Web is as beautifully restored as Enemy of the World was. It is as stunningly clear as if it was filmed yesterday. It's wonderfully atmospheric, with the echoing of underground tunnels. They look exactly like the tunnels I've seen through the windows of the underground in Glasgow. And the set designers have put in a couple of fun little background pieces. At one point the Doctor confronts some Yeti in front of a poster for a film called "Blockbuster", whose tag line describes their own base under siege situation. And when Jamie is alone on a platform, he stands next to a Scottish Nationalist Party poster (what that would be doing in London I've no idea).
The let down is episode 3. The telesnaps do not appear to have been cleared up in any way. The ones of characters in motion are blurred, the rest simply fuzzy. There are a couple of snaps of scenery that are nice and clear, but any with characters or yeti are disappointingly unclear. At one point the people who put together the telesnaps acknowledge that you can't tell what's happening and subtitle them to tell you! The BBC web page that talks about the discovery of the episodes and announces a DVD release for then (25th November for Enemy and 24th February for Web) makes no mention of whether this episode is being animated, but the deadline for release suggests it might not be, which is a shame. I hope for the DVD release they do at least clear up the snaps. I'm sure it's a very different job from cleaning up film, but there must be some way to at least decrease the fuzziness.
Ten years ago, this was voted DW's tenth greatest ever story, despite no one having seen it in full since it's first transmission. I can honestly say that it can now move up that list. It is a wonderful threatening story. Other than some hamming from the actor playing Evans (who also insists on calling everyone "boyo" to prove his Welshness), the cast are strong. Everyone takes their job seriously and they really sell the fact that London has been taken over and they are trapped in the underground.
As Lethbridge-Stewart's (you can't really call him "The Brigadier" yet) first appearance, you can see why they brought him back, though having watched him since I was small, it's odd now to see him under suspicion of being a traitor. He shows a despair in episode 4 that I can't ever recall seeing in him in later stories. He also immediately trusts in what the Doctor is saying ordering a rescue attempt for the TARDIS, without really knowing whether or not to believe the Doctor's assertions of its ability to help them escape.
I'm just so happy to have been able to watch this at last, and it didn't let me down. It was as fantastic as I always hoped it would be. Today's children will be watching it from behind the sofa just like the children who watched it in 1968.
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