Life on Earth

Life on Earth was a 2|entertain DVD documentary about the making of the Doctor Who serial, Terror of the Autons.

Original to DVD
Terror of the Autons


As a general overview of production, it covered many topics. It concentrated however on two themes: the reconfiguration of Doctor Who by grounding the Doctor on Earth as an adjunct to UNIT, and contrasting the series' storytelling of the early 1970s with that of the modern BBC Wales era.

The title of the documentary, "Life on Earth", reflected both themes. In addition to the obvious reference to the Doctor being exiled to Earth, the examination of how technology, social mores, and television story telling have changed since the early 1970s paralleled the 2006-2007 BBC drama series, Life on Mars; the opening titles to the documentary played up the similarity, being a blatant parody of Life on Mars opening titles sequence. One of the key characters discussed is the Master who, in the BBC Wales era, is portrayed by Life on Mars star, John Simm; his character on the latter series, Sam Tyler, was named by series creator Matthew Graham's daughter in homage to then-current companion Rose Tyler.

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