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hen you think of Paris, the term City of Lights is more likely to come to mind before City of Death. Yet, in the lexicon of Doctor Who, City of Death equates to one of the all-time classics of the series. This 1979 installment, which comes toward the end of the Tom Baker years, is a surprising juxtaposition of sci-fi and contemporary life. In fact, this episode is one of the series' most enduring and most daring—Doctor Who does contemporary Paris—not to mention that it's a perennial fan favorite.
In the first of the four-episode arc, Doctor Who and his companion, fellow Time Lord Romana (Lalla Ward), are vacationing in 1979 Paris. All is going quite well until the Time Lords detect a rip in time. As the Doctor pursues the matter in the leisurely manner that only the Doctor has, it becomes clear that this is not a simple matter. Rather, this script proffers an original idea crammed with more twists and turns than a line at Disney World.
The story—which takes the Doctor and Romana on a chase involving multiple, authentic copies of the Mona Lisa and a race that goes back to prehistoric times—is intelligently written and sports, arguably, some of the best acting and writing of Doctor Who.
Extras with substance, not style
The two-disc City of Death set focuses on the show itself on disc one and reserves the complementary content for disc two. Disc one has the four episodes that comprise the "City of Death" arc, presented with static menus as rudimentary as the special effects in the show. Each episode has an accompanying audio commentary, gamely supplied by actors Julian Glover and Tom Chadbon and director Michael Hayes. The recollections feel refreshingly forthright and enthusiastic, not like the chore that so many audio commentaries have devolved into.
In addition to turning on the audio commentary, you can opt to include text commentary. Much as VH-1 runs bubble messages through its "pop-up" videos, the running text commentary acts like a running text covering the making of the episodes. This is a clever, innovative approach more TV and films on DVD should mimic, as it provides a way to supplement the visuals without mucking up your ability to actually listen to and even watch the show.
The second disc is packed with extras, all listed in a row for easy access from the top-level menu. Leading off at the top is "Springtime in Paris," a documentary that traces the history of "City of Death." The episode was written by David Agnew, the pen name used by production staff, including the late Douglas Adams. This 44-minute segment offers tremendously satisfying background and packs a wealth of interview clips (including excerpts of Adams) in its minutes. The cover jacket describes the documentary as a featurette done in a Douglas Adams-esque comedic style, as fair a description of the humor-filled approach of the quintessentially British narrator as any other.
"Paris, W12" provides newly unearthed, time-coded footage from the BBC's archives. The 20 minutes of footage is black-and-white and grainy, but it's also a fascinating step back in time, behind-the-scenes bloopers and all, in this classic installment in the Doctor Who series.
And the hilarious, contemporary "Eye on Blatchford" offers a modern twist on this old Doctor Who staple. This 11-minute segment follows Sardoth, the second-to-last of the Jagaroth (aka the aliens in "City of Death").
The final bits on the disc include montages of unused landscape and spacecraft shots and excerpts of how the filmmakers captured the chicken sequence. The photo gallery, unlike those on most other discs, is actually a slideshow—sit back and watch this selection of behind-the-scenes stills for eight minutes.
As an added bonus, you can pop the disc into your PC or Mac and access the 1980 Doctor Who Annual. Using Adobe's Acrobat format, this 55-page document contains a faithful reproduction of the hardbound British annual that included fiction, comics and other articles related to Doctor Who and the genre. The inclusion of this is a major treat, particularly for anyone who can recall the British tradition of producing annuals.
With Lalla Ward as the ever-clever Romana and Tom Baker as the Doctor, "City of Death" was always one of my personal Doctor Who picks. Although this DVD lacks the splashiness and finesse of some of the larger Hollywood titles, I really enjoyed getting the backstory on this classic from the Tom Baker years. —Melissa
Also in this issue: Underworld: Evolution and Red Dwarf Series VII DVD
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