DVD

Doctor Who Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The Patrick Troughton Years 1966-1969

Average customer rating:

For true dr.who fans! Especially Troughton fans!
Disappointing Patchwork
Fabulous for collectors
Not worth the price of admission
Lost in time... but worth the find!

Doctor Who Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The Patrick Troughton Years 1966-1969
Starring: Patrick Troughton , Frazer Hines , Michael Craze , Anneke Wills , and Deborah Watling
Manufacturer: BBC Warner
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0002OXVEQ
Release Date: 2004-11-02

Amazon.com

A number of episodes and stories from actor Patrick Troughton's turn as Doctor Who (1966-69) are either incomplete or missing altogether, much to the dismay of series fans. However, this two-disc set attempts to reconstruct the "orphaned" stories through episodes and clips culled from a variety of sources. For Who historians, the most important footage here is from Troughton's first appearance as the Doctor in season 5's "The Power of the Daleks," which is missing in its entirety; a rough glimpse of the transition from actor William Hartnell to Troughton is included, along with other surviving fragments. The complete episodes offered here are the sole remaining episode from season 4's "The Underwater Menace" (fragments from this story are included in the extras), episodes 2 and 4 from "The Moonbase," which features the return of the Cybermen (audio from episodes 1 and 3 is featured in the extras), episodes 1 and 3 from "The Faceless Ones," and episode 2 from "The Evil of the Daleks" (which includes commentary by actress Deborah Watling, who played the Doctor's companion, Victoria). Disc 2 marks the only episode from the Yetis' debut in "The Abominable Snowmen" (Watling again provides commentary), two episodes from "The Wheel in Space" (with commentary by director Tristan de Vere Cole and story editor Derrick Sherwin) and just one apiece for "The Web of Fear," "The Space Pirates," and "The Enemy of the World."

Chief among the extras is the 1998 documentary The Missing Years, which interviews several of the film collectors responsible for rescuing these lost episodes and fragments (the doc has been updated to reflect the 2004 discovery of two William Hartnell episodes); the supplemental features offer fragments and behind-the-scenes footage from "The Macra Terror" (with a rare clip of the monsters), "Fury from the Deep" (which includes a scene reconstruction), "The Highlanders," and the aforementioned stories. As with the William Hartnell disc, the Patrick Troughton Years is available for U.S. buyers as a stand-alone two-disc set and as part of a three-disc box with the Hartnell disc, while U.K. buyers will receive only the box; either scenario is sure to please the die-hard Doctor Who fan. --Paul Gaita

Customer Reviews:

For true dr.who fans! Especially Troughton fans!.......2004-12-29

What a great buy. I usually ignore the over priced dr. who dvd's and go for the used vhs editions instead. What little Troughton I've seen has been a joy to watch so this was a easy buy since it seemed to be a well packed 2 disc dvd set. I actually feel lucky to be able to view these gems, both video and audio. TO hear the old 'thud' they used for the Tardis landing and the original (reamstered?) theme is worth the price alone. WHen you see the strings attached to spaceships you know you've come home again :-)

The picture is B&W crystal clear (great job), the episodes are the sci-fi type (no historical stories, yeah!) and the sound is very good considering the time period it was shot. Who knows what condition these episodes were in before they got the treatment.

I think including the audio only for the remaining missing parts is genious. Just lay back n close your eyes and listen. Pray to the gods of Zena or the PTB more of the lost Troughton (and Hartnell) episodes will be discovered, restored, and released. Also I hope the new series is good enough to run a few seasons.

Note to the bbc: lower the prices of these dvd's, you'll get more fans. For what I paid for this set I could have got a complete season of Angel or Buffy.

Disappointing Patchwork.......2004-12-14

I was somewat disappointed by this patchwork as it has no complete story at all. While the Moonbase and the Crusade offer Audio for the missing episodes there is no commentary so you are left to wonder what is happening in the silences.

I expected more from the BBC

The episodes that are shown are captivating and do give an insight into the quality and occasional lack of quality that makes up Doctor Who.

The Underwater Menace with its string transported Fish People and exaggerated evil madman was quite amusing.

Yes the Show was great what a shame the DVD production is not.

