Theatrical Release Date:2008 Release Date:October 7, 2008 Availability:Usually ships in 1-2 business days Shipping:International shipping available Condition:Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
"Morbius's brain... on the floor!"November 16, 2008 I out-and-out love this story. I've taken the typical "Doctor Who" fan's path to this point of view, however. I was riveted at age 11, embarrassed at age 16, and now celebrate it in all its campy glory. When the disembodied brain of Morbius fell onto the floor with an audible "splat!" late in Part Three, I actually cheered.
What's most impressive about the DVD release is the Restoration Team's attitude to the story. Now that the classic series DVDs have been coming out for almost ten years, and the greatest of the great stories have long since been released, and the available remaining stories come from deep in the third tier (and now, with the imminent release of Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday (Episode 118), the fourth tier), it is hard to predict what editorial slant the DVD extra features will take. I've been surprised, for example, by the coldness toward Doctor Who - Black Orchid (Episode 121), and I nodded along to the wistful revelation that Doctor Who: The Invisible Enemy/K9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend just hasn't aged that well at all.
Fortunately, the DVD producers appear to love Morbius, and for roughly the same reasons that I do. They're perhaps a little too enamored of Philip Madoc's Shatner-esque turn as this story's Dr. Frankenstein stand-in, Solon. But everyone loves the dimly heroic Condo, the one-armed manservant standing in for Igor. Even Terrance Dicks, who took his name off the final version of the story, seems to have warmed up to it considerably -- and we know from many other past DVD releases that Uncle Terry isn't shy about picking a fight with a 35 year-old bit of TV history.
All in all, "Brain of Morbius" blends two elements of "Doctor Who" greatness. First, a terrific script by Robert Holmes, full of memorable insults ("That palsied harridan!") and throw-away world building (the lone reference to "the silent gas dirigibles of the Hoothi", which 15 years later was resurrected for Love and War (The New Doctor Who Adventures). And second, there's that fearless 1970's mentality that "We're going to get away with putting a rubber brain in a fishbowl and mounting that on an ill-fitting costume with chicken feathers and an enormous lobster claw".
The only curiosity is that, while the text commentary accurately describes Terrance Dicks' novel-writing career as including the Past Doctor Adventure Warmonger (Doctor Who), the writer curiously fails to mention that it was in fact a prequel to this story. Just as well, however. Unlike this DVD, you might want to give that book a miss.
I was waiting for this one...October 21, 2008 It's the mad scientist and Rocky Horror (w/o the sex) meets Dr. Who and the BBC. There's something for everyone! Cult worshippers, Sara Jane goes blind, the Dr. almost gets his head cut off... there's large insects combined with humans.... it's lots of fun!
"The impossible dream of a thousand alchemists, dripping like tea from an urn."October 21, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It doesn't take long until the viewer realizes that "The Brain of Morbius" is an unlikely concoction, a hodgepodge homage to any number of classics and not-so-classics, the chief ingredient being of course one of the key progenitors of the science fiction genre, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein"--with a dash of late 20th-century paranoia, "They Saved Hitler's Brain" tossed into the brew for good measure. The risks taken here by the show's writers and producers, namely that the story collapse into a muddied incoherent mess or else come off as a stitched together patchwork of rip-offs, were significant but well worth it. What we have instead is a brilliant specimen of Doctor Who that draws on several interesting sources in good measure and synthesizes them into something highly original, thrillingly riveting, immensely entertaining, and uniquely characteristic of the show.
Who else, after all, could get away with a story so morbidly gruesome and yet so hilarious? "The Brain of Morbius" gets about as rough and gory as Saturday evening BBC TV in the 70's would allow, with a chilling premise underlining it all: an ingenious but twisted surgeon working to construct a body from spare parts for the preserved brain of his master, a Time Lord dictator presumed executed and long dead (All he needs is a good humanoid cranium, when who should show up at his castle door but the Doctor and Sarah Jane?). And yet moments of clever wit and cerebral comedy punctuate the story without defusing the horror in the least, nor does the overall horrific and moody atmosphere render the humor any less funny. Again, an unlikely combination of mutually conflicting elements somehow sublimates into a wonderful compound greater than the sum of its parts within the crucible of these four episodes. Indeed, this is a vividly memorable tale from early in Tom Baker's tenure as the fourth Doctor, one beloved by a vast majority of the show's fans--myself definitely included.
And what a fine release for October, just in time for Halloween!
30 years agoOctober 4, 2008 It's hard to believe it's been 30 years since Doctor Who came back to America in the form of Tom Baker, I missed the Pertwee episodes from their 1973 run (and in DC they were preempted that summer by the Watergate hearings). I'd rush home from high school to see the show, a little fuzzy from the station in Baltimore. But I was captivated.
This episode was one of the many great ones. Great mood that overcame any small defects.
I wonder if for this DVD they fixed the problem with episode one. In the epsiodic and combined version I saw, the first episode was missing the music and sound effects. It's fascinating to see from a technical standpoint how the sound and music contribute to the atmosphere and mood of a televised show.
awsomeSeptember 10, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
what can I say, the more Doctor Who that is released the better the world is.
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