We finally have a release date for the Season 22 Special Edition Box Set. It's June 25th (or at least it is on Amazon.)
In case you don't know Season 22 is Colin Baker's first full season as The Doctor, having appeared in The Twin Dilemma at the end of Season 21 (which I still think wasn't the wisest decision JNT ever made.) It contains six stories - Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors, Timelash and Revelation of the Daleks.
As well as a relatively new Doctor we also get a change of format. Instead of the traditional 4-6 part 25 minute episodes we get 2 45 minute episodes for each story, except The Two Doctors, which gets 3. It's an interesting change, although I'm not entirely convinced it works.
Season 22 is important to me because it marks the moment I went from a person who watched Doctor Who to a Doctor Who fan. I'd been watching since the Tom Baker era but I really loved Colin Baker's take on the Doctor and I had a friend at school I could talk about Doctor Who with and he was more in the fandom loop. It was threw him that I took my first tentative steps into Doctor Who fandom: DWM, DWB and other fanzines. I got a taste of the gossip. And it was through DWB that I discovered that there were Doctor Who fans that didn't like Doctor Who very much, which is still an ongoing thing.
The series got a lot of flak for being too grim and too violent and Eric Saward, the script editor certainly seemed less interested in telling traditional Doctor Who stories. You always got the impression that Eric Saward didn't like the character of the Doctor (and/or Colin Baker.) Interviews after his departure suggest Eric didn't think Colin was up to snuff, which Colin didn't know. We are about to enter one of the uglier periods in Doctor Who behind the scenes history.
I didn't really notice at the time. I enjoyed all these stories to one degree or another. I loved The Two Doctors, where we got to see Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines in all their glory and to start a whole Season 6B theory.
I haven't re-watched a lot of these stories for a while but the last time I did they were a mixed bag. I'm afraid Timelash isn't a favourite and could probably have been cut down to 45 minutes. It features some of the oddest line readings in any Doctor Who story. I find the ending of Attack of the Cyberman needlessly bleak for a Doctor Who story. But I like Vengeance on Varos - which seems to have become more satirical over time rather than less - The Mark of the Rani, The Two Doctors and Revelation of the Daleks. The latter is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories, although it isn't perfect.
The Box Set has another superb Lee Binding (@LeeBinding) cover. It might be my second favourite after the Season 17 one. These Special Edition sets are wonderful. They always come with shedloads of extras, including extended versions of episodes*, new special effects - in this case on Timelash - and Matthew Sweet's interviews with key figures. In this case Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Michael Grade. The latter should be fascinating considering Grade's role in bringing Doctor Who to an end.
I'm looking forward to a re-re-re-re-re-re-re-watch of these stories and finding out more about what went on behind the scenes. It is also a chance to see that whatever the problems were with the Sixth's Doctors era of Doctor Who none of those problems were Colin Baker. I am always slightly defensive of Colin Baker's behalf. He gets a lot of flak, including from people who should know better, and his era is often unloved. But I enjoy it and Colin himself is a lovely man.
So, it'll be well-worth buying imo.
PS I am currently crowdfunding a Doctor Who book. You can find more about here.
*Vengeance on Varos (1 & 2), The Two Doctors (1) and Revelation of the Daleks (1) on this Boxed Set.
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