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Doctor Who: The Key to Time

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Doctor Who: The Key to Time BBC: UK 1978-79; 2 entertain/Region 2: Certificate PG:1.100 minutes: Aspect Ratio 4:3: Features: audio commentaries. making-of featurettes. 'Late Night Story' series. retrospective documentaries. photo galleries. continuities, subtitle production notes

Programmes: With the success of 24. Lost and 1 !ewes, serial drama is right back in fashion, yet none of those shows has anything like the conceptual daring and sheer chutzpah of Babylon 5, a low-budget SF saga that was plotted to span across five seasons. Production compromises meant that it didn't end quite as planned, and creator J. Michael Straczynski has subsequently written a variety of follow-ups, the latest of which Warner is releasing directly on to DVD. Shot predominantly on virtual sets, it contrasts magical manipulation and religious theology in two stories about aliens possessing the minds of humans in the run up to a coming apocalypse. The plots are as neatly worked out as ever, while the dialogue, as with the original show, is high-minded and only occasionally flatfooted.

Doctor Who DVDs are the jewel in the BBC home-video crown and this latest release is the most expansive so far; encompassing the entirety of the show's 16th season -- one of the few occasions when an overarching plot ran through all its stories — it sees the Doctor and Romana caught up in the machinations of two über-beings warring for control of the universe. The highlights include Robert Holmes' story of conmen posing as intergalactic estate agents and a clever Douglas Adams script about a planet that eats other planets. Discs: The Babylon 5 disc offers a superb anamorphic transfer and 5.1 sound, while extras include an interview with Straczynski and moving tributes to original cast members Richard Biggs and Andreas Katsulas. The Doctor Who transfers are also very good; the extras provide an extraordinarily broad look at one year in the life of the making of a cult television series. (SA)


The Key to Time Encompassing the 16th 'Doctor Who' season in its entirety, it provides an extraordinarily broad look at a year in the life of a cult TV series

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  • APA 6th ed.: (November 2007). Doctor Who: The Key to Time. Sight & Sound p. 90.
  • MLA 7th ed.: "Doctor Who: The Key to Time." Sight & Sound [add city] November 2007, 90. Print.
  • Chicago 15th ed.: "Doctor Who: The Key to Time." Sight & Sound, edition, sec., November 2007
  • Turabian: "Doctor Who: The Key to Time." Sight & Sound, November 2007, section, 90 edition.
  • Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Doctor Who: The Key to Time | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who:_The_Key_to_Time | work=Sight & Sound | pages=90 | date=November 2007 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=4 November 2024 }}</ref>
  • Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Doctor Who: The Key to Time | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who:_The_Key_to_Time | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=4 November 2024}}</ref>