Doctor Who: The New Series AKA Series 1 Four Volume Combined UMD.Video For PSP Review

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Title: Doctor Who: The New Series: AKA Series One On UMD.Video For PSP

Media: UMD.Video For PSP (PlayStation Portable)

Region: 0 - NTSC

Genre: British Science Fiction Television Series

Episodes – Volume One: Rose, The End Of The World, The Unquiet Dead

Episodes – Volume Two: Aliens Of London, World War Three, Dalek

Episodes – Volume Three 2 Disc Set: The Long Game, Father’s Day, The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances

Episodes – Volume Four: Boom Town, Bad Wolf, The Parting Of Ways

Stars: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Noel Clarke, Camille Coduri, and John Barrowman

Guest Stars: Penelope Wilton, Annette Badland, Simon Pegg, Simon Callow, Mark Benton, Yasmin Bannerman, Corey Johnson, Patterson Joseph, Joe Joyner, and David Tennant

Featuring The Voices Of: Zoe Wanamaker, Davina McCall, and Nicholas Briggs

Writers: Russell T. Davies, Mark Gatiss, Robert Shearman, Paul Cornell, and Steven Moffat

Autons Originally Created By: Robert Holmes

Daleks Originally Created By: Terry Nation

Directors: Keith Boak, Euros Lyn, Joe Ahearne, Keith Boak, Brian Grant, and James Hawes

Executive Producers: Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Mal Young

Languages: English Stereo Sound

Subtitles: English Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired

Chapter Stops: 12 Per Episode

Sound: Stereo Sound

Packaging: Four Single Size UMD Keep Cases (Each Volume Is Sold Separately)

Respective Running Times: Vol. 1: 133 minutes/ Vol.2. 132 minutes/ Vol. 3: 172 minutes/ Vol. 4: 132 minutes

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

“Doctor Who” is the longest running science fiction series on television. The franchise is older than “Star Trek” and from 1963 through 1989, several actors have portrayed the Time Lord as he travels across space and time in his Time And Relative Dimensions In Space vehicle known as a TARDIS, which he continually fixes and tweaks in between saving the universe from various threats and often with the help of a human and or humanoid companion that he takes along for the ride. The TARDIS looks like a police box on the outside in part because the camouflage mechanism that would enable the vehicle to seamlessly blend with any surroundings it appears in has been malfunctioning since the series first aired with the original Doctor who was played by William Hartnell. The inside is much larger because it occupies a different dimension in time and space. Though they may appear human on the outside, a Time Lord is actually an ancient being from the planet Galifrey, where the secrets to time and space travel have been protected and used for the most part benevolently for millennia. Internally their organs are different. They have two hearts and they have a limited means of regenerating themselves at the point of death approximately 13 times, but each time they become a new person with memories of the previous self. There has been some debate as to whether or not a Time Lord can regenerate even more times or perhaps endlessly, but I suppose that will ultimately depend either on Russell T. Davies and his writing staff or the continued popularity of the show.

The ability of the Doctor to regenerate has proven useful for the BBC to keep the show alive by enabling new actors to portray the Doctor when a previous actor decides for whatever the reason may be to move on. In addition to William Hartnell, six other actors have portrayed the Doctor through 1989. These actors in chronological order include Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy. Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker are arguably the two most popular incarnations of the Doctor with Tom Baker in many ways fulfilling the quintessential image of what the Doctor looks like and how he behaves for many fans. Each Doctor has a distinctly different personality and every actor brings something to the role that includes some quirks or eccentricities in how they may behave in a given situation and how they choose to costume themselves. Peter Cushing played the Doctor in two theatrical dramatizations based on the TV series in the 1960s and in 1996, Sylvester McCoy handed the TARDIS over to the eighth Doctor played by Paul McGann in a joint production produced by the BBC and Universal Studios. The film aired in the States on the Fox network, but it did not re-ignite the franchise. Then acclaimed Writer and Producer Russell T. Davies reinvented the show for the twenty-first century with Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as his new human time and space traveling companion Rose. The results have lead to Eccleston being hailed as one of the best Doctors since Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee and the series returned to the BBC for a second round of episodes while we here in the States were able to enjoy the first series on SCI FI.

