The
Frequently Asked Questions List for
Doctor
Who DVDs and Blu-Ray
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Compiled by Steve Manfred, smanfred at comcast.net
(change at to @ and remove the spaces to email me)
UPCOMING RELEASES
The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Fifth Season
(6 30-minute episodes comprising 3 stories, 1 DVD disc, $19.98)
Doctor Who: The Seeds of Death Special Edition starring Patrick Troughton
(6 25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98)
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks Special Edition starring Peter Davison
(2 50-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98)
Doctor Who: The Krotons starring Patrick Troughton
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98) and
Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks starring Jon Pertwee
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor
Who: Spearhead from Space Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(4 25-minute episodes, 1
DVD disc, $24.98) and
Doctor
Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy starring
Sylvester McCoy
(4 25-minute episodes, 1
DVD disc, $24.98)
LATEST RELEASES
Doctor Who: Nightmare of
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: Dragonfire starring Sylvester McCoy
(3 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98) and
Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol starring Sylvester McCoy
(3 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: The Dæmons starring Jon Pertwee
(5 25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98) and
Doctor Who: Carnival of Monsters Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(4 episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98)
Torchwood: Miracle Day starring John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Bill Pullman, Mekhi
Phifer, Alexa Havins, and Kai Owen
(10 60-minute episodes, 4 DVDs for $49.98 or 4 Blu-Ray discs for $59.98)
Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen Special Edition starring Patrick Troughton
(4 25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98) and
Doctor Who: The Three Doctors Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee, Patrick
Troughton, and William Hartnell
(4 25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98) and
Doctor Who: The Face of Evil starring Tom Baker
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: The Robots of Death Special Edition starring Tom Baker
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: The Sensorites starring William Hartnell
(6 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98) and
Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani Special Edition starring Peter Davison
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe starring Matt Smith
(1 60-minute episode, 1 DVD disc for $14.98 or 1 Blu-Ray disc for $19.98)
Doctor Who: Invasion of the Dinosaurs starring Jon Pertwee
(6 25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $34.98) and
Doctor Who: The Android Invasion starring Tom Baker
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Fourth Season starring Elisabeth Sladen
(12 30-minute episodes (6 2-part stories), 2 DVD discs, $29.98)
RECENT RELEASES
Doctor Who: The Complete Sixth Series starring Matt Smith
(1 60-minute episode and 13 45-minute episodes,
6 DVD discs for $79.98 or 6 Blu-Ray discs for $89.98)
Doctor Who: The Sixth Series, Part 2 starring Matt Smith
(6 45-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs for $24.98 or
2 Blu-Ray discs for $29.98)
Doctor Who: Colony in Space starring Jon Pertwee
(6 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang Special Editon
starring Tom Baker (6 25-minute episodes, 3 DVD discs,
$34.98)
Doctor Who: The David Tennant Years
Starring David Tennant (All of David Tennant’s episodes,
26 DVD discs, $199.98)
Doctor Who: Day of the Daleks starring Jon Pertwee
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $34.98. Includes
Special Editon)
Doctor Who: The Sun Makers starring Tom Baker
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: Paradise Towers starring Sylvester McCoy
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: Series 6 Part 1 starring Matt Smith
(7 45-minute episosdes, 2 DVD discs or 2 Blu-Ray discs)
Doctor Who: The Gunfighters starring William Hartnell
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: The Awakening starring Peter Davison
(2 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $14.98)
Doctor Who: Frontios starring Peter Davison
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
Doctor Who: Time and the Rani starring Sylvester McCoy
(4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $24.98)
***THE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS LIST***
1) Are Doctor Who stories available on
DVD? Who makes them and where can I find
them?
Yes! A majority of the existing Doctor Who stories are available now on DVD, and the number
gradually increases every few months. Their content comes from BBC Worldwide Americas.
The manufacturing and distribution is accomplished by Warner Home Video.
The DVDs are available from both brick-and-mortar video sales stores and from online sellers
such as amazon.com or Warner’s site, http://whv.warnerbros.com/ or BBC Worldwide America’s
sales site, http://www.bbcamericashop.com/
BEWARE. There is a Doctor Who DVD counterfeiting operation underway sourcing from
southeast Asia that has taken in several consumers trying to buy the DVDs on eBay. These discs
are not the real thing and are a very inferior product with terrible picture quality, missing booklets,
packaging goofs, and more. I recommend not buying from eBay or other internet resellers due to
this. This youtube video demonstrates one unfortunate purchaser’s experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGcbIwaefJ0&feature=related
2. Will the new Doctor Who TV series affect the classic series
releases?
No, the new series has had no effect on the classic series releases, other than changing the
timing of some of them.
3. I’m interested in perhaps buying some of these DVDs. What should I know?
You should be aware that most of the Doctor Who DVDs released so far have had extensive
restoration work done on them prior to authoring and now look better than they ever have before.
The only ones that had lighter restoration done didn’t need much in the first place. We’ve never
seen Doctor Who look this good – it’s much better than the old PBS broadcasts.
You should also know that to date, all of the DVDs have bonus materials on them that are not
available on the VHS tapes.
