We sat down an watched the first episode of 'Jack The Ripper' with Barlow and Watt last night, even though it was a bit of a squeeze on the sofa with all four of us.
Lisa recorded a short video talking about it which you can watch here and we'll be carrying on with the series over the next few weeks.
Sadly, there's no official DVD release available, which has meant we've had to fall back on other sources, shall we say. Picture quality is pretty poor with a fair bit of flickering on some scenes and time-code slapped over the top left-hand corner.
Thank heavens for our training as 'Doctor Who' fans. as it's still better than my first copy of 'The Evil Of The Daleks' Episode 2, which had more snow on it than 'The Ice Warriors'. Come to think of it, my first copy of 'The Ice Warriors' was all time-codey, too.
With the Blu-ray of Season Twelve of 'Doctor Who' now looming on the horizon, it's ironic that my favourite bit on the DVD of 'Revenge Of The Cybermen' is the Nick Pegg / Ed Stradling documentary 'Cheques, Lies And Videotape' which examines those heady days of Pirate Video.
But, of course, in those days there was almost nothing officially available on VHS and for the dedicated fan a weekly trip to Woolworths to get a three-pack of blank videotapes was how you measured your dedication to the cause.
Picture quality was a seconday consideration, so long as it didn't look too awful. 'Cheques...' presents an interesting reconstruction of How We Used To Live, with an experiment in copying a scene from 'Revenge Of The Cybermen' down the generations until it begins to resemble the so-called 'blob in a snowstorm' mentioned in 'Carnival Of Monsters'.
Had the episodes been made available, we would of course have bought them and the same applies to this production of 'Jack The Ripper'. The short-lived BBC Store provided a glimmer of hope a while ago and we happily stocked up on 'The Swish Of The Curtain', 'The Phoenix And The Carpet' and all of Season Two of 'Rentaghost'.
In the end, we only got round to watching Fred Mumford and Co as the BBC Store unexpectedly vanished into the ether again, along with all our copies of stuff. We weren't out-of-pocket, though, as the way it worked meant that you got a full refund on everything you'd purchased. Essentially, the BBC rented us some 'Rentaghost' for free.
Now people like Network, Acorn and Simply Media do a grand job in getting rarer material out there, but if any of them could put this version of 'Jack The Ripper' on their forthcoming schedule, they'd be guaranteed at least a couple of pre-orders!
(By Andrew Trowbridge)
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