Doctor Who - The Beginning Details

Worth another look...

Although 'An Unearthly Child' and 'The Daleks' have already been released on VHS, they are worth looking at again as they've been restored and are nice clean bright copies. However, it is the extras which make this release worth seeing. With 'an Unearthly Child' included is the original unedited version of the first episode and short short comedy sketches by Mark Gatiss, plus a theme music video. In 'The Daleks' there is a very interesting documentary about the origins of the daleks. The third DVD in the set, 'The Edge of Destruction,' is only two episodes and is rather claustrophobic, being set in the Tardis only. One extra on this disk is a special 30 minute story of the 'lost' Marco Polo story. Overall, if you are interested in the early days of Dr Who, this is worth renting.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Edge of Destruction

The 3rd DVD in this collection, this has a short 2-part story which seems to have been a filler between the Daleks story and Marco Polo. It does have some very good extras on the DVD though, including the Origins of Doctor Who and the Marco Polo story shown as photos and audio, as the original video was erased by the short-sighted BBC at the time. The main story on here though I thought was a waste of time, as it did nothing and went nowhere. It could have been condensed into 5 minutes as an intro to Marco Polo, but I guess the BBC were short of cash and had to save up the money to make Marco Polo by making these two episodes set just in the Tardis with no baddies, no effects, no real storyline. Just people getting knocked out and hallucinating, in a contrived story of the Tardis being stuck in going back in time and stopping itself, all due to a faulty switch.

Only rent this DVD if you want to see the extras.