Tom Baker was perhaps the quirkiest actor to play the part,
bringing a certain maniacal approach to the character. The subject of
this DVD release, Meglos, was originally broadcast in September/October
1980 (near the end of Baker’s Doctor Who era) and there is a degree of
tiredness in his performance.
Nevertheless, this four-part story is an interesting outing.
Zastor,
leader of the planet Tigella, rules a divided people who are opposed on
one crucial issue - the Dodecahedron, a mysterious source of all their
power. To one group, the Dodecahedron is a miracle of science to be
studied and used to benefit their civilisation. To the other, it
is a god and not to be tampered with.
When the power supply
begins to fluctuate wildly the whole planet is threatened, but the two
groups cannot agree how they should deal with the problem. Zastor
welcomes the arrival of the Doctor and invites him to arbitrate.
The
Doctor’s companion during this period was Romana (played by Lalla
Ward), one of the few characters in the ongoing series that I
personally found annoying.
However, it was a pleasant surprise
to see K-9 in this story. K-9 was the Doctor’s robot dog who he
found in 1977 and, although not heavily featured in this particular
story, K-9 provides a diversion to the main storyline.
Unfortunately,
K-9 would be left with several of the Doctor's female companions by
1981, before re-appearing in several spin-off productions.
While
many of the show’s special effects may be ‘shonky’ by today’s
standards, there is some pleasure to be gained by watching old Doctor
Who episodes such as Meglos. DVD Special FeaturesSpeaking
of special effects, Meglos features the only use in Doctor Who of a
camera-linking system known as Scene-Sync that allowed the use of
non-static shots of characters superimposed onto a miniature set.
As the cameras on the actors were moved, the cameras on the miniature
set moved the equivalent scaled amount automatically.
This technique is fully explained in one of the Special Features included in this DVD release.
A
more interesting (and touching) Special Feature is a short piece on the
life of Jacqueline Hill who played William Hartnell’s Doctor companion
Barbara Wright. In Meglos, she had a guest role - making her the
first companion to return to play a role other than their original
character.
Other Extras include an audio commentary, an
interesting mini-doc featuring the two writers of this story and an
impressive Photo Gallery.
Finally, watch for the Easter Egg – an interesting piece of memorabilia. Conclusion: Episodes 70% Extras: 70%
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