You should also know the difference between "episode form" and "movie form". The natural
format of most of the classic Doctor Who series is as a cliffhanger adventure serial. Each true
"episode" of the classic series was usually 25 minutes long and ends in a cliffhanger and crashing
theme music, with the original viewers on the BBC having to wait usually a whole week before
the next installment. The most common serial length was 4 such episodes, with 6-parters also
being heavily used in the first half of the series' life with some other odd lengths mixed in here
and there. Most PBS outlets in the US did not broadcast the series in this format, but instead
showed what became known as "movie form," where all the episodes of each serial were edited
together to form one long movie. (4-parters usually came to about 90 minutes, 6-parters to 2 hours
and 20 minutes.) The DVD releases all present the stories in episode form (when applicable).
The fans prefer this because it is the true format the
series should be seen in, because the episodes
were plotted and paced with only 25-minute installments in mind, and because the cliffhangers
themselves sometimes have differences between what's shown at the end of one episode versus
the beginning of the next, with altered shots and changes made to the music. In the "movie form"
practice, one of those versions always has to be cut out.
The standard episode length of the classic series’ 22nd season and of the new series that began
in 2005 is 45 minutes. Most of the new series episodes are now stand-alones, but some are part
of two-part stories. The season 22 stories were all at least two 45-minute episodes long.
4. Why are these
DVDs so much higher-priced than most American TV series on DVD?
And why don’t
they release season box sets of the classic series?
As you might expect, Doctor Who DVDs do the most sales in the United Kingdom, and the
United Kingdom hasn’t seen as much of the enormous price erosion of TV DVDs that the North
American market has. Also, multi-standard TVs and multi-region DVD players are very commonplace
in the
(or any other BBC DVDs) more in line with what the American DVD market is used to, then they
will see large numbers of
even with the shipping charges the price will still be lower than what it would be if they bought the
DVD off a
slightly lower than the
This policy is likely to continue until prices for DVDs in the UK start to come down on their own,
if they ever do.
Regarding season box sets... Doctor Who classic series DVD releases began in the UK in 1999
with them repeating the single-story-at-a-time model that had been in use on VHS. Before season
box sets started becoming the
norm in the
release in the
forced to re-buy some stories they already had. Just as importantly, production budgets on
single titles are higher than they would be for season sets, which means that each single title can be
(and is) packed with special features. Were they to switch to the season model, the special features
would have to be reduced. They have instead adopted a compromise plan where they release a
few smaller box sets per year of stories that were linked together in some way (like a story arc)
while continuing the single-story-at-a-time model the rest of the year. The new series is another
case entirely, as the extra features are being made concurrently with the series itself, which allows
those DVDs to be almost as full as the classic series ones and still be in a season box set (and,
of course, the “rebuying” issue isn’t a problem as these are all-new episodes).
An exception to what I’ve just said is talked about in the next question….
4a. Why
have they re-released The Key to Time
(especially when half the rest of the
series isn’t out yet?)
The answer has to do with how and why we got the 2002 edition of this set. In their first DVD
releases
in
questionnaire that pointed to a website poll where their customers could choose from amongst a
list of titles which Doctor Who title they would most like to see released next. On that list was
The Key to Time, and it won the poll. They went back to their partners in the UK and requested
that it be released. They met with some resistance as the UK BBC people didn’t feel the time
was right for their market for a box set of this many episodes to be released, however the
BBC WA people emphasized how important box sets had already become in the North American
market and how having one was in fact now essential to get stores to stock Doctor Who titles at all.
They’d had a wave of some individual titles in 2002 that many chains chose not to stock because
all they were was individual stories. A box set was now seen as a requirement to save the
range’s
future in
could be
released in late 2002 in
This is the only time that this has happened, and it probably will never happen again. Due to there
being no
the titles in the 2002 set came out with only minimal extras. Although they did all have
commentaries and production notes, they had no featurettes, only a few deleted scenes, and
the restoration work was very minimal.
Nowadays, with the revival of the series’ fortunes that began with the coming of the new series,
the market
for classic Doctor Who in the
become much more attractive, and you’ll have noticed there have been more of them in recent years,
and that when they come out they get the same full treatment extras-wise that the individual titles get.
And so in 2007, they decided to bring The Key to Time to the UK, with that full press of extras.
The release pattern in North America is for them to bring out the UK’s recent titles in largely the
same order
that they come out in the
title as they already had the old edition on the market, and also they’d fallen behind the increased
pace of
releases coming from the
before first. Now in 2009, that catching-up has been largely completed, and they feel they can
spend a
release slot on bringing us the
in
distinguish it from the original edition.
4b. Why have they re-released
Remembrance of the Daleks
as a Special Edition?
The answer is a bit complicated.
In 2007, the
contain all five of the classic series stories that featured Davros. Four of them had been released
before, however, with only Destiny of the Daleks being new to the DVD market. With that in
mind, they decided to try and soup up the box set a bit.
They had been unhappy with the original UK edition of Remembrance of the Daleks. It had
faults in the restoration that meant some special effects had gone missing, and one of the featurettes
didn’t work as intended. (Both of these problems had been repaired for the later North American
edition
that’s been on our market since 2002.)
They decided one way to improve the Davros
Box Set would be to make a Special Edition, with those faults fixed and some new special features
added.
