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Serial: 4S Episode Nos. 448, 449. 450, 451, 452, and 453. Title: The Talons of Weng-Chiang
The Doctor plans a night at a Victorian East End theater for Leela, but
instead they stumble upon a murder, one among a series being carried out at the
behest of the great magician Li H'Sen Chang for his god Weng-Chiang. The
Doctor's suspicions lead him to the Palace Theater, the sewers of
starring Tom Baker as Doctor Who and Louise Jameson as Leela. Written by Robert Holmes, Produced by Philip Hinchcliffe, and Directed by David Maloney.
Originally transmitted from
DVD features:
2 Discs.
On Disc 1:
- All 6 episodes of the serial, digitially restored.
- Graphical menus, episode selection features, and scene selection features.
- Commentary track. The participants are rotated on and off certain episodes as an aid to the jogging of memories. The commentators are: actors Louise
Jameson (Leela) on episodes 1,3-6, John Bennett (Li H’Sen Chang) on episodes 1,2,4-6, Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago) on episodes 1,2,4-6,
producer Philip Hinchcliffe on episodes 2,3,5 and 6, and director David Maloney on episodes 1-3,5-6.
- Production Notes subtitles.
- Original 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Subtitles option for the hearing impared.
On Disc 2:
- “Whose Doctor Who” – a 1977 BBC2 documentary running 1 hour that examined the program’s history, how it affects children, and went behind-the-scenes
on the making of The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
- Philip Hinchcliffe Interview – a 1977 BBC TV interview with producer Philip Hinchcliffe, running 11 minutes.
- Behind-the-Scenes – 24 minutes of poor quality “wild” video footage of the final Talons studio session.
- Blue Peter – 26 minutes of segments from 1970s
episodes of the children’s series Blue
Peter that taught children at home how to build their own Doctor Who
theater from items found around the house.
- 40th Anniversary Celebration – a 3 minute “music video” of clips from the entire series set to a reedited version of the theme music as recorded by dance club
music group Orbital.
- Subtitles option. All featurettes can be played with caption subtitles for the hearing impared.
- Trails and Continuity.
A little more than 2 minutes of the BBC announcers trailers for The Talons of Weng-Chiang and the Whose Doctor Who
documentary.
- Tardis Cam No. 6. A new 1-minute special effects featurette showing the TARDIS travelling in space, originally made for the BBCi Doctor Who website.
- Exclusive to the North American version: Howard Da Silva featurette. A 20-minute featurette that plays the Howard Da Silva-voiced introductory
narration for all 6 Talons
episodes used in the original 1978
restored video from the DVD and overlaid the narration on top of that, rather than use the poorer quality 1978 broadcast masters as on previous discs.
- Who’s Who – actor’s biographies
- Photo Gallery
- 1 Easter Egg. Highlight the blank-looking area below to see what it is and how to see it:
Highlight the “Tardis Cam No. 6” selection, then press your left arrow.
A Doctor Who logo will
appear. Select this,
and you will see the full-length opening
title sequence for Tom
Baker’s first six seasons without any captions on it.
There appears to be one authoring glitch, but it’s pretty harmless. When you select the “Behind the Scenes” featurette, a page of production information text that’s not really relevant to this featurette appears. It looks to me like it should belong at the very end of the main feature, and I’m not sure how it turned up here. Anyway, it soon disappears and then the featurette begins.
