COMING SOON: Total Extermination - Peter Cushing's Dr. Who

By Kara Dennison 4:00 AM doctor who, work by kara

I'm not unaccustomed to NDAs in my line of work, but it never gets easier to sit and wait for the opportunity to tell people something cool you know or have done. Fortunately, I now get to: I'm in the featurettes for the upcoming 4K UHD release of Peter Cushing's Dr. Who films from Severin Films.

If you don't know what the Cushing Dr. Who films are... welcome, you are from outside my usual demographic! These two films—Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD—are adaptations of the First Doctor serials The Daleks and The Dalek Invasion of Earth. While they adapt the early series history of the Daleks relatively faithfully, they take liberties with the core cast. For example, Dr. Who (his government name) is a human man tinkering with a homemade time machine, Susan is a literal child rather than a teen, Barbara is another of Dr. Who's granddaughter, and Ian is Roy Castle having an especially awkward day.

When I was approached about being a part of this release, I was told they wanted insight other than behind-the-scenes information. And, seeing what other extras are included, I understand why! Each movie has multiple audio commentary tracks, interviews with cast and crew, and even special features about the 4K restoration itself. The extras across both discs add up to more than ten hours, covering pretty much everything you could hope to know about the films.

Given my background with the Black Archive and my interest in how Doctor Who as a show is put together, I wanted to explore how we look at these movies as modern viewers. While plenty of fans remember these films fondly, they're often also judged based on how (or whether) they slot into Doctor Who canon as we know it. And there's so, so much more to them. How they work as films on their own, why they existed in the first place, and what we miss when we concentrate on canon-welding over meeting these movies where they are.

Beyond that, you'll have to check out the featurette!

While it's not my first time talking about a piece of media (I do that to some degree every day), it was my first time having a film crew in my house. Nervous? Extremely. But the people filming were lovely, we chatted about Doctor Who and anime, and my living room was rearranged for filming and then put back again by afternoon. It was also a good opportunity to get out some of my own model Daleks for set dressing.

I've not seen the full featurette, but you can see a wee clip of me within the first two minutes of Severin Films' March release trailer.

My own involvement aside, I'm extremely excited about this new release. It's going to be amazing to have restored versions of both films, and the people involved with the extras are lovely. Robert Shearman, Mark Gatiss, Mike Tucker, Emily Cook, and so many more people who are really wise about this series and its workings are all involved. I'm especially looking forward to the audio commentary featuring Roberta Tovey (who played Susan) and the archival interview with the late Bernard Cribbins. The first disc will also include the 1995 documentary Dalekmania, which I can't wait to have in my library.

Total Extermination: The Peter Cushing Doctor Who Collection drops on June 24. The slipcase release comes with that awesome case above and both films. You can also order each film separately. My featurette, Kara and the Daleks, will be on the Dr. Who and the Daleks disc.