They also decided to make special arrangements with Big Finish Productions (www.bigfinish.com),
the licensed makers of audio dramas of Doctor Who and its related characters that have been
producing new stories regularly since 1999. These arrangements were to include all of the titles
they had made to that point that featured Davros on a DVD-Audio Disc, plus one new story
with Davros exclusive to this box set. And to tie the audios and the TV stories together, they
made a further featurette, Davros Connections, and gave it its own disc.
BBC Worldwide Americas soon announced plans to release this set in North America as well,
however they soon had to retract these plans and were only able to release a single title,
Destiny of the Daleks, the one we hadn’t had in our market yet. The retraction occurred
because the price point they wanted to sell it at, $100 for the whole set, would have undercut
the
consumers
to simply import the North American edition and not buy the
they had to increase the North American price to match theirs if they wanted to release it.
The
the time sold from Big Finish for $25 per title. It was a big discount to a consumer to buy all 8 of
them as this DVD-Audio, but was still a back-breaker price-wise for the North American market.
Special
Edition on its own at that time, but the
available
on its own in the
on its own there packaged along with the Davros Connections featurette disc, and this March
2010 North American release is
effectively the North American mirror of that
2009 release.
If you buy this title and become
interested in the audio drams you hear clips of in the Davros
Connections disc, please visit www.bigfinish.com where you can buy them in either CD form
or as a direct mp3 download (for about half the price). The stories are the four-part I, Davros
miniseries (which do not feature the Doctor), and the three Doctor Who audio drama
stories: Davros starring Colin Baker, The Juggernauts starring Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford,
and Terror Firma starring Paul McGann, India Fisher, and Conrad Westmaas. They all also star
Terry Molloy as Davros (who also played him in the three 1980s TV stories). (The story that
was exclusive
to the
from Big
Finish, as again, it was exclusive to the
5. Will Doctor Who be released in a
high-definition DVD format, i.e. on BluRay?
Beginning with the 2009 Easter special, Planet of the Dead, the new series of Doctor Who has
switched up to high-definition, and from there on high-defintion Blu-Ray releases have begun to
happen.
Everything up until that story has been predominantly shot on standard-definition videotape, and
what you see on the standard-definition DVDs is almost the best it can ever look. However, the
better codecs that are now available on BluRay would improve the pictures somewhat. Also, from
1967 onwards, the BBC was using 625-line PAL, which was a superior system to the North
American 525-line NTSC system, and if they were to be re-released on BluRay,
North Americans with high-def TVs would see an improved picture just from that that the
Brits wouldn’t. Also, a BluRay disc would be able to hold perhaps 3-4 whole classic stories.
For these reasons, it is becoming more likely that the classic series and perhaps the first four
seasons of the new series could see re-release on BluRay sometime in the future, however,
nothing along these lines is planned for 2009.
There is one single story of the classic series that was shot completely on film and could benefit
from a high-definition BluRay re-release someday, and that was Jon Pertwee’s debut story
Spearhead from Space, so that one may be a special case and could perhaps happen sooner
than the others would.
6. Will the
spinoff series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures be released on
DVD?
Might they see release in a high-definition format?
Both series are getting standard-definition DVD releases
in
Torchwood is shot in 1080i high-definition and has had Blu-Ray releases in addition to DVD
Releases with every season that’s come out.
The Sarah Jane Adventures will not be seeing Bly-Ray high-definition releases owing to
their selling in small volumes at children's TV prices. (The first two seasons were only shot
in standard-definition in any case.)
7.
Do any of the Doctor Who DVDs have edits? Have they cut anything out, like the
SciFi Channel did and like BBC America sometimes
does?
The versions on the DVDs of the new series are the same
as those shown on the BBC in the
and have none of the editing that the SciFi Channel, and to a lesser extent, BBC America did/does
to it to accommodate their commercial loads. The running times of Doctor Who episodes vary more
than most US-made fare does, so if you’re watching on the SciFi Channel, you could be seeing an
episode with nothing cut out (because it was a short one to start with) or one with up to five minutes
cut out (when it runs long).
That said, there is still a caption missing in the
episode Blink on The Complete Third Series Box
Set. At the start of the final scene set in the DVD store, there was originally a caption which read
“ONE YEAR LATER,” which is mysteriously absent from this DVD.
(It’s missing from the
Also, the commentary track that was recorded for the
featured David Tennant, Freema Agyeman, and John Barrowman, is not on the North American
edition and is instead replaced by the one from the official Doctor Who website podcast with
Russell T. Davies, Phil Collinson, and Julie Gardner. This had to be done because David, Freema,
and John frequently sing bits of songs during their commentary as a running gag, which couldn’t
be copyright cleared in time for the North American production deadlines.
Another small, curious change is on Dalek in the Complete First Series Box Set. When the Dalek
exits to confront Henry Van Statten over his torturing him, a different vocal take of the Dalek voice
has been used versus what was heard on the original BBC broadcast. Last-minute dialogue retakes
before broadcast apparently didn't filter back to the versions that were being prepped for the DVD.
Similarly, a last-minute change to the closing credits of The Doctor's Wife to include Susannah Leah,
the Junkyard Console Designer,
also didn't filter back to the versions on the DVD/Blu-Ray.
