Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka: DVD Review

Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka: DVD Review

Rating: PG
Released by BBC and Roadshow Home Entertainment

It's hard to fathom but back in 2003, the BBC had no plans to celebrate Doctor Who's 40th anniversary and the prospect of the show returning to TV was still a fan's wet dream.

So, Cosgrove Hall (the animators behind Danger Mouse) were commissioned to make an animation - and the Scream of The Shalka was born.

In the first ever animated Who, broadcast on the BBC's website, Richard E Grant is the ninth Doctor who lands the TARDIS in an English village in 2003 where an alien is holding the villagers to ransom through fear. Befriending a bartender called Alison (Nina Sosanya) the Doctor decides to take on the alien menace, aka the Shalka...

The Scream of the Shalka isn't bad Doctor Who and it isn't bad animation for the time - granted, given today's standard of animated fare, it looks a little rough here and there, but back in 2003, amid the world of dial up, it did a great job of delivering what was needed. Richard E Grant's Doctor is an angular Gothic faced creation who is a little cold and cutting (making him occasionally hard to warm to) but he certainly presents a tantalising premise as to what could have been had the show not gone on.

Extras are a little light on this piece, but one brilliant documentary (The Interweb of Fear) is a fascinating look at how the web developed at the BBC and how Doctor Who was there from the start. It's hard to believe we were once so internet deficient, but this time capsule is a captivating mini doco.

Extras: Commentary, behind the scenes piece and cast and crew interviews.

Rating: