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Serial: 5H  Episode Nos. 510, 511, 512, and 513.  Title: City of Death

In 400 million years B.C., a Jagaroth spaceship crash-landed on primordial Earth.  When the crew attempted to lift off with warp drive, the ship was destroyed and one of their number, Scaroth, fractured into twelve versions of himself and scattered throughout human history.  One of these lives is the life of Count Scarlioni in Paris in 1979, and he is financing experiments in time travel with the money gained from the selling of art treasures long thought lost.  With the theft of the Mona Lisa and the sale of it and six other copies, he hopes to get all he needs to enable him to travel back in time and stop his original self from pressing the button, however, as the Doctor realizes, this would have dire consequences for the history of humanity if allowed to happen...

starring Tom Baker as Doctor Who, and Lalla Ward as Romana. Written by David Agnew, Produced by Graham Williams, and Directed by Michael Hayes.

Originally transmitted from 29 September 1979 to 20 October 1979 on BBC1.

DVD Features:

2 discs:

On Disc 1:

- All 4 episodes of the story, digitally remastered and restored.

- Graphical menus, episode selection feature, and scene selection feature (on both discs).

- Commentary track with actors Julian Glover (The Count), Tom Chadbon (Duggan), and with director Michael Hayes.

- Subtitles for the hearing impaired (on both discs).

- Information Text. Displays pop-up production trivia as the episodes play.

- 1 Easter Egg. Highlight the blank area below with your mouse to see what it is and how to find it:

- Watch Part Four all the way through the credits. After they finish, you will see the original broadcast trailer that ran on

BBC1 at the conclusion of this episode in 1979. This advertises the subsequent story, The Creature from the Pit.

On Disc 2:

- “Paris in the Springtime” An exquisitely-made 44-minute featurette about the production process of this story.

It features interviews with co-writer and script editor Douglas Adams (from 1985 and 1992), former script editor

Anthony Read, co-writer David Fisher, director Michael Hayes, new series TV writers Steven Moffat and Robert Shearman,

Pennant Roberts (director of other Douglas Adams-written stories), actors Catharine Schell (the Countess),

Tom Chadbon (Duggan), and Julian Glover (the Count/Scaroth). Written by book and Big Finish audio author Jonathan Morris.

Narrated by Big Finish and latter-day Hitch Hiker’s Guide actor Toby Longworth. Produced by Ed Stradling.

(and it also features the original storyline for The Gamble With Time, which was David Fisher’s original storyline that

was eventually turned into City of Death, and a little bit of the title sequence and theme music from the new TV series,

which makes this its US debut)

- “Paris, W12” A 20-minute featurette of black and white videotape taken from a studio reel that was running continuously during

one of the City of Death studio sessions, so you see a deleted scene, and numerous bloopers and behind-the-scenes setting-up

and so on. (and it includes what is sure to be a new classic Tom Baker-ism, to be quoted on T-shirts forevermore :) )

- “Prehistoric Landscapes” 2-1/2 minute featurette showing the visual effects film sequences of the prehistoric Earth landscape and

the Jagaroth spaceship.

- “Chicken Wrangler” Almost 3 minutes of visual effects designer Ian Scoones filming chickens of various ages for the sequence in

the story where Prof. Kerensky ages a chicken from an egg

- Photo Gallery. 8-1/2 minutes of production stills.

- “Eye on... Blatchford” A new 13-minute spoof featurette from the people who brought us “Oh Mummy” on the Pyramids of Mars DVD.

This time we visit with Sardoth, the 2^nd-to-the-last of the Jagaroth, and his life in the village of Blatchford. It also features

Gabriel Woolf in a cameo role. (he played Sutekh in “Oh Mummy” and of course in the original Pyramids of Mars TV show)

- The 1980 Doctor Who Annual. A .pdf file viewable on computers with DVD-ROM drives of the entire contents of the 1980

Doctor Who Annual book.

- 4 more Easter eggs, for a total of 5 on this set. (that’s a new record) Highlight the blank area below with your mouse to see

what they are and where they are.

- Egg 1. Highlight the “Paris in the Springtime” selection and then press the left arrow. A Doctor Who logo will appear.

Click this and you will see a 2-minute featurette of a spoof electronic sales brochure for your very own Jagaroth spaceship.

- Egg 2. Highlight the “Chicken Wranger” selection and then press the left arrow. A logo will appear again, and if you click

this, you will get 6-1/2 minutes of Douglas Adams from the 1985 interview used for “Paris in the Springtime” where he

tells a highly amusing story of how he and Ken Grieve (the upcoming director for Destiny of the Daleks) flew over to

Paris at no notice to visit the crew after filming.

- Egg 3. Highlight the “Eye on...Blatchford” selection and do as you’ve been doing. Clicking the logo this time will play

“Bad Woolf,” which is about 2 minutes of Gabriel Woolf waffling on and ad-libbing as his character from the Blatchford

featurette.

- Egg 4. Highlight the “1980 Dr. Who Annual” selection, and yes, it’s the left arrow logo trick again. This will play a 20-second

bit of John Cleese going up to Tom Baker and asking for his autograph for his son.