For the classic series, there have been a few changes made to the original programs in a few instances.
Here’s what they were and why:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
This one is so small I would never have noticed it myself, but some others have. Apparently if
you’re looking very carefully at the background in one of the on-location chase sequences in the
third episode, in the original version you could see a contemporary truck parked on the street, but
it was very small... only a few pixels in fact. During restoration, the engineers thought they’d see
how easy it would be to paint that out, never intending to leave it like that, but then a
miscommunication happened and the copy with the truck painted out got used on the DVD
master by mistake.
The Chase
In the 1960s, the Beatles were making regular appearances on the BBC’s Top of the Pops,
often in the same studio where Doctor Who was being produced at the time. These appearances
were often what were called “mime performances,” where the band basically lip-synced and
pretended to play their instruments to one of their original recordings. In the first episode of
The Chase, the Doctor has obtained a time-space visualiser, a device that allows you to tune in and
watch any event in history like it was on TV. Each of his three companions gets a turn at it, and
the third, Vicki, chooses to watch a Beatles concert. The footage they used was a 30-second clip
of one of these Top of the Pops mime performances of Ticket to Ride recorded there the previous
week. The fact that the footage uses an original Beatles recording causes a rights problem.
All Beatles original recordings are managed by the Beatles’ own company, Apple Corps, and for
many years now, they have not permitted any of those original recordings to be republished by
anyone for any reason as they feel they were being used for not-very-good purposes in earlier years.
This includes DVD releases, and for this reason, the footage containing Ticket to Ride has been
removed from the DVD of The Chase, as well as the parts of the scene that led into it and led
out of it. Exactly 2 minutes of footage has been removed.
This scene is included in its entirety in the Region 2 UK edition of this release. Differences in
interpretation of the different countries’ copyright laws have meant the BBC felt safe in not cutting
it in the
The Region 2 edition is, of course, importable and usable if you have a region free DVD player.
See Question and Answer 13 below for discussion on this topic.
(The 1993 VHS edition of The Chase did include the scene intact, as the Beatles had not yet
clamped down on the archive republishing at that time.)
The Time Meddler
The print used for the third episode on this DVD is one returned to the BBC from an overseas
broadcaster. This broadcaster had made a censorship cut to the death scene of the Viking
named Ulf, feeling it to be too violent for the timeslot they were running the series in.
That clip is still missing, although a soundtrack recording of this scene has been recovered and is
included in a featurette on the DVD.
The War Machines
The prints used on this DVD were ones returned to the BBC from overseas broadcasters.
These broadcasters had made some censorship cuts of so-called violent scenes to episodes
2, 3, and 4. Many of these censored bits have been recovered by other means and inserted
back into the prints, but there are still a few absent or incomplete. The Restoration Team have
worked wonders to bridge these small gaps (and there is a full featurette on what they did on
the DVD), and you might not have ever known they were there, but technically, these are still
some cuts from the original version.
The Seeds of Death
A small mistake was made during the restoration process, where the VidFIRE video-look
restoration tool was wrongly applied to a scene that was shot on film. The Restoration Team
normally try to make the whole production look as it originally did, with the studio video scenes
processed but film inserts left alone to keep looking like film. So, if you look carefully, near the
end of episode 5 (and in the recap at the start of episode 6), you’ll see a scene of the Doctor
trying to get into the Weather Control Bureau that has been VidFIREd when it shouldn’t have been.
Spearhead From Space
In episode 2, during the establishing shots of the plastics factory, some electric guitar music was
used to accompany the shots. This music came from a track called “Oh Well (Part One)” by a
band that was just up-and-coming in 1969/70, when Spearhead was made.
They made it pretty big later on though… perhaps you’ve heard of Fleetwood Mac?
Well, these days their management tends to ask for a lot of money for even a few bars of their
songs to be used in anything that gets republished, such as a DVD release, and the BBC couldn’t
justify the enormous expense to leave the track on here. So, as they did on the original
VHS release, they’ve taken some of the background sound effects from the plastics factory and
used those to replace the Fleetwood Mac track. The scene and the shots are all still there, just
not the music. For similar reasons, they also had to change the music on one of the broadcast
trailers that appears on the DVD as an extra.
The Stones of Blood
The DVD of this is the original broadcast version. There’s been nothing cut out. However,
the original VHS release included a deleted scene, and that scene is not present anywhere on
the DVD. The scene in question was early in Part Two, lasted 30 seconds, and showed the
characters of De Vries and Martha panicking over their failure at the sacrifice and arguing over
running away to
notices the raven is missing.
The Five Doctors Special Edition
This was one of the first DVDs to be released in
withdrawn from the market and replaced with The Five Doctors 25th Anniversary Edition.
This original DVD release was not the original version of The Five Doctors, but rather a
souped-up version that was originally made for a special VHS release in 1995. The contents
of this original DVD are completely available along with the original version of the story and much
bonus material besides in the new 25th Anniversary Edition.
