Reign of Terror- Reigning Down Now!

[SiHart]

[Dirk Gently]

Ooh, I like that.

[Nyder]

Hartnell looks rather dashing doesn't he? Dashing with a double helping of arrogance :-)

[Dirk Gently]

I'm not sure about the red circle but otherwise it's really good.

[SiHart]

It's all rather lovely

[Si Hunt]

Gorgeous. Lovely TARDIS. For one of the most forgettable adventures, I'm really looking forwards to this!

Si.

[Dave Tudor]

That's brilliant! Reminds me a little of some of the late 80s Target covers.

[MacNimon]

I'm really looking forward to this one. It's a great cover, and the existing episodes are the only ones I've never seen (barring the recently discovered ones).

[Dirk Gently]

Ah yes, the recently discovered ones. I wonder when we'll get to see those on silver disc.

[Larry]

it's rather a pitty that for most f these last 12 years the covers for the DVD have fo the most been pretty dull and bland and it's only in the last year or so that the covers have been really good.

[SiHart]

Lee Binding has consistently given us some of the best DVD covers for the range over the last couple of years. Very talented he is.

This is a lovely one!

[Dave Tudor]

Yep. Makes it even more disappointing that they hot themselves in the foot all those years ago when they decided to put the cover pictures in small rectangles surrounded by all those roundels. Artwork like this should grace the entire front cover of the DVD.

[SiHart]

It's on the way from the BBC shop! Looking forward to seeing it as it's not a story i know terribly well.

[Nyder]

It was fascinating reading about the animation process in DWM. Looking forward to this one too!

[Simon R]

Ours is en route too. I've only seen it once so it'll be like a whole new story as I can't remember anything about it apart from a fire and a cell with rats.

[Stuart Wallis]

Sounds like David Cameron's office...

[Dirk Gently]

Ours is en route too.

Same here. Probably turn up on Monday.

[Simon R]

Ours has arrived. Tres bien.

[Simon R]

Two episodes in. Bit slow but the fire is well done and Hartnell is on great form with a surprisingly physical performance. Picture quality is a bit poor.

[Si Hunt]

Prints look awful & there is for example a bit of dirt in the middle of the screen in a scene in Episode 1. Did the RT not bother cleaning this one up?

Si.

[SiHart]

It's because they're the original supressed field prints that were made from the videotapes. They were technically inferior to the later telerecordings made, and so there's probably as much cleaning up as can be done from them. Part 3 from the second telerecorded version looks a whole lot better.

[Si Hunt]

If they were technically inferor to the telerecordings, why didn't they use those? Or do they only have these supressed field prints?

Really enjoying the story. It's a surprise as I always thought it was dull as ditchwater before. It's really quite gritty (Barbara is threatened with being molested by a jailer while she waits to have her head cut off).

Si.

[Logo Polish]

If they were technically inferor to the telerecordings, why didn't they use those? Or do they only have these supressed field prints?

Yes, there are some episodes which only exist in suppressed field telerecordings. These would have been the among the earliest film copies made of the series, around 1964 - 5. They're the ones which have the jagged lines effect which you sometimes see in these prints. From about 1966 onwards, a new set of stored field telerecordings were made of the Hartnell episodes, which have better picture quality, and most of the surviving prints of his era derive from these.

The Daleks Eps 5 and 7 are also suppressed field, I understand, and there's an odd combination for Edge of Destruction Ep 2, which is mostly stored field but then becomes suppressed field for its last five minutes. It's been speculated that when the stored field telerecordings were made around 1966 or 1967, there may have been some problems with the original videotapes of the episodes, so perhaps they were unable to make new copies of the first two of those episodes mentioned, and couldn't complete the process for the third episode, and had to add in the last few minutes of the earlier telerecording from 1964.

[Dirk Gently]

I'm quite sure that there are good copies of the first 3 episodes in private hands, but as they are in America I'm sure these were deemed too expensive to get hold of, as I'm sure the 'owner' would like his costs covered for shipping (if he would loan them at all). So I'm sure the copies of 1-3 used would have been from the BFI.

I don't yet have my copy so can't check.

[Stuart Wallis]

Two episodes in. Bit slow but the fire is well done and Hartnell is on great form with a surprisingly physical performance.

The scene where he does handstands surprised me as well...