Saturday, October 19, 2013

Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs (Story 71)



My First Doctor Who!
Now, all of us lets be mature and get past the puppet dinosaurs and see that "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" is a great addition to the series. The story is excellent. The acting, well, it was the '70s, give 'em a break. The chemistry between Sarah Jane and The Doctor is brilliant, especially during the first episode. The line between good guy and bad guy is tremendously well slurred and makes us wonder if The Doctor's doing the right thing. All in all, this is a great story and a wonderful tribute to the late Sladen, forever in our hearts.

Wondrful fun but DVD puzzles at times.
First off, let me say that I dont have a problem with the dinosaurs. Why? Because I saw this story in High School (20 years ago +) and I thought they were dreadful, but acceptable considering I understood the limitations of the production. Over time the the dinosaurs became exgerated in my head. I thought of them as being much worse than they truly are. So. that stuff aside. Its a solid story. I wish I could say that the color enhanced episode one is a major disappointment. Color restoration had been impressive in the past on stories such as Terror of the Autons. For this version BBC only had partial color information and added the blue with a computer. So the blues look great and the rest looks pretty rough, especially browns and flesh tones. I must say that I am puzzled as to why they couldnt use a computer colorization technique to bring the entire episode up to the standards of the rest of the show. Especially when one considers they had the rest of the serial for reference it...

Classic Doctor Who: INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS
The 5-Star rating is for the quality and value of the DVD. Superb job as is typical of the Doctor Who Restoration Team in their production of Classic Era Doctor Who DVD's.

INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS
Story # 71
Season 11's Second Story
Third Doctor, Jon Perwee Era, final season 1973-74
Second Classic Sarah Jane Smith story

OVERALL STORY RATING 8/10
INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS is a 10/10 story pulled down to 8/10 solely due to poor dinosaur special effects. If the viewer is willing to put forth a tiny bit of effort and engage their imagination when the dinosaurs are onscreen, the reward will be a truly superb story well worth the watching. It is truly sad that such an excellent story is pulled so low by a single problem. Were it not for the poor dinosaur special effects, INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS would likely rate among the finest WHO stories of all time, possibly even in the top 25.

Essential for SARAH JANE ADVENTURES fans, and...

Click to Editorial Reviews

No comments:

Post a Comment