The Caves of Androzani (Original Edition from 2001)
In the original version of this story, the first few scenes on the surface of the alien planet weren’t
as convincing as they could’ve been because of a shaking film image of the live action being married
into a completely stationary matte painting glass shot of the planet’s surface. That original version
is still to be found on this DVD, but to see it you need to select that you want to see that
version from the DVD’s bonus menu. The DVD instead defaults to a new version of the scene
where the shaking film image has been stabilized. Also, the smoke effects laid in over the action are
slightly different from the original. This was the first time the Restoration Team made an alternate
effects shot like this available in the DVD, and after this they changed policy so that the original
version of the scene is always the default version and the new one must be selected from the menu.
The Caves of Androzani Special Edition (2012)
The shaking film image/seamless branching issue from the earlier release has been solved by new
restoration techniques that have allowed the original scene to be presented without all that
alternate version malarkey. However, elsewhere on the release, a new error crept in where the
transition from one scene to another that was originally done with a dissolve was changed to a
jump cut instead.
The Trial of a Time Lord
A mistake was made in the sound restoration of the opening episode. On the opening shot of the
Time Lords’ space station, as the camera panned over to the doorway that shoots out the tractor
beam that grabs the TARDIS, originally a humming sound effect was heard to imply that doorway
opening. That humming sound is now absent on the DVD.
Remembrance of the Daleks – Special Edition (and also the original edition)
In the scenes set in Harry’s Café, some original Beatles music was to be heard on occasion being
played on the café’s jukebox. One of the current co-owners of the rights to the original Beatles
recordings would not permit them to be used at any price, and so it had to be replaced with other
music tracks in the scenes in question. The original 1993 VHS release was not affected by
this, as the co-ownership agreement of the Beatles catalog which is the problem took force in 1995.
In the new Special Edition, the music has been replaced again, but with different 60s tracks to that
used in the 2002 DVD edition.
8. Are the Doctor Who DVDs remastered for DVD, or
did they just stick the old VHS
masters on discs?
All of the Doctor
Who DVDs that were first released in the
and audio restoration treatment by the BBC Restoration Team. Full details of their work can be
found at http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/
The six DVDs comprising The Key to Time – The Complete Adventure box set received a much
lighter restoration treatment, but the source material here didn’t need much work to start with.
The only obvious “flaw” is you can hear a bit of tape hiss in the sound if you’re listening for it.
9. I saw some "Dr. Who" DVDs on the shelf
that star Peter Cushing and Daleks...
what are these?
The Daleks became so popular in the mid-1960s that a
British film producer named
Subotsky acquired the license to make three films based on Terry Nation's Dalek stories for the
TV series. Two of these were produced and released to theaters and are currently available on
DVD in
is in DVD release in
DV11577. It is color (technicolor even), 80 minutes, closed captioned, 2:35:1 aspect ratio, and
usually retails for $19.98 or less. The second film was released in 1966 and is in video release in
It is also color, 80 minutes, 2:35:1 aspect ratio, closed captioned, and $19.98 or less.
The films are also available in a box set, where they come with a third DVD called “Dalekmania”,
a 1-hour documentary about the two films made in 1995. The catalog number for the whole box set
is DV11958.
These films star Peter Cushing as "Dr. Who". "Who" is his actual last name, and here the character
is an ordinary human scientist who has invented a TARDIS in his backyard. The first film's plot is
a condensed version of the first Dalek television story, The Daleks, and the second film's plot is
a condensed version of the second Dalek television story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Both of those original television stories are available on DVD from BBC Worldwide Americas and
Warner Home Video.
10. My favorite story hasn't been released yet! Would
writing to Warner help to
get it released soon?
BBC Worldwide Americas currently decide what to release based on what's recently been
released in the
VHS in North America and move those to the top of the list, when they have a list to choose from.
When the North American releases are close behind the UK ones, they don’t have much
choice and just release them as
they come from the
When there is a queue, the rules of thumb to what we’d likely get first is if it had Tom Baker
as the Doctor, if it had Daleks in it, or if it’s a box set of multiple stories.
Warner makes none of the release decisions themselves. They only distribute. Your better option
is to write BBC Video in the
11. What are Warner's and BBC Video's mailing addresses?
Warner's is:
Warner Home Video
4000 Warner Boulevard
Burbank, CA 91522
If you want to address the horse's mouth at BBC Video in
the UK, write to:
BBC Video (Doctor Who)
BBC Woodlands
80, Wood Lane,
London
W12 0TT
ENGLAND
BBC Worldwide America’s address is:
BBC Worldwide Americas Inc.
747 Third Avenue
12. Why did the 1996 Fox TV Movie with Paul McGann
take so long to come out on DVD?
It had been out since 2001 in the
Dan Hall, Commissioning Editor in the
they had at last obtained the rights from Universal to release the McGann TV Movie in countries
outside the
Under the co-production deal between the Fox TV Network, Universal, and BBC Worldwide,
the North American video release rested with Universal, and until Dan Hall’s negotiations,
they had shown no interest in either releasing it themselves or in licensing it back to BBC Worldwide.
The situation changed.
13. I'm sick of waiting for (insert title here) to
come out in the US when it's already out in
the
any special problems I should expect if I do this?
There are two obstacles you first need to overcome before you can play a UK-made DVD in
North America.