The Doctor arrives on Earth in the early twenty-first century where he meets up with a beautiful young blond woman named Rose (Billie Piper), who seems destined to be with him in the series of adventures, but first the Doctor must contend with the Autons, a kind of sentient hive consciousness with the ability to manipulate plastic like mannequins into deadly sentries. While we will learn their reason for being on Earth and their connection to the Doctor as the series progresses, for the premiere episode we are basically left with a few hints about the Doctor’s past that gradually comes together as the series progresses. “Rose” features the first appearance of the Autons since the 1971 episode of the classic series “Terror Of The Autons” featuring the third Doctor Jon Pertwee. In the second episode “The End Of The World” the Doctor takes Rose billions of years into the future to a station filled with wealthy extraterrestrial socialites to witness the sun engulfing the Earth. However their presence soon yields a murder conspiracy that places everyone on board the observation station at risk. Eventually we get more new alien threats and the return of the classic archenemy, the Daleks, who are behind a sinister plot to take the galaxy over and finally we learn more about the Doctor’s connection to them beyond the various adventures that have taken places since they were first introduced in the second serial storyline with the first Doctor. Standout episodes include “Dalek”, “Father’s Day”, “The Empty Child”, “The Doctor Dances”, “Bad Wolf” and “The Parting Of Ways. ”If you have seen the recent BBC Video Region One DVD releases of the episodes “Genesis Of The Daleks” and “Revelation Of The Daleks” then you will not only learn the origins of this villain, but the origins of The Time War as well as how certain Dalek technology used to breed a new race might have been originally learned by their creator, who for the record is not featured in series one. Having reviewed classic Doctor Who on DVD for years now, I am really impressed at how much the creative team behind the series has remained true to the classic episodes both in spirit and technically.

Never has the special effects for “Doctor Who” looked so well and yet the classic sound effects and so forth that fans remember from the show are all there. More importantly, while some of the situations are derivative of other television sci-fi and whatnot, the writing is top shelf and that is what always made “Doctor Who” such a huge hit worldwide. The stories and characters come first and the series just keeps getting better. I really hope the combined interest through home video and television will lead to the American broadcast of the second series and I also hope that if the show is successful here as it has been elsewhere, that the classic series may be aired on SCI FI or BBC America as well since this is a continuation of the show and not a complete reimagining as is the case with the new “Battlestar Galactica.” Guest stars on the series include Penelope Wilton (Match Point), Simon Pegg (Shaun Of The Dead and Mission Impossible III), John Barrowman (The Producers), Mark Benton (The Second Coming), and David Tennant (Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire). Both American and British audiences know Christopher Eccleston for his film roles in Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later as well as David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ and the Russell T. Davies drama The Second Coming. He also played a villain in Gone In Sixty Seconds, which starred Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie. Billie Piper was pop singer in the U.K. before she became the companion of the Doctor in both series one and two.

There are a lot of titles available on UMD.Video for PSP that are not available here in the States. Doctor Who was one of them, but I am happy to report the Doctor is in on UMD for PSP and everything is fine. All of the episodes look excellent retaining their 16 by 9 broadcast aspect ratios and also feature English Stereo Soundtracks with optional English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired on each disc. While the ability to remix the stereo soundtrack to a virtual surround soundtrack on my I, Sound Pro docking station usually improves the sound output, I found that these discs tended to sound a little distorted when I implemented virtual surround sound mode. Note that different docking stations or audio connections may yield different results, but based on my personal usage experience I recommend users keep the sound at the normal stereo sound provided by BBC Video. The menus are animated with motion transitions, easy to navigate and give the user the option to view episodes individually or through a “Play All” feature. For some reason the disc menus on Volume Two were slightly different and in fact easier to navigate. Why this particular volume was more streamlined in terms of making selections remains to be seen, but it should be noted again that all of the disc menus work great on every volume. Volume Three is a two-disc set with two UMDs containing two episodes each enclosed within a single size plastic keep case with two UMD holders instead of one. There are no extra value materials within the four UMD volumes though considering the quality of the picture and sound as a whole, I would prefer to have the episodes looking and sounding as good as they do now than losing quality because of an attempt to compress extra value material onto a tiny UMD. Within each case is an insert, which shows the four volumes on UMD of the Doctor Who series on one side and other titles available on UMD Video for PSP courtesy of BBC Video. These include Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show, The Office, Bottom, and The League Of Gentlemen. The UMD packaging appears to be identical to the both the UMD packaging in the UK as well as containing the same artwork on the individual DVD volumes that are not yet available in the States outside of a complete series set.

Overall, “Doctor Who” is another great series I am happy to have when I’m on the go to enjoy on my PSP and the four UMD.Video volumes are available now at retailers on and offline sold separately courtesy of BBC Video. I hope series two will be made available in the U.S. on UMD as well as DVD soon too.

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