Doctor Who Season 5 Vol. 2 - DVD

Content: The Doctor is back! In the second part of the fifth season (<link cinema s movie doctor-who-season-51-dvd-great-united-kingdom-2010.html _blank>all about the background and the first part of the fifth season can be found HERE) of Doctor Who, the Time Lord (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) first meet old acquaintances of the Doctor. On several occasions already, the Doctor has had to deal with the Silurian people, who are once again looking to stake their claim to world domination. After initial difficulties, he seems to actually succeed in ending this confrontation through diplomacy. But then the story takes a dangerous turn.

After the box's thrilling opening two-parter comes one of the absolute season highlights. In the episode, written by Richard Curtis (Love Actually) and featuring a small guest appearance by the wonderful Bill Nighy, the Doctor and Karen travel to the 19th century, where they meet none other than Vincent van Gough (Tony Curran), who appears to be suffering from delusions. He keeps seeing a strange creature that he has captured in one of his paintings. But the Doctor knows that the monster is not a figment of his imagination, but a damn real threat. But will facing this alien foe be enough for the great artist to conquer his inner demons as well?

After this first-rate episode, which beautifully incorporates much of van Gough's work into the episode's imagery, the Doctor tries his hand at lodging with the shy Craig, who has no idea that a dangerous monster lives in his house. At the same time, Amy, trapped in the TARDIS, desperately tries to re-establish contact with the Doctor. It's an entertaining episode that scores with plenty of humour and a very likeable finale for the hopelessly in love Craig.

Closing the season is a brilliant two-parter that not only brings back Amy's fiancé Rory in a slightly different way, but also confronts the Doctor with some of his worst enemies. For the Daleks have joined forces with the Cybermen and other races to destroy the Doctor for good. Ostensibly this is to save the universe, but the Doctor realises there's a dangerous flaw in the plan that could spell the end of all life. The two-parter not only briefly reunites some of the characters from season five, but also perfectly brings Matt Smith and Karen Gillan full circle to the first episode of this first season. Of course, the whole thing is not always logical, the humor and the design of the aliens sometimes again very special, but especially the finale of the 5th season shows very clearly what makes this series so popular especially in England, but increasingly also in the U.S. and hopefully also in Germany.

Action, adventure, fantasy, science fiction, romance, mystery, suspense and a lot of humor, all combines Doctor Who to a very special whole, to which you have to get admittedly. But whoever succeeds in doing so will quickly realize what has made the Doctor one of the greatest cult figures in TV history for five decades now. We can only hope that the success of these DVD (and Blu-ray) releases will spread to Germany and that we will get to see the next seasons and specials and with a lot of luck maybe even the two remaining seasons with David Tennant as the Doctor. But since this is for the moment still pure wishful thinking, applies first of all to this second box of the 5th season: absolutely recommendable!

Picture + Sound: Here nothing has changed compared to the first box: The picture is clean and free of any interference. In addition, the picture pleases with strong colors, good sharpness and decent contrasts. The audio, available in Dolby Digital 5.1, can boast some good surround effects. Dialogue is mixed with good intelligibility, and the music is coherently integrated into the action. Good!

Extras: Also the second box of the fifth season has again plenty of worth seeing bonus material to offer. It starts with a very nice booklet, which introduces the individual episodes, but also goes into the history of the series and introduces new as well as old acquaintances of the Doctor, who appear in the six episodes.

Continues with an optionally subtitled audio commentary on disc 1 and 2 each. The bulk of the bonus material, however, fans will find on the third DVD. Here there is a video diary by Matt Smith (approx. 10 min.), two more monster acts (each approx. 10 min.), as well as amusing outtakes from the entire fifth season (approx. 7 min.). Of course, the Confidentials that accompany each episode are not to be missed, each of which takes a closer look at individual aspects of the respective episodes in just under 15 minutes. Here viewers can also accompany Matt Smith and Karen Gillan on a visit to New York, where they meet very enthusiastic American Who fans for the first time. Together, these behind-the-scenes documentaries offer 90 minutes of very watchable making-of material that fans should definitely not miss!

Conclusion:The final six episodes of Doctor Who's fifth season once again offer science fiction/fantasy entertainment of a very special kind. Whether it's the wonderful episode with Vincent van Gogh or the great two-part season finale, the Doctor's adventures filled with humor, quirky characters, lots of charm and suspense are just really fun. The three DVDs of the second season set present the individual episodes again in good picture and sound quality and also come with lots of great extras. We can only hope that German fans won't have to wait too long for more seasons and the various specials. Absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp