September 18th, 2013 185 comments

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Doctor Who The Tenth Planet DVD

Doctor Who The Tenth Planet DVD

Release date now 14th October

Order now from www.bbcshop.com

The TARDIS arrives in December 1986 at a South Pole Space Tracking station where the personnel, under the command of General Cutler, are engaged in trying to talk down a manned space capsule that has got into difficulty. The base is invaded by a force of alien Cybermen. The Cybermen’s world, Mondas, is draining energy from Earth – once its ‘twin planet’ – and the situation will soon become critical

The First Doctor’s final adventure The Tenth Planet will have its lost fourth episode animated for DVD release.

Original VHS information…

Many aeons ago, Earth’s twin planet, Mondas, drifted away the edge of space. Its inhabitants grew weak, so their scientists created spare parts for their bodies. Limbs and organs were slowly replaced by metal and plastic, and emotions were removed. The Cybermen were born.

The TARDIS lands at the South Pole Tracking Station late in 1986, just as a routine space mission starts going wrong. When the base personnel’s suspicions are raised, the Doctor informs them that the space capsule is being affected by the gravitational pull of another planet.

A tenth planet…

As Mondas returns to the solar system, the Doctor warns tHat a visit from Mondas’s inhabitants is imminent. The Cybermen want Earth’s power and resources for themselves. Only the Doctor offers the base any hope against these silver giants. But is this one battle too many for the ailing time traveller?

This story, which was the lost to feature William Hartnell as the Doctor and features the first regeneration, was broadcast on BBC1 between 8-29 October 1966.

The Original VHS version was released in a tinned set along with Attack of The Cybermen. This had the 4th episode reconstructed using stills…

The Tenth Planet was to be William Hartnell’s last regular appearance as The Doctor. To explain the change of lead actor, the production team came up with a revolutionary idea.

The Doctor declares that his old body is wearing a bit thin, and in the final scene he collapses, his appearance begins to change…

The first ‘regeneration’ takes place, and television history is made. Producer Innes Lloyd and Story Editor Gerry Davis wanted to inject
a degree of scientific accuracy into the series, and decided to draw on the knowledge of a ‘scientific advisor’. To this end, Dr Kit Pedler became an unofficial member of the Doctor Who team.

The first story to benefit from Pedler’s insight was ‘The War Machines’ and on the back of the success of this story, Davis looked to him for future story ideas. Unhappy with Pedler’s initial suggestions, Davis asked him to focus on one of his main scientific phobias – dehumanised medicine. As a result, the first story to include the Cybermen, a race who had taken cybernetics to its ultimate conclusion, was devised.

As with all Doctor Who stories of this period, ‘The Tenth Planet was recorded an episode at a time on a weekly basis. However an emergency re-write was needed for the third episode, when illness forced William Hartnell to miss both the rehearsal and the recording of the episode. Consequently, the Doctor spends all of Episode Three unconscious and covered up in bed.

The job of devising the Cybermen’s look fell to costume designer Sandra Reid, who tried to keep to the script’s description as best she could. For these early Cybermen, Reid used all-over cloth body suits, with a polythene layer on top and copious amounts of sticky tape to keep the costumes together.

Order now from www.bbcshop.com

Categorised under: Doctor Who DVDs, DVD