First, you must somehow defeat “region coding.” Region coding is an instruction written into most
DVDs that the players all look for to see if it can play the disc. This is not a legal restriction but
rather a voluntary restriction that was settled on by the international DVD standards consortium.
Britain is in Region 2, and North America is Region 1, and if you put a Region 2 DVD into a
Region 1 DVD player, the player will refuse to play it. (This all has to do with what company has
what right to publish what show or movie in what territory.) It is possible, especially if you look
on-line, to buy DVD players that are either region-free, or can be programmed to become
region-free and thus enable you to play the disc.
The second problem is the difference between the television technical standards in the two regions.
The UK’s traditional “standard-definition” uses a PAL color standard with 625 lines and 50 fields
per second. North American’s traditional “standard-definition” TVs used the NTSC color standard,
with 525 lines and 60 fields per second. The practical upshot of this is that the two TV systems
are incompatible. Even if you defeat the region coding, the DVD player will be outputting a PAL TV
signal that your NTSC TV won’t be able to understand. This problem is solvable too, however.
You could buy yourself a PAL TV set to watch your PAL DVD on, but this can be very expensive,
and might become harder to do
as the
Another option is to hack (er, program) the DVD player on your computer to be able to play
Region 2 DVDs and watch them on your computer. Computers and their monitors already have
a lot more resolution than either NTSC or PAL and can easily cope with either image system.
The downside here is that computer monitors don’t use interlaced frames, whereas standard
television does. This means that motion from a videotape source will look jerky when played on
a monitor, and as most Doctor Who was predominantly shot on videotape, you’ll lose the smooth
motion effect of video. (Interlaced frames work like this: a TV updates only half its image every
1/60th of a second by lighting up only the even-numbered lines of pixels in its screen in that 60th
of a second. In the next 60th, it goes back up the screen and lights up all the odd-numbered lines
of pixels, then in the next it does all the even-numbered ones again, etc. The result of this is terrific
“temporal” resolution, and a live, smooth look much like real life. Computer monitors display rather
like film images, where the entire image is updated at once, and like film projections, motion tends to
look a lot more jerky. It’s the difference between watching a football game live (video) or watching
it on an NFL Films highlight show (film). ) Some of those television DVD players that can be made
multi-region can also be programmed to convert the PAL signal into an NTSC one that your TV
can cope with. The downside of that is you’ll lose the extra resolution a PAL image would bring,
and you’ll get some conversion artifacts in the images (little bits in the picture that shouldn’t be there).
Also, most of these in-built PAL-to-NTSC converters leave out a lot of the interlaced video fields
in the conversion process, and so the videotape look of most Doctor Who will be lost.
This loss-of-fields on computer monitors and through converting DVD players especially affects
the new VidFIRE video restoration tool being used on black and white stories...you won’t see any
effect at all in either instance. However, a Region 1 NTSC disc played on a normal player and
TV set will look as it should.
Also, there is another reason to hold back and continue to buy North American DVDs, even if they
do come out later than the
authoring process of the UK DVDs, which then subsequently gets fixed in time for the North
American release. For example, the on-screen production notes subtitles on the UK
Vengeance on Varos DVD malfunction halfway through and become unavailable. That should be
fixed for the North American release. There were also some special effects shots that went missing in
the original
One example was an authoring fault in The Invisible Enemy which caused the DVD to skip a
chapter during playback. They’ve since done a recall of that disc, but the North American edition
never had this problem at all
as it was spotted in the
Also, the waiting time between UK and North American release has fallen over the years, until
now North Americans now usually
only a few months behind the
14. I live in the UK and want a North American DVD. Will it work for me when I get it?
Actually, it might. I hear that both DVD players and television sets in the UK are more versatile
than are their commonly found
counterparts in
to cope both with the region coding problem and the technical standards (NTSC vs PAL) problem.
15. I am hearing impaired, or I want to get DVDs for
someone who is. Are the videos
closed captioned?
Do they have subtitles?
All but the first 5 BBC classic series Doctor Who DVDs to be released in North America
have DVD subtitles for the main program available in the DVD options. Those first 5 DVDs
did have closed captions for the hearing impaired encoded into them, however. Those DVDs were
Spearhead from Space, The Robots of Death, The Five Doctors Special Edition,
The Caves of Androzani, and Remembrance of the Daleks. That original release of
The Five Doctors
Special Edition has since been withdrawn and replaced with The Five Doctors
25th Anniversary Edition which has subtitles instead.
These subtitles and closed captions do not, unfortunately, cover the extra commentary tracks by
the actors and production staff.
16. What DVDs are available, how much are they, and what extra features do they contain?
There are now (or just about to be) 124 DVD releases of the Doctor Who TV series available
(excluding the second format of stories available in more than one), and also the two Peter Cushing
Dalek movies, and now also some of the spinoff series Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures,
and the animated adventure The Infinite Quest.
A quick summary of the TV titles is below, listed in the chronological order of the TV series.
Stories 1-50 are in black and white. All others are in color. Suggested retail prices are given in
US dollars. Episodes are 25 minutes each for stories 1-159 except where noted, and 45
minutes each for everything
else, again except where noted.
