Doctor Who - Meglos [DVD]

Meglos, despite some of its negative points, is, in essence, a Doctor Who story that was before its time. It is a story that, at its heart, deals with the struggle between religion and science.

As a viewer, you can't help feeling a struggle off-screen as well. You almost feel the tug of war between the writers, the script editor and the director, as they fight it out to gain their own narrative. And what we're left with, through sheer luck, is a melding of the three, that essentially benefits the story in a way that no single party could have done on their own.

Once you get past the dodgy wigs, and the tiresome time loop scenes, there are many elements that make this a rather enjoyable story.

Tom Baker, nearing the end of his tenure as The Doctor, puts in a sterling performance as Meglos, not to mention the welcome return of Jacqueline Hill as Lexa who bookends her Doctor Who career here.

Then there is the truly fantastic make-up which makes the characterisation of Meglos even more villainous and believable. There are also some great FX shots in the story, combined with highly detailed models, that work together using the new Scene Sync technology - yet another example of the story being ahead of its time.

The DVD is rounded off with some excellent features that compliment the story.

The 'Commentary' features Lalla Ward (Romana II), John Flanagan (Writer), Christopher Owen (Earthling / Meglos) and Paddy Kingsland (Composer). John and Lalla seem to take turns guiding, but understandably, Christopher Owen tends to get lost in the background, and doesn't really seem to contribute much until the final episode. Peter Howell (Composer) joins the commentary for Episode Three and offers an insight into some of his cues, as well as providing a refreshing critique to his own work. All in all, a fairly run of the mill commentary, that could have really benefited from Tom Baker's presence.

'Meglos Men' is an 18-minute documentary that follows Writers; Andy McCulloch and John Flanagan as they retrace their steps into the past, into the genesis of Meglos. Checking out their old haunts, through to a modern-day meeting with Script Editor; Christopher H. Bidmead.

It's a fantastic little feature that is written, produced and directed by the fabulous Chris Chapman, who has risen the calibre of Doctor Who DVD documentaries to a whole new level.

'The Scene Sync Story' looks at how the pitfalls and limitations of Chroma Key gave way to research into the newly discovered Scene Sync technology - a process that ties two cameras together to pan in unison.

The eye-opening documentary shows us how Meglos was a test run for the process, which has evolved and can now be seen in many modern day film and television productions. The feature includes Interviews with Peter Leverick and Roger Bunce (Cameramen) and Stephen Drewett (Visual Effects Designer).

'Jacqueline Hill: A Life in Pictures' looks at the life of Doctor Who Actress, Jacqueline Hill (Barbara, Lexa). It's a wonderful tribute to the woman whom we all know from Doctor Who, but paints the wider, and to most of us, unknown picture of her life through to her untimely death. It was surprising to learn that Jacqueline was responsible for Sean Connery getting his first leading role, thanks to a suggestion to her Director husband, Alvin Rakoff. The feature includes interviews with William Russell (Actor), Verity Lambert (Producer), Alvin Rakoff (Director / Husband) and Ann Davies (Friend / Actress).

'Entropy Explained' is presented by Dr. Phillip Trowoga from the University of Westminster, and takes a scientific look at the running theme through Season 18 of Doctor Who - Entropy; the measure of disorder of a system. Picking through the laws of thermodynamics, it breaks down the technical speech into easy to understand explanations and situations.

The 'Coming Soon Trailer' features The Mutants, and isn't as well put together as previous trailers, too many fast cuts and no real energy behind the trailer music leads to it failing to really sell the story.

As with previous releases, there are the usual 'Radio Times Billings', 'Photo Gallery' and 'Production Information Subtitles', as well as an 'Easter Egg' that gives us a clean version of the final Fourth Doctor title sequence.

The extra content that we have here, is certainly of a high quality, but going on past form, it does feel a little feature-light. It was surprising to find no feature on the stunning make-up that gave this story such a visual impact, and Tom Baker's involvement, apart from the story itself is non-existent - despite being a Baker-heavy serial.

It is most definitely worth its retail price, with both 'Meglos Men' and 'Jacqueline Hill: A Life in Pictures' taking the main stage.

Coming only a year after Doctor Who reached record 16.1m ratings with City of Death, John Nathan Turner's first season as producer showed the downward trajectory that would be one of the hallmarks of his tenure when Meglos barely managed a quarter of that figure, with an equally dismal `audience appreciation rating.' Yet despite Turner being handed a seaworthy vessel and proceeding to drill holes in it below the waterline with bad creative decisions and dodgy casting in later years, it's not a bad little story even if the Doctor doesn't have much to do in the first episode, and what little he does he does repeatedly. Unfortunately it's a very undeveloped one, with both plot and character veering too often to the perfunctory and originality largely extending to the villain being... a cactus. A meglomaniacal plant has its possibilities, but there's the feeling that the Doctor had been here before too many times to find much to interest him and the central debate between science and religion - in particular a religion that has been built around unexplained technology whose priests don't want explained or explored - never gets off the ground.

There's one interesting bit of casting in having one of the very first Doctor's original companions from the very first episode, Jacqueline Hill, playing the high priestess, although she's not helped by having to share many of her scenes with Edward Underdown, who gives an embarrassingly bad performance - most of the time he doesn't even wait for his cues. But then maybe the general rushed feeling of the production was contagious - the four episodes are very short, with a lot of repeated footage from the previous episode to pad out the running time. It's not terrible, and you do get the chance to see Tom Baker turning into a cactus, but it has that treading water feeling that typified the Nathan Turner years.

Still, there's a decent selection of extras, as ever: audio commentary by Lalla Ward, Christopher Owen, John Flanagan, Paddy Kingsland and Peter Howell, featurettes on the story's actors-turned-writers (particularly engaging), the Scene Sync special effects technique used for the story, a layman's guide to Entropy (the uniting factor of that season's stories) and a tribute to Jacqueline Hill focussing on her tenure in the series as Barbara, as well as an isolated score, an extended theme tune (hidden away as an Easter Egg), stills gallery and on-screen production notes. Two-and-a-bit stars - one for the completists.

This is a story which has grown on me over time. By no means a classic Meglos does however have much of interest. The return of Jaqueline Hill to Dr Who - former 1st Doctor companion Barbara - here playing a high priestess. Tom Baker gives an interesting performance as Meglos himself. And the sfx may be considered cheap by todays standards, but in 1980 there were few TV progrrammes, in the UK or US, who could achieve what the dr who production team did on such a small budget. Worth a look.