Back when I reviewed the episodes that make up serial J (Planet of Giants),
the DVD hadn't been released. I told the story of how it had been cut
down from four stories to three after filming was already complete by
editing the last two episodes together; lo and behold, they've now got
as close to reversing this process as possible without the original film
(or indeed many of the actors). So, although I've used the only episode
title not previously mentioned, this is actually a review of two other
things as well: the recon of the original Crisis and the other DVD features.
Let's start with the piece about the making of the reconstruction (an extra about an extra!). In Rediscovering the Urge to Live,
documentary producer Ed Stradling and Whovian actor Toby Hadoke observe
that the entire guest cast, half the regulars, the director, the
producer and the writer are all dead, while neither William Russell nor
Carole Ann Ford could remember much about the production. This meant
that the standard "talking heads" documentary was a bit of a
non-starter, so given the unique circumstances of this serial they
turned to Ian Levine to direct a recon instead.
Levine is a controversial figure in fandom. He is abrasive, opinionated,
and utterly dedicated to the show (he was one of the people who helped
to stop the junking of old episodes, and acted as an advisor to the
production team during the 1980s). He is also very well off, and has
funded the production of a number of reconstructions of missing or
unmade stories as personal projects. His completion of Shada,
mixing animation with original footage and involving members of the
original cast, almost made it onto the official DVD. It was well
received by many who saw it (though not all) and if it had been included
I would have been more keen to buy the set. So, basically, he had
'form'.
The first thing was to record the missing dialogue, which involved
casting. Thanks to Big Finish and the Target readings Russell and Ford
had practise recreating their old parts, but six others had to be
recast. The results vary; none of them are bad, but the standout is
definitely John Guilor, who turns in a superb take on William Hartnell's
end-of-first-recording-block Doctor. Thanks in part to advice from
Russell and Ford, his performance sounds more like natural acting than
impersonation, too.
Next came the recreation of the visuals. There is no perfect method and
this time Levine decided to use mainly existing footage, along with a
few CGI inserts and unidentifiable modern shots (such as hands). The
results are slightly jarring and in some cases highly repetitive, but
given the number of cuts in the combined episode any other method (for
example, mixing in animation à la Shada) would almost certainly
have been worse. A great deal of care was taken over the selection of
shots to reuse - I was impressed with how often he managed to get speech
to roughly match mouth movement, for example.
The sound quality on the recons is quite poor. I assume that Levine only
had access to copies of the broadcast third episode from before the
Restoration Team had finished their work, and roughened up the
newly-recorded voices to match. For whatever reason, my son and I had to
turn the volume up quite high to hear what was going on (neither of us
have great hearing). We came away wishing the RT had done their work on
the recons too!
I didn't rewatch the first two episodes before tackling the recons, but I
did listen to the commentary on all three episodes afterwards (and was
glad to note they made the connection with the same two programs about
shrinking that I brought up). For reasons discussed above it was a
fairly self-selecting team of commentators - basically a production team
survivors commentary (minus the not-then-late Ray Cusick). Planet of Giants
is probably not the release I would have chosen to gather these
particular people - there were no new Radiophonic Workshop sounds and
only simple makeup, so Brian Hodgson and Sonia Markham in particular
were only able to talk generally when discussing their contributions -
but it isn't a type of commentary we've had before in this marathon, and
that uniqueness kept it interesting. I found it useful for learning
more about 1960s TV production (including a little about the role of
Assistant Floor Managers like David Tilley); in this way, it served a
similar function to Doctor Who Confidential. Hearing about Mervyn
Pinfield's membership of the '59 group and the "Developing Camera"
technique made me a little more sympathetic to what he was trying to do,
though I still prefer Douglas Camfield's cuts and closeups to
Pinfield's more theatre-like style (and it sounds as if it was more fun
for vision mixer Clive Doig too). Mark Ayres - another production type,
though from a different era - kept the discussion flowing well.
And that's it for substantial extras. There are a couple of mildly
interesting interviews (with Carole Ann Ford and Verity Lambert), some
prop design plans (which I haven't seen because I keep forgetting to
bring the DVD to the computer), plus the usual suspects - photo gallery,
coming soon, etc.
On to the script of the reconstructed episodes, then; and what I chiefly
discovered was that the bulk of the main plot had survived the cuts but
with a lot of the detail being lost. Smithers' journey from ally to
enemy works much better here, with the cat's story probably the biggest
loss of all. The telephone exchange scenes feel richer with more time
spent on them, and conversations in general flow better. All this is at
the cost of stretching things out quite a bit, though; so which version
is better? Without the original footage it's impossible to compare
fairly, but even though the broadcast version was a bit rushed I think
Donald Wilson's decision was a good one. Count me as a supporter of
three episodes.
It's a darn good DVD, though, and I am really happy to be able to make up my own mind!
Ratings:
Reconstructed Crisis: 3.5/10.
Reconstructed the Urge to Live: 6/10.
Four-episode version of serial J: 5/10.
Next Time:
The Dark Pilgrim.
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