Spearhead from Space - Third Doctor Jon Pertwee's debut story, and the first shown in color - has been carefully restored and remastered for this DVD, and it shows. The DVD looks excellent, with sharp, vibrant colors and a vividness that US fans have never seen before. The disc far surpasses the murky compilation tape put out years ago, with a clear, bright picture, and many of the faults removed.

Besides finally being released episodically - as the story was both broadcast and meant to be seen - the extras are great too. They include a fun, funny commentary by Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier) and Caroline John (Liz Shaw), some great Production Notes (listed as a subtitle track), a UNIT recruitment film, a "Who's Who" biography section, and even an Easter Egg.

It's nice to see that the BBC has picked such a good story for its first wave of DVDs. Not only is this a great Doctor Who tale full of action, it introduces us to the Third Doctor's era, the nasty Nestenes and their ability to control plastics, and the beginnings of the extended Doctor Who family the series would enjoy for the next five years. Let's hope all future releases are this nice!

All in all Spearhead From Space has been well-restored, has plenty of extras and entertains thoroughly. It's worthy of any Doctor Who fan's collection, and will easily replace any other version you've got. I highly recommend it.

The story itself is presented in a crisp clear transfer. Most "Doctor Who" fans in the US are familiar with episode quality through nth-generation videotape bootlegs, the occasional commercially-released VHS (of various quality), or through late-night PBS airings. To watch an episode presented so cleanly is a novelty in itself.

It also helps that "Spearhead" is long regarded as one of "Doctor Who"'s finest outings. As the first 1970s tale, it introduces new concepts to the show -- an Earth-bound Doctor, a lack of scaley latex monsters, and a complete lack of time travel. Even 30 years later it's easy to take the story seriously on all levels. It was the only episode shot entirely on film (all on location), and the small cast is (almost) uniformly well-acted.

The story on DVD can be watched on its own, or with a pop-up liner-notes format that highlights technical details, bits of trivia, and even basic information about the show, just in case you're new to the show. In addition there's a commentary track recorded by Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John, two of the stars of the story, both still popular on the convention circuit. Courtney's commentary displays a remarkable reach of knowledge about the series, while John seems to be watching for the first time since 1970, learning more as she goes along and showing welcome enthusiasm at all times. This track is more along the lines of two fans watching the show, as opposed to a no-holds-barred director's commentary, but it's worth playing at least once.

The other extras are similarly well-done. There's a 5-minute featurette about UNIT (the paramilitary organization that assisted the Third Doctor ). This is narrated by Courtney and shows a wide range of clips from several decades' worth of TV "DW". There are also informative actor biographies and a more-hit-than-miss photo gallery. The hidden feature (accessible on the main menu) is an outtake from the story's opening titles sequence.

On the whole, this DVD is a welcome treasure to State-side "Doctor Who" fans. Hopefully, subsquent DW DVD releases will match it for quality, breadth, and plain old enjoyment.

As usual, the DVD release is packed with many hours of extras to sort through. Battlefield benefits from a packed commentary track, and a host of behind-the-scenes extras (that recall, among other things, the moment when a water tank shattered with Sophie Aldred still inside it). And on disc 2 is an extended version of the feature. Well worth picking up. --Simon Brew

The double-disc presentation of Inferno offers the by-now-standard wealth of extras, including commentary by Courtney, script editor Terrance Dicks, producer/director Barry Letts, and co-star John Levene (Sgt. Benton) and lengthy featurettes on the making of the story and the UNIT brigade during Pertwee's tenure (the latter featuring interviews with much of the supporting cast and crew). A short deleted scene from the episode (featuring Pertwee in a rare second turn as the voice of a radio announcer), a promo film for the BBC Visual Effects Department (which features clips from the Who stories Ambassadors of Death, Caves of Steel, and a missing episode from Doomwatch), and PDF files of the 1971 Doctor Who Annual and Radio Times round out the supplemental features. --Paul Gaita

As with the First Doctor, a number of episodes and stories from Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor tenure (1966-69) are also incomplete or missing altogether, so The Patrick Troughton Years attempts to reconstruct the "orphaned" stories through episodes and clips culled from a variety of sources. For Who historians, the most important footage here is from Troughton's first appearance as the Doctor in season 5's "The Power of the Daleks," which is missing in its entirety; a rough glimpse of the transition from actor William Hartnell to Troughton is included, along with other surviving fragments. The complete episodes offered here are the sole remaining episode from season 4's "The Underwater Menace" (fragments from this story are included in the extras), episodes 2 and 4 from "The Moonbase," which features the return of the Cybermen (audio from episodes 1 and 3 is featured in the extras), episodes 1 and 3 from "The Faceless Ones," and episode 2 from "The Evil of the Daleks" (which includes commentary by actress Deborah Watling, who played the Doctor's companion, Victoria). Disc 2 marks the only episode from the Yetis' debut in "The Abominable Snowmen" (Watling again provides commentary), two episodes from "The Wheel in Space" (with commentary by director Tristan de Vere Cole and story editor Derrick Sherwin) and just one apiece for "The Web of Fear," "The Space Pirates," and "The Enemy of the World." Chief among the extras is the 1998 documentary The Missing Years, which interviews several of the film collectors responsible for rescuing these lost episodes and fragments (the doc has been updated to reflect the 2004 discovery of two William Hartnell episodes); the supplemental features offer fragments and behind-the-scenes footage from "The Macra Terror" (with a rare clip of the monsters), "Fury from the Deep" (which includes a scene reconstruction), "The Highlanders," and the aforementioned stories.

The William Hartnell Years and the Patrick Troughton Years are also available individually. Either scenario is sure to please the die-hard Doctor Who fan. --Paul Gaita

If, however, you know all about how the BBC decided back in the mid 70s that they had too many tapes lying around of the show, and decided to incinerate a bunch to save space, and wish the people doing it had thrown themselves in the incinerator instead, this release is for you.

This is your only chance to catch a glimpse of classic stories we, but for bad luck and bad decision making, might be able to watch in their entireties.

One bad thing, you'll be asking yourself when watching part 3 of The Celestial Toymaker "they junked The Web of Fear and kept this?!"....

There are some really good episodes in this set. Your enjoyment of them will be tempered only by the realization that you'll never get to see what happens next.

Excellent set though. I'd give it 6 stars if that were possible!