Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Theta Sigma]

Part 4 DVD notes:
A minor quibble with the notes here. At one time it referred to a frontage on Omega's left. Actually it's left from the viewer's perspective because for Omega it would be on his right.

An interesting thing from this episode is that the Doctor could not find a coin to use a pay phone which is in contrast to much later on in The Runaway Bride when the Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to use another pay phone.
Back in Arc of Infinity the Doctor would not have been able to use the sonic screwdriver for the pay phone in this story as his original one was destroyed four stories earlier in The Visitation. It is too bad that in the commentary Peter Davison did not mention this possibility even though he did mention Donna and The Runaway Bride was her first (full) episode!

[Theta Sigma]

In the Anti-Matter From Amsterdam special feature on the DVD it was mentioned there was a lot of running more than usual in the story. This make me wonder whether Arc of Infinity was the story that was on Russell T Davies' mind in particular when he wrote Utopia which also had lots of running around.

[Theta Sigma]

On the DVD there is a feature call The Omega Factor looking at Omega's character in The Three Doctors & Arc of Infinity as well the Omega audio story from Big Finish.

The Omega Factor is an allusion to the short-lived 1979 TV series of the same name which had Louise Jameson as a regular.

While I am not trying to complain about the use of this name for this feature as it is appropriate given the subject matter of Omega's character development, it would have been better if Arc of Infinity had been released prior to the current TV series in 2005 when there would have been an even chance of people who bought it of knowing what the allusion of The Omega Factor was (I said even chance as I don't know how well known The Omega Factor series is among Doctor Who fans [at least with non-British fans] in comparison to say Blake's 7).

However since the classic series DVDs is now also being bought by people who became fans as a result of the current TV series they may not understand the allusion of The Omega Factor and may not occur to them to look it up.

The Omega Factor feature has interviews with key contributors including original Omega Stephen Thorne. I was hoping that Thorne might give an answer of why he did not play Omega again in Arc of Infinity but alas there was none because as I said before this was about the character's development not about the process in casting the character.

[Theta Sigma]

I am currently re-watching Arc of Infinity as a result of the CGI effects and I am also re-reading the DVD notes:
As it has been noted Arc of Infinity was filmed in Amsterdam and the previous story that was filmed overseas was City of Death. Whereas John Nathan-Turner was the producer on Arc of Infinity, the notes says that on City of Death, he was the Production Assistant. He was actually the Production Unit Manager. A manager is hardly the same as assistant. I think a mistake like this undervalues the work that JNT has done on Doctor Who prior to him becoming producer.

Interestingly the City of Death notes did not mention JNT by name at all. It only refers to him as the (nameless) Production Unit Manager.

[Theta Sigma]

Part 4 DVD notes addendum:
Maya Woolfe played the hostel receptionist in Parts 1 and 4. In between her scenes in those two episodes the notes said that she changed her top to reflect that a few days had passed. However according to a dialogue spoken by her fellow receptionist only a day had passed.

[Theta Sigma]

I have been reading the DVD sleeve for Arc of Infinity, which is something I do after I finished with a DVD, and for the brief bio of Peter Davison it says that he took over Tom Baker as the Fifth Doctor. What a slight error here, and imagine Tom being the Fifth Doctor!

[slazza]

All episodes based on Gallifray are pretty much the same. This episode was ok but I wouldn't rave about it.