Behind the Sofa: Robert Holmes and Doctor Who is a 45 minute long documentary featured on the second disc of the 2 disc DVD special edition release of Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (1985) & focuses on that particular stories writer Robert Holmes who also penned several other Doctor Who stories & was the show's script editor at one point during the 70's.
Holmes is considered one of the finest writers to have worked on Doctor Who & I must admit although I haven't seen all of his stories the ones I have I've really liked because he always pushed the limits & his stories were always trying to be scary & slightly macabre.
The documentary starts by giving us some background on Holmes like he lied about his age to join the army for instance & then a few minutes is given to detailing every story he wrote for the show starting with the Patrick Troughton story The Krotons (1968) from season 6 right through to his last story The Two Doctors which is probably why this documentary appears on The Two Doctors DVD & there is also a passage about his time as a script editor on the show, it's all pretty interesting & interviews from his producers & the people that worked around him give a nice insight into probably the most consistently best writer on Doctor Who. As usual Terrance Dicks is a great talker, he remains on subject, he's straight forward & honest & seems to remember a lot while I've always liked Philip Hinchcliffe in these DVD documentaries as well so their presence is welcome. I'm not sure what happened to Eric Saward though, it seemed to me he didn't have his microphone turned on & his voice sounds low & echo-ey if that makes sense.
There is no footage of him, except in a very brief & according to Terrance Dicks a very staged extract from the The Lively Arts: Whose Doctor Who? (1977) documentary shot at the time The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) was being filmed, so I guess he never did any interviews although judging by some of the black and white photos they show of him he looked a bit like Jaws from the James Bond films! There are plenty of clips, facts & stories to keep anyone interested in the production of Doctor Who quiet for 45 minutes although I'm not sure how readily available this would be, I don't think it's ever been broadcast & therefore you would have to track The Two Doctors DVD down to see it but since that's a great story & it's a great DVD overall it's worth it.
Behind the Sofa: Robert Holmes and Doctor Who is another great documentary on the classic Doctor Who range of DVD's which have so much effort put into them, they are consistently excellent & very informative on aspects of the show & the people behind the scenes which otherwise the general public would never know about. As a free extra on a DVD it's great & as a documentary about possibly Doctor Who's greatest writer it's also great, well worth a watch.
Holmes is considered one of the finest writers to have worked on Doctor Who & I must admit although I haven't seen all of his stories the ones I have I've really liked because he always pushed the limits & his stories were always trying to be scary & slightly macabre.
The documentary starts by giving us some background on Holmes like he lied about his age to join the army for instance & then a few minutes is given to detailing every story he wrote for the show starting with the Patrick Troughton story The Krotons (1968) from season 6 right through to his last story The Two Doctors which is probably why this documentary appears on The Two Doctors DVD & there is also a passage about his time as a script editor on the show, it's all pretty interesting & interviews from his producers & the people that worked around him give a nice insight into probably the most consistently best writer on Doctor Who. As usual Terrance Dicks is a great talker, he remains on subject, he's straight forward & honest & seems to remember a lot while I've always liked Philip Hinchcliffe in these DVD documentaries as well so their presence is welcome. I'm not sure what happened to Eric Saward though, it seemed to me he didn't have his microphone turned on & his voice sounds low & echo-ey if that makes sense.
There is no footage of him, except in a very brief & according to Terrance Dicks a very staged extract from the The Lively Arts: Whose Doctor Who? (1977) documentary shot at the time The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) was being filmed, so I guess he never did any interviews although judging by some of the black and white photos they show of him he looked a bit like Jaws from the James Bond films! There are plenty of clips, facts & stories to keep anyone interested in the production of Doctor Who quiet for 45 minutes although I'm not sure how readily available this would be, I don't think it's ever been broadcast & therefore you would have to track The Two Doctors DVD down to see it but since that's a great story & it's a great DVD overall it's worth it.
Behind the Sofa: Robert Holmes and Doctor Who is another great documentary on the classic Doctor Who range of DVD's which have so much effort put into them, they are consistently excellent & very informative on aspects of the show & the people behind the scenes which otherwise the general public would never know about. As a free extra on a DVD it's great & as a documentary about possibly Doctor Who's greatest writer it's also great, well worth a watch.
