Trailers | “The Macra Terror”, Doctor Who season sets

There Is No Macra…Wait, There They Are

“The Macra Terror” DVD and Blu-ray debuts in the United Kingdom March 18, 2019. No official release yet exists for North America. There’s an Amazon entry for “The Macra Terror”, though. Audio, clips and stills exist for this serial, yet the full video version of “The Macra Terror” no longer exists.

The Macra appeared in “Gridlock” four decades after their first appearance in 1967, with nothing television-wise since then. Even with CGI, giant crabs aren’t versatile enough to build classic Who villain status around. “The Macra Terror” is best known for updating Doctor Who’s title sequence for the first time since its 1963 debut. It’s still nice to see “new” Second Doctor material on Blu-ray, especially given the material’s age.


“Well done, Adric.”

Tom Baker’s final Doctor Who season Blu-ray debuts in North America March 19, 2019. Also below is a fan trailer for Peter Davison’s first Who season Blu-ray, which released in North America December 4, 2018. In 2018, it’s no secret what moment was prepared for with the Fourth and Fifth Doctors.

The classic Doctor Who season Blu-rays fit a thematic release instead of a chronological one. On one level, it makes sense – they’re the first two seasons produced by John Nathan-Turner. This is also the period where Doctor Who struggles to figure out what it is in the post-espionage-and-Gothic-horror periods. Also, K-9 and Company exists in this era. Yes, Hecate worship and robot dogs co-exist in the same pilot.

Baker’s trailer sells the eighteenth season well – as off-brand as “Meglos” is and as odd a spinoff as K-9 and Company is, they’re not glossed over. For all early-1980s Who’s spangly, garish glory, there’s some worth in the eighteenth and nineteenth seasons. If nothing else, a children’s show with a periphery demographic acting like it’s serious business is good for a few laughs.



C. Archer
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