The Talons of Weng-Chiang is one of the very best Doctor Who stories, a six-part adventure set in a Gothic Victorian London inspired by The Phantom of the Opera and Sax Rohmer's tales of Fu Manchu, with nods towards Jack the Ripper, Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. The final story from the show's Golden Age (Philip Hinchcliff's three-year tenure as Producer), boasts superior production values and a bizarre storyline involving a time-travelling war criminal, giant rats in the London sewers and a malevolent ventriloquist's doll with the brain of a pig.

Pitted against this flamboyant madness, largely centred on an East End music hall run by the self-important Henry Gordon Jago (a memorable performance by Christopher Benjamin) are Tom Baker's fourth Doctor, in pre-self-parody top form, and Louise Jameson's Leela at her primal best. There's strong support from Trevor Baxter as the Watson-like Professor Lightfoot, and John Bennett as the villainous Li H'sen Chang. Really helping matters is the first-rate direction from David "Genesis of the Daleks" Maloney, evoking a creepy atmosphere in a fantasy London of shadows and fog. Weng-Chiang was the pinnacle of Gothic Who and still remains highly enjoyable entertainment.

On the DVD: Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang offers all six original episodes with good, if variable, 4:3 picture and crisp and clear mono sound. There is also highly informative on-screen trivia text and a lively group commentary with David Maloney, Louise Jameson, John Bennett and Christopher Benjamin. The highlight of Disc 2 is an hour-long documentary, Whose Doctor Who, shown on BBC2 the day after the final episode of "Weng-Chiang" aired. Also included is 23 minutes of extremely poor quality b/w timecoded video production footage and--much more fun--26 minutes worth of clips from Blue Peter with Lesley Judd, John Noakes and Peter Purvis showing how to build a Doctor Who music-hall theatre. There's also an interesting 11-minute 1977 interview with Philip Hinchcliffe, continuity announcements and trailers, a photo gallery, a short new animation, Tardis Cam No. 6, and optional subtitles. --Gary S Dalkin

If there is one genre the Beeb does well it's the costume drama and perhaps this is why this eccentric gem is the peak of classic Who. It is set in the foggy streets of Victorian London where the deerstalker-wearing Fourth Doctor and Leela are searching for the abductor of young women; okay, so far so cliched. What is lurking in the sewers? But what connects the dark plot to Li H'Sen Chang, a Fu Manchu-like leader of a Tong group and a sinister illusionist? How can Chang get Mr Sin, his ventriloquist's dummy, to appear so alive? Is the Doctor the only time traveller walking the 19th century's most important city?

This is a simply superb story written by Robert Holmes the series' greatest writer and script-edtor plus its the last story directed by the great David Maloney who promptly left to be involved in "Blake's 7" and the last adventure to be produced by Peter Hinchcliffe who masterminded many Who classics,a golden era misnamed "gothic" by Whovians, so this is both a great story and a momentous milestone in the series' history.

Maloney cleverly shot a lot of the adventure on location and therefore we get a tangible sense of atmospheric tension so the wild set of plot influences (Conan Doyle's Holmes, Rohmer's Fu Manchu and Laroux's Phantom) are grounded into as much reality as any story which features a pig-brained midget oinking like a pig at its climax can possibly hope or strive for.

Baker would never be so consistent brilliant again and arguably the show would be caught in a tailspin for many years in the Williams and Nathan Turner eras. But Louise Jamieson is also superb as Leela at her bravest and most heroic. Add in great roles for John Bennett as the honourable but villianous Chang, Christopher Benjamin as the lovable theatrical fraud Jago and Trevor Baxter as the delightful old buffer Professor Lightfoot. But Michael Spice and Deep Roy both deserve special praise for portraying menace purely through gestures and voices under bulky masks as Greel and Sin.

The extras are good- a chatty commentary, an overly earnest documentary and a nostagic Blue Peter selection of "makes" - a Doctor Who puppet theatre and a truly naff lesson in sound effect by series stalwart Dick Mills.But the oddest extra is the poor quality backstage footage - why?

Overall, perhaps the best Who adventure ever and a great piece of work in its own right. Essential viewing,my dear Watson.

The Bad: Bit on the long side - as a previous reviewer commented, this surely could have been condensed into 4 episodes?? The story swings from taut, moody & suspenseful to silly at times, and the picture quality is a
little grainy against other releases.
The Good: Very atmospheric and moody with great set design; fog, gas lamps, cobbled streets, dockyards, East End music halls, sewer tunnels. Elements of Sherlock Holmes, Jack The Ripper movies such as Murder By Decree, Phantom Of The Opera, The Hammer classics and even Fu Manchu!
The premise of Chinese occultism/future technology in Victorian London is certainly interesting, and the acting and direction are reasonably solid. Baker is somehow more restrained here, in tone with the very moody feel.
FX vary from poor; The giant rats in the sewers that look more like Roland Rat (appalling sound fx too!) to excellent; the living, ventriloquists Chinese Dummy, Mr Sin. VERY sinister, even now!
Certainly more emphasis on (mild) horror than SciFi, similiar to Pyramids Of Mars or Horror Of Fang Rock in that respect.
I'll be honest, I hadn't seen this since I was 9 back in 1977 - it hasn't aged as well as say the aforementioned Mars (I'm not a big fan of the Leela character either) but I still enjoyed it, and would recommend.
The main villain is a decent character, if a little overacted, and I was impressed with the make up FX when his disfigured face was revealed - reminded me of Cropsy from the 1981 Slasher flick, The Burning!

It was very sad that this supposedly uncut version of the classic serial still had one small cut and one significant cut from the original broadcast version. Both cuts are from Leela's fight scenes, the first small cut is of her strangling a chinese henchman with his pigtail, the second cut is more substantial and severely reduces the scene where she fights the alien villian by diving down on to him and strangling him until she thinks he is dead, as faithfully described in the target book of the same name.So in conclusion the BBC claim that this is uncut is an untruth, mistaken or otherwise.

Disappointing this one. It starts off so promisingly, all Victorian fog and Eastern nastiness, with Tom Baker doing his best Sherlock Holmes impression...before it well and truly outstays its welcome by at least 2 episodes (the thing is 6 episodes long!). It gets very, very silly. Even if you ignore the giant rat.

Worth a look if your local library has it in, but don't waste your money. There are much better Tom Baker adventures (Genesis Of The Daleks, Horror Of Fang Rock, Pyramids Of Mars, etc etc) that you might actually want to watch a second time, unlike this one! I cannot believe the Amazon review describes this as "one of the very best", it SO isn't!

Most people overlook the classic episodes of Doctor Who which don't contain daleks or cybermen. The Talons of Weng-Chiang however, should not be. This is a two disc set that has a very high standard of extras as well as a cracking story line. I'll start with the extras which are great. They include commentry and a "making of" feature that is very enjoyable to watch. The story is a long six parter, but despite this the action keeps you gripped, and even though it is early days for the Doctor and Leela they are getting along nicely. The rest of the cast are on top form with some great lines between them. with Opium, suicide, murder and floating dead bodies this is definately a darker more adult Doctor who than some others. Full marks to the director and costume designer as they really made you feel like you had gone back in time. The sets are also accurate and detailed.

This is Baker at his best and you should definately consider adding it to your collection.