Clicking on a
title will give a description of the story, and of all the DVD features.
|
Story
No. |
Title |
#
of Eps. |
#
of Discs |
sound |
Price |
|
|
starring WILLIAM HARTNELL |
|
|
|
|
|
1-3 |
The
Beginning Box Set (Box set of An Unearthly
Child, The Daleks, and The Edge of Destruction) |
14 |
3 |
mono |
37.92 |
|
5 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
6 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
9.98 |
|
|
7 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
10 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
11,12 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
13 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
15,
16 |
4
& 6 |
3 |
mono |
49.98 |
|
|
17 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
23 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
25 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
27 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
14,21, 24 |
6
+ 2 audio |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
|
starring PATRICK TROUGHTON |
|
|
|
|
|
32,33, 35,36, 38,40, 41,43, 49 |
12
+ 2 audio |
2 |
mono |
29.98 |
|
|
14,21, 24,32, 33,35, 36,40, 41,43, 49 |
Lost in Time
– all 3 discs in one box set |
18
+ 4 audio |
3 |
mono |
44.98 |
|
37 |
4 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
44 |
5 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
45 |
5 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
46 |
8 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
48 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
29.98 |
|
|
50 |
10 |
3 |
mono |
49.98 |
|
|
|
starring JON PERTWEE |
|
|
|
|
|
51 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
14.98 |
|
|
52 |
7 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
54 |
7 |
2 |
mono |
29.98 |
|
|
55 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
57 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
58 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
59 |
5 |
2 |
Mono |
34.98 |
|
|
60 |
4
+ special edition |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
61 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
62 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
63 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
64 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
65 |
4 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
66 |
4 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
67,68 |
Contains
2 stories: Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks |
12 |
4 |
mono |
59.98 |
|
69 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
70 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
71 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
73 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
74 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
|
starring TOM BAKER |
|
|
|
|
|
75 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
76 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
14.98 |
|
|
77 |
2 |
1 |
mono |
14.98 |
|
|
78 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
29.98 |
|
|
79 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
81 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
82 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
83 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
84 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
85 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
86 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
87 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
88 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
89 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
90 |
4 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
91 |
6 |
3 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
92 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
93 |
4
+ 50 min special |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
94 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
95 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
96 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
97 |
6 |
2 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
98 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
99 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
100 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
101 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
102 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
103 |
6 |
1 |
mono |
34.98 |
|
|
98-103 |
26 |
7 |
mono |
99.98 |
|
|
104 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
105 |
4 |
2 |
mono |
29.98 |
|
|
106 |
4 |
1 |
Mono |
29.98 |
|
|
107 |
4 |
1 |
Mono |
24.98 |
|
|
108 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
110 |
4 |
1 |
mono
&
Dolby 5.1 |
19.98 |
|
|
111 |
4 |
1 |
Mono |
24.98 |
|
|
112-114 |
The E-Space Trilogy
(Box Set containing Full Circle, State
of Decay, and Warriors’ Gate) |
12 |
3 |
mono |
49.98 |
|
115 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
116 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
115-117 |
(Box
Set of Nos. 115-117. Tom Baker’s in 115-116,
Peter Davison in 117) |
12 |
3 |
mono |
49.98 |
|
|
starring PETER DAVISON |
|
|
|
|
|
117 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
118 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
119 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
120 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
121 |
2 |
1 |
mono |
14.98 |
|
|
122 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
123 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
124 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
