Synopsis: The Abominable Snowmen sees the Tardis pay a visit to the Himalayas, where the Doctor decides to visit Det-Sen’s monastery. There, he and his companions find themselves in the middle of a mystery involving a sinister but familiar threat.
The history
The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria visit the Himalayas, where famed explorer Edward Travers, who is there to study the mysterious yeti, accuses them of murder. However, it soon becomes clear that the Doctor and his friends are innocent of the crime, as the docile Yetis turn aggressive and attack the monastery and the monks. After some investigation, it is revealed that the Great Intelligence is involved and has taken the Doctor’s old friend as their human host and has been operating the various parts of their plan from the monastery.
The acting
Patrick Troughton he’s as brilliant as ever as The Doctor and remains one of my favorite actors in the role on the classic version of the show. However, in this story, he is Deborah Watling who really stands out and has quite a bit to do as Victoria. In fact, this is a far cry from the version of Victoria most of us would have seen in the previous ‘Tomb of The Cybermen’ story, which is referenced in this story when Jamie (Frazer Hines) makes a comment in passing.
Also good in his role is Jack Watling as Edward Travers, who is determined to find his Yeti. Walking does a great job of bringing us the obsessed adventurer and gets a good time at the end of the episode.
blu-ray extras
Obviously with 5 parts of this six part story gone in the 60’s. This animated set is the first time we get to see the full story and thanks to the creators of this animation. There are several options on how to watch it, which are distributed on all three Blu-Ray discs. Disk One includes the black and white animated version. Disc two includes the color version and disc three includes the restored surviving episode 2 and photographic reconstructions of episodes 1,3,4,5 and 6.
Other extras include the making of the documentary, audio commentary, some 8mm home movie footage, an archive interview with story writer Mervyn Haisman, a photo gallery, a teaser trailer, and PDF Rom content.
General
When I first heard about the Doctor Who story The Abominable Snowmen back in the 80’s. It was one of those stories I’ve always wanted to see. So naturally I pre-ordered this set as soon as it was available and I was not disappointed.
I found myself glued to the television as I watched this intriguing mystery story unfold throughout the six episodes. We get great performances from all the actors and The Yeti makes for an interesting monster who’s pretty harmless unless he takes orders from him.
Overall, The Abominable Snowmen has to be among the best second Doctor stories. And I am very grateful that the BBC managed to preserve all the surviving audio in order to animate this story.
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