Although 'Four To Doomsday' was Peter Davison's second story in transmission order, it was actually the first to be recorded. For the story's DVD release, we are able to offer the viewer an insight into that very first day inside the studio, courtesy of a studio recording from the collection of the show's producer, the late John Nathan-Turner.
Being a totally studio-bound story, 'Four to Doomsday' was a very standard restoration job for us, aside from the fact that everything recorded in studio block 1 was riddled with videotape dropout. This suggests a problem with the tape at the time, rather than any subsequent damage. It also goes to show that more modern stories sometimes have just as many problems as some of the older ones! The D3 digital videotape transmission copies of the original 2" quad transmission tapes were transform decoded and graded by Jonathan Wood, before the workflow was split off as usual for manual picture cleanup by SVS and audio remastering by Mark Ayres.
The DVD extras package consists of:
• Commentary with actors Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton and director John Black .
• Studio Recording (dur. 27' 11") - Peter Davison's first day in the studio as the Doctor is documented in this unique studio recording recovered from the personal archive of the producer, the late John Nathan-Turner.
• Saturday Night at the Mill (dur. 14' 25") - Peter Davison's appearance on the Saturday night magazine programme on Boxing Day, 1980. Interviewed by Bob Langley, with a brief appearance by Davison's then-wife Sandra Dickinson.
• Theme Music Video (dur. 3' 34") - a brand new remix of Peter Howell's version of the theme music for the series, exclusively remixed from the original multitrack master. Option to listen to the music in either stereo (default) or Dolby Digital 5.1 surround versions. This feature made a previous appearance on 'Castrovalva' in the 'New Beginnings Boxset', but the 5.1 mix was inadvertently omitted.
• Photo Gallery (dur. 6' 37") - production, design and publicity photos from the story.
And as usual there's the Coming Soon trailer, Radio Times Billings PDF, Programme subtitles and Subtitle Production Notes.
Copyright Steve Roberts, 13th August 2008. No reproduction allowed without written permission.