A friend just asked which commentaries he should listen to first. So I suggested:

• Earthshock. This is possibly the best commentary ever! Peter Davison is in fine form, as are his compatriots in arms! Actually, most Davision commentaries are worth a listen.
• The Brain of Morbius The commentators are in fine form in this one, with some real laugh-out-loud moments! This is one of those commentaries where they sound like they're having a great time, almost blokes-down-the-pub in style, unlike some that try to be too technical.
  
• The Five Doctors For those who don't know, the special edition has an easter egg commentary by David Tennant, Phil Collinson and Helen Raynor hiding on the original broadcast version. Unashamed fan-boy alert, and a great laugh.
• Spearhead from Space. If for nothing else, this was the first commentary to feature Nick Courtney!

In many ways this release was bound to cause a bit of a kerfuffle, with the extended version being the version of the story that many remember. There were times watching the story when I kept thinking "I'm sure there was another line there!", and of course it was from the extended cut. Unlike, say, Fenric, the cut plot wasn't quite so important in the grand scheme of things ... coming into the last scenes in the hangar I hadn't a faintest clue what Lady Peinforte was meant to be doing - I know she was insane, but still the whole ranting on and then throwing herself onto the statue - WTF? Even the Cyberleader looked surprised, quite a feat considering the faceless metal mask!

Ah yes, the Cybermen. Okay, so I get that it was a silver anniversary and they are, well, silver(ish), but this whole barfing at the mere sight of gold is just getting a bit on the silly side - especially as the boxed set with Revenge shows the other side to this plot point - Cybermen walking around the planet of gold with no real ill-effects whatsoever. The production notes indicate that in the original they weren't to "die" immediately they are hit by gold, so it's a shame this was changed.

Actually, having commented on the extended cut, there's still very little going on in the story, overall. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing through time, and then quite a lot of sitting about in episode two waiting for something to happen. "Social workers" ... Mrs Remington ... with 75 minutes-odd of screen estate this could all have been tightened a bit with a little more action. But then this was the 1980s style of production (yet again with Fenric it couldn't all fit into 100 minutes!).

Shame about the extras, really, too. In my mottley collection of off-air bits and pieces I had Andy Crane beating off a cyberman in the broom cupboard, Open Air's anniversary thoughts (with Jon Pertwee!), plus the Points of View segment which was mentioned in the production notes, all of which could have been included. Not so sure about Daytime Live, though, being "the other channel" 'n' all!

Money on another "Revisitations" release in the future ...