Fabulous for collectors.......2004-12-13

This collection is a must for true Doctor Who fans and especially those who like Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor. As has been said in other reviews, so many of the Troughton and Hartnell episodes were either destroyed or lost. So what we have here is a hodgepodge of existing episodes, clips, and even audio tracks.

There's really only one full story here and that's "The Moonbase." All four parts exist but episodes #1 & #3 exist as audio tracks only. However all exisiting audio & video are presented here. I admire the BBC for putting out the audio tracks of this gem from Troughton's first year as the Doctor but it's a shame that they didn't utilize more of the exisiting photographs to give it a little bit of extra life. It was annoying listening to a 20 minute audio track with just a single picture of a Cyberman staring back from the TV screen.

Along with "The Moonbase," you're getting episodes from "The Faceless Ones," "The Underwater Menace," "The Evil of the Daleks," "The Enemy of the World," "The Abominable Snowman," "The Enemy of the World," "The Web of Fear," "the Wheel in Space," and "The Space Pirates."

You're also getting some BBC promotional clips, 10-15 second clips from scattered episodes, images shot off TV screens, and even a 10 minute 8mm documentary called "The Last Dalek," which showed some of the production techniques used to bring the famous metallic menaces to life.

By far this is a great DVD for fans and collectors but is of little value to the casual Doctor Who viewer.

Not worth the price of admission.......2004-11-17

This thing should be selling for about 15 bucks. You are getting about an hour and a half of damaged episodes.
The box and cover make it look like you are getting a complete compilation but the "collection of rare episodes" should say "a collection of footage from missing episodes". This again is NOT a box set of all Troughton episodes, and is VERY OVER PRICED.

If you want the entire doctor who collection go mortgage your home because it'll cost you over $5,000 to do it. Get every Trek episode from all shows and you'll run about $2,500 for twice the viewing time. I think the BBC needs to seriously rethink their pricing scheme.

Lost in time... but worth the find!.......2004-11-08

As most Doctor Who fans know, there are huge gaps in the archives for the black and white era of the show that featured the first two actors to play the role, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. Due to a total disregard for archiving material and, criminally, as a cost cutting exercise, there was a systematic junking policy for `expired' TV shows across many broadcast networks through to the 1970's. In many ways, Doctor Who fared better than most with many complete stories surviving either in private hands or more often by happy accidents.

Although anything to have survived is miraculous, in many cases, irritatingly, stories were left incomplete on the archive shelves. Pretty much useless to any broadcaster and indeed seemingly for home DVD or video release. But the bright guys at the BBC have spotted a way to gather up all this stray material and package it together on a collection of three discs featuring not only eighteen complete episodes but a whole myriad of other snippets and gems from the vaults.

As a huge Doctor Who fan, I was thrilled to see all these homeless relics gathered together, but from a wider commercial viewpoint, I don't think it's a particularly interesting project. But isn't it wonderful for fans to be indulged in this way? I'd never seen either episodes of The Faceless Ones before, so this was a real treat, as it was to see the newly discovered gem from The Daleks' Master Plan.

The problem for me is that alone, or even where two or more episodes exist, it's exceptionally frustrating to watch what remains of these stories. If you're watching episode one for example, you're completely hooked by the end and then hugely disappointed that there is no more! For stories that just have the odd episode from the middle of the story, it's enough to drive you barmy. My biggest irritation came from watching episode 4 of The Celestial Toymaker. What on earth is going on? It would have been so, so much better had the DVD contained a synopsis of what was missing to help flesh out some of the material and put things into context. Definitely an opportunity missed. In a step towards this, there are soundtracks included for two missing episodes from The Crusade and The Moonbase, which does help complete those stories, but since photos exist of both missing episodes, why weren't they included? When all there is to hear is music or sound effects, it leaves you bewildered as to what might be happening. A photo or a subtitle would have been so much more effective.

Also gathered from the cutting room floor are many, many short clips (in some cases, don't blink or you'll miss them) from other completely deleted episodes. It's sad that in so many cases these split second clips are all that have remained. There's also a lot of home movie footage, which is really interesting. I believe this to be the only color examples of footage from the era and although short, they are wonderful to see.

We can but hope that as time goes on, some of the missing material will turn up. No one would have thought the complete Tomb of the Cybermen would suddenly reappear in 1992. So hope springs eternal. Until then, here's some classic Who, brilliantly restored and remastered to enjoy.

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