Yet another entry into 2Entertains bid to grab your hard earned cash, but can it be worth buying episodes that you already have?

The first Revisitations box set had some strange entries; the second box set had even more strange entries.  This box set seems to make sense. Robots of Death was the second episode of Doctor Who ever on DVD from 2000 and its special features amounted to nothing. Tomb of the Cybermen was one of the first episodes of Doctor Who on DVD ever way back in 2002 and it contained an Easter egg of what it might look like if it had been ‘Vidfired’ and restored, which was a bit of a tease to be frank. The Three Doctors didn’t have enough pomp and circumstance to warrant a release of Doctor Who’s ten year anniversary special (which I believe is the Dalekanium anniversary). This time round it’s a bit different.

The real prize of the set is Tomb of the Cybermen.  This is a showcase of what the second Doctor’s tenure could be like and it really makes you sad that we don’t have more episodes of his run if they were like this.

The Doctor, Jamie and new companion Victoria arrive on Telos at the same time an archeological expedition arrives to search for the Tomb of the Cybermen; a legendary race that haven’t been seen for nearly two centuries. It soon becomes apparent that for all the hubris of the humans the long dead cybermen are in control of the situation manipulating from their icy sleep.

I’ll be blunt, this is almost a perfect storm for me. The power of the script and the imagination in evidence really works. To take the Doctor to a time where one of his greatest enemies has been defeated and humans were ignorant of them and then to have them arrive in a logical and methodical way is brilliant.

Remastered properly for the first time, this looks great and is a worth addition to any Who fans’ collection.

The Three Doctors was in all honesty one of those stories that is better on paper than it was committed to video. I’ll always remember the novelization fondly because with the infinite budget of my imagination the ambition of the script was realized, the alternate universe of Anti-matter, the Anti-Matter men, Omegas palace of imagination and the Battle between the Doctor and Omegas champion were all rendered in lush detail rather than in a sodden quarry.

The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) is attacked by gelatinous blobs which leads him to believe that something is amiss. Then the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) arrives to tell him it’s not. The Doctor (William Hartnell) arrives to agree. As the Doctor is trapped in a triangle, only two of the Doctors can go through a black hole that is threatening to drain the Time Lords’ power. Here they meet Omega, a legend of the Time Lords who believes that he got a raw deal and wants to be a god. It’s not a bad story by any stretch of the imagination but it’s not Doctor Who’s ‘A’ game; even if it’s performing fan service before such a term had been invented. It’s fun but not essential; especially as the picture or sound quality are not noticeably different from the 2003 edition.

The Robots of Death

The Doctor and Leela land on a Sandminer on the Planet Arakas an unnamed planet in the distant future in a civilization where humanity has a huge labor force of robots to do all its menial duties. Unfortunately they arrive at start of a spate of murders of which they are automatically and naturally suspected of. This is one of those shows that works. The production designs of the robots in particular is brilliant. They look timeless and creepy as heck. In fact the only thing wrong with it is that you’d think that someone at the factory would have said “Holy crap Steve these things are creepy as hell, who’s going to buy these? And should we be making them ten times stronger than humans?”

It’s one of those episodes where the tension never lets up. From the first murder things get worse and worse for the crew of the Sandminer. Tom Baker is on top of his game, Chris Boucher (the writer) is on the top of his game and ok, so the plot might be a little Agatha Christie, but you’ll have to remind me of the Miss Marple story where it turns out that the murderer was a megalomaniac who was raised by robots and wants to free his mechanical brothers from their indentured servitude. Although the video and sound quality isn’t much different from the 2001 release, I maintain that you can’t have too many copies of this fantastic episode.

Special features:

Tomb of the Cybermen contains:

Morris Barry Introduction - The director's introduction from the 1993 VHS release.

Late Night Line-Up – The BBC takes a look at one of its own departments in this weird documentary short on special effects. Apparently it’s all about the blood.

The Final End; Evil of the Daleks -  The story directly preceding Tomb of the Cybermen is mostly missing from the archives. This gives you a small taste of what the ending scene was like, although as we have all been subjected to “The Last Dalek” which 2Entertain was pretty insistent about putting on about 20 releases we probably have a pretty good idea of what is was like anyway.

The Lost Giants – The story of the story, but perhaps not as in depth as could be.

The Curse of the Cybermen's Tomb – Yeah, this is interesting, but ultimately only interesting not particularly relevant to Doctor Who, although it is amazing just how well these eminent scientists are versed in Doctor Who.

Cybermen - Extended Edition – This is the longer version of the documentary about the history of the Cybermen that appeared on the “Cybermen” box set featuring David Tennant, so more of that if you want it.

The Magic of VidFIRE – Yet another documentary about how great Vidfire is.

Sky Ray Advert – An advert featuring the Daleks and a Doctor who couldn’t stand the light, a curiosity because it has higher production values than the series that inspired it.

The Three Doctors

Different special features to the 2003 version, and whilst these are great additions it would be nice to have everything together so people don’t feel like they’re missing out.

Happy Birthday To Who – Remaining cast (Katy Manning) gets together to discuss the making of this story and it’s actually pretty good.

Was Doctor Who Rubbish? – Rather good documentary if a little biased that mounts defenses to common complaints of Doctor Who (ie: the sets were rubbish) and finds exceptions (the Jungle sets of The Planet of Evil for example.)

Girls, Girls, Girls – Doco on what it was like being a girl on Doctor who during the 70’s with Caroline John, Katey Manning and Louise Jamison. It’s ok but am I the only person who finds Louis Jamison vapid and annoying?

Pebble Mill At One - Archival interview with the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton and visual effects wizard Bernard Wilkie.

The Robots of Death

Commentary 1 – The commentary that came with the original release

Commentary 2 - New commentary with actors Tom Baker (the Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela) and Pamela Salem (Toos), and director Michael E Briant.

The Sandmine Murders – An average ‘making of’ buoyed by Tom Bakers recollections of Pamela Salem.

Robophobia - Toby Hadoke takes a semi-humorous look at the history or Robots both in the real world and in Doctor Who, intermittently funny.

Video: Apart from Tomb of the Cybermen there’s no great revelation here for video quality. Tomb looks great however.

Audio: Audio is consistently good across the three series but nothing standout or 5.1 or anything.

Scores:

Features:

Tomb of the Cybermen- 9/10

The Three Doctors- 6/10

The Robots of Death- 9/10 

Video:

Tomb of the Cybermen- 9/10

The Three Doctors- 7/10

The Robots of Death- 7/10

Audio:

Tomb of the Cybermen- 7/10

The Three Doctors- 6/10

The Robots of Death- 7/10

Special Features:

Tomb of the Cybermen- 8/10

The Three Doctors- 5/10

The Robots of Death- 6/10

Overall:

8/10