The DVD I mentioned having to return the other day has been replaced with a copy that my DVD player likes – it’s a copy of “The Claws of Axos,” one of my all-time favorite Dr. Who stories, in which an organic spaceship (complete with psychedelic interior) arrives to drain the Earth of all life and energy, and it’s up to the 3rd Doctor, UNIT, and maybe the Master to stop it.
The DVD is a big improvement over the VHS release, where the 2nd and 3rd episodes had been converted from the UK’s PAL video standard to US NTSC in the 70s, converted back to PAL when the original copies were gone, and converted back to NTSC again for the video release. They’ve still gone through that process for the DVD release, but this time the NTSC back to PAL part involved a new “Reverse Standards Conversion” process used by the Dr. Who Restoration Team. They’re still not perfect (especially in the exterior scenes that were originally on film instead of video), but they’re a lot better than they were before. And the DVD’s got some fun bonus features, including some studio footage with deleted scenes and the opening title sequence with the story’s original name, “The Vampire From Space.” (Just as well they changed that…)
This might seem like an unusual Station V3 newsbox/blog post, since I’m not talking about the comic (which I hope you’re enjoying!) or the Dr. Who story being talked about most right now (the recent “Christmas Invasion,” which I haven’t seen yet), but maybe that makes a nice change? 