rodrig58
Probably for children up to 10 years of age it's a joy, for me, definitely not. I have been living in the UK for 11 years now, and I did not know anything about
Dr. Who's "cult" series. I didn't get a job at a store in central London selling DVDs among other things, because the interviewer asked me who, what actors played the main character. That was 11 years ago. I had no idea. I do not know now, for me it was and it's not a priority. And, the instinct did not cheat me, I did not lose anything. Childish, puerile, babyish. Nice musical theme though.
umutcevik
Excellent Blu Ray version of Tom Baker's story.
The animation is fantastic and the picture quality is brilliant. Loved all the extras and the story presented as a complete story in one programme. Mark Ayres 70's styled incidential music is a nice homage to Dudley Simpson.
Prismark10
Douglas Adams Shada has arrived a little bit later than advertised. Actually 37 years later.The uncompleted Tom Baker Doctor Who story has been lauded since it remained unfinished from 1980. Now the BBC has reconstructed it by animating the missing sequences, reuniting the living actors and including a new bonus scene at the end.The production crew wanted something epic like the City of Death broadcast in early 1979. The story had extensive location shooting in Cambridge and Tom Baker was in his pomp.Shada is a prison planet created by the Time Lords. The evil genius Skagra wants to create a universe with his mind controlling it. He needs to get there to release a notorious prisoner whose mind control functions he requires.Meanwhile the Doctor and Romana visit an old professor friend at St. Cedd's College, Cambridge. Professor Chronotis has called out to the Doctor but cannot remember why. However a mislaid book creates danger, Skagra is after the book which contains coded Time Lord secrets.First let me get the shallow stuff out of the way. Just how gorgeous was Victoria Burgoyne in this who plays Clare Keightley, the girlfriend of Chris Parsons.I do feel that at six parts the story is overlong. I much preferred the shorter webcast that starred Paul McGann. Some of the Cambridge scenes were there just to show off the fact that they were filming in and around the university buildings. Christopher Neame is rather one note as Skagra. The special effects for the orb and the invisible spaceship were not wholly convincing. (It does not help that Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home, did a parked invisible space ship better in 1986 and my mind kept going back to that.)However it is a joy to see Tom Baker again in a new story of Doctor Who. It just reminds me how much I loved his Doctor as a kid and he just makes it look so easy, never mind that in later years I read just how difficult he was to work with.
Doctor Skellington
Firstly, this is a big update on the previously available version of this great lost 'masterpiece', including new model work, subtly polished effects, and a few newly filmed live action scenes, all joined together by pleasing digitally animated 'comic' style sections that fill in all the missing acted bits, which also serve to open up the settings far more than I'm sure the BBC would have been capable of achieving originally.If we're being honest, the story itself isn't exactly the best ever, it plods a teeny bit in places and gets rather too silly in others, but overall it works and the dialogue is typical Douglas Adams in that there are many fun to and fros between the characters which keeps you entertained regardless, and there are lots of enjoyable moments that carry it along quite adequately with a twist and a turn at the end.I enjoyed it tremendously, but any new classic Who is good Who when you're a fan, and it's worth it just for the delightful newly added live action scene right at the very end that will both delight and leave a lump in the throat of every whovian on the planet. It certainly did me.Between that and the most campily dressed villain ever brought to screen (seriously, it's jaw dropping), I highly recommend a viewing.
AD
