at the top of the main menu, then back to Patrick Troughton, and press enter when a green circle appears, they will see a sequence from Episode Three that has been processed using the restoration team's new VidFIRE technique. Apparently, the effect can only be properly seen on 50 Hz displays. I have not verified the content of this hidden feature as yet, but it does sound very promising.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

There do not appear to be any discernable differences between the Region 4, Region 2, and Region 1 versions of this disc, save for the last of those three being converted into NTSC (yuck). Reliable information about how the discs are specified is hard to come by, but until I hear a strong argument otherwise, I'm considering all versions of this disc as equal.

Addendum April 4, 2002: As of today, the R1 disc hasn't actually been released, but the BBC's policy of making all releases equal or as close thereto as copyright allows should ensure that this lack of difference remains.

Summary

Doctor Who was, and probably always will be, the best thing that has ever been produced for children's television, a fact that is reflected in the number of adult fans it has more than a decade after being taken off the air. The Tomb Of The Cybermen is an example of the show at its very finest, with the Cybermen acting at their most menacing despite looking a wee bit silly in cosmetic terms.

The video transfer is excellent considering the age and condition of the original source materials.

The audio transfer is very good.

The extras are quite enriching and comprehensive.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	Toshiba 2109, using S-Video output
Display	Samsung CS-823AMF (80cm). Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL).
Audio Decoder	Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
Amplification	Sony STR DE-835
Speakers	Yamaha NS-45 Front Speakers, Yamaha NS-90 Rear Speakers, Yamaha NSC-120 Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Active Subwoofer

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