125 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
126-128 |
(Box
Set of Nos.126 Mawdryn Undead, 127 Terminus, and 128 Enlightenment) |
12 |
4 |
Mono
&
Dolby 5.1 Sp. Edit. |
59.98 |
|
129 |
2 |
1 |
Mono |
14.98 |
|
|
130 |
90
minutes & 100 minutes |
2 |
Dolby
5.1 |
34.98 |
|
|
131 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
132 |
2 |
1 |
mono |
14.98 |
|
|
133 |
4 |
1 |
Mono |
24.98 |
|
|
134 |
4 |
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
14.98 |
|
|
135 |
4
+ 66-min.SE |
2 |
Mono
& Dolby
5.1 sp.ed. |
34.98 |
|
|
136 |
4 |
2 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
|
starring COLIN BAKER |
|
|
|
|
|
137 |
4 |
1 |
Mono |
24.98 |
|
|
138 |
2
45-min. eps. |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
139 |
2
45-min. eps. |
1 |
mono |
14.98 |
|
|
140 |
2
45-min. eps. |
1 |
mono |
19.98 |
|
|
141 |
3
45-min. eps. |
2 |
mono |
29.98 |
|
|
142 |
2
45-min. eps. |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
143 |
2 45-min. eps. |
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
19.98 |
|
|
144-147 |
14
25-min. eps. |
4 |
mono |
59.98 |
|
|
|
starring SYLVESTER McCOY |
|
|
|
|
|
148 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
149 |
4 |
1 |
mono |
24.98 |
|
|
150 |
3 |
1 |
Mono |
24.98 |
|
|
151 |
3 |
1 |
Mono |
24.98 |
|
|
152 |
4 |
2 |
Stereo
& Dolby
5.1 |
24.98 |
|
|
153 |
3 |
1 |
Stereo |
24.98 |
|
|
154 |
3 |
1 |
Stereo
& Dolby 5.1 |
24.98 |
|
|
156 |
4
& 1:35 movie |
2 |
stereo
& Dolby
5.1 |
34.98 |
|
|
157 |
3 |
1 |
stereo
& Dolby
5.1 |
19.98 |
|
|
158 |
4
& 1:44 movie |
2 |
stereo
& Dolby
5.1 |
29.98 |
|
|
159 |
3 |
2 |
Stereo
& Dolby
5.1 |
34.98 |
|
|
|
starring PAUL McGANN |
|
|
|
|
|
160 |
86-min
movie |
2 |
Stereo |
34.98 |
|
|
|
starring CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON |
(45 min eps start
here) |
|
|
|
|
161-170 |
13
|
5 |
Dolby
5.1 |
99.98 |
|
|
161-163 |
(Rose, The End of the World, The Unquiet Dead) (no
extras) |
3. |
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
19.98 |
|
164-165 |
(Aliens of London/World War Three, Dalek) (no extras) |
3
|
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
19.98 |
|
166-168 |
Series
One: Volume Three (The Long Game, Father’s Day, The Empty Child/The
Doctor Dances) (no extras) |
4
|
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
19.98 |
|
169-170 |
Series One:
Volume Four (Boom Town, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways) (no extras) |
3
|
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
19.98 |
|
|
starring DAVID TENNANT |
|
|
|
|
|
171-181 |
14 |
6 |
Dolby 5.1 |
99.98 |
|
|
182-191 |
14 |
6 |
Dolby
5.1 |
99.98 |
|
|
192-202 |
14 |
6 |
Dolby
5.1 |
99.98 |
|
|
203 |
1 |
1 |
Stereo |
14.98 |
|
|
204 |
1 |
1 |
Stereo |
14.98DVD 19.98BD |
|
|
205 |
1 |
1 |
Dolby
5.1 |
14.98DVD 19.98BD |
|
|
206 |
2 |
2 |
Dolby
5.1 |
14.98DVD 19.98BD |
|
|
203-206 |
5 |
5 |
Dolby
5.1 |
49.98DVD 59.98BD |
|
|
171-206 |
The David Tennant Years Gift Set (all of the above Tennant sets in one set) |
47 |
26 |
Dolby
5.1 |
199.98 |
|
|
starring MATT SMITH |
|
|
|
|
|
207-216 |
13 |
6 |
DTS
5.1 |
79.98DVD 89.89BD |
|
|
217 |
1
62-min. special |
1 |
DTS
5.1 |
14.98DVD 19.98BD |
|
|
218-222.5 |
7
|
2 |
DTS
5.1 |
24.98DVD 29.98BD |
|
|
222.5-227 |
6 |
2 |
DTS
5.1 |
24.98DVD 29.98BD |
|
|
218-227 |
14 |
6 |
DTS
5.1 |
79.98DVD 89.99BD |
|
|
228 |
1
60-min. special |
1 |
DTS
HD Surround |
14.98DVD 19.98BD |
THE THEATRICAL
MOVIES
Doctor Who
and the Daleks starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Who
Suggested retail
price of $14.98
- Widescreen presentation 2.35:1, enhanced for 16x9 TVs
- commentary by actors Jennie Linden (Barbara) and Roberta Tovey (Susan) moderated by
journalist Jonathan Sothcott
- theatrical trailer
- poster and photo gallery
- photo essay : a History of
Doctor Who
- Peter Cushing bio
- This is the complete theatrical release with no edits
or changes.
Daleks
– Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. starring Peter Cushing as Dr.
Who
Suggested retail
price of $14.98
- Widescreen presentation 2.35:1, enhanced for 16x9 TVs
- theatrical trailer
- poster and photo gallery
- Peter Cushing bio
- optional French language
soundtrack
- The entire theatrical release is here, but with one change. The first scene with Tom Campbell
trying to catch the jewel thieves and stumbling into the TARDIS was originally a pre-credits
sequence, but in this print, it’s been pushed to behind the credits. No footage is missing,
it’s just rearranged.
The Dr. Who Collection
Suggested retail price of $39.98
- This is a box set of both of the Peter Cushing movies, plus a third disc that contains a
60-minute documentary about the making of the films called Dalekmania.
THE SPINOFF
SERIES
Torchwood
– The Complete First Season
Suggested
retail price of $79.98 for DVD, $99.98 for Blu-Ray.
For complete
details, click here.
Torchwood
– The Complete Second Season
Suggested
retail price of $79.98 for DVD or for Blu-Ray.
For complete
details, click here.
Torchwood
– Children of Earth
Suggested
retail price of $29.98 for DVD, $34.98 for Blu-Ray.
For
complete details, click here.
Torchwood -
Miracle Day
Suggested
retail price of $49.98 for DVD, $59.99 for Blu-Ray.
For complete
details, click here.
K9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend
This is sold with
the Doctor Who story The
Invisible Enemy.
Suggested
retail price of $34.98.
The Sarah Jane
Adventures – The Complete First Season
Suggested
retail price of $49.98.
For complete
details, click the name.
The Sarah Jane
Adventures – The Complete Second Season
Suggested
retail price of $39.98.
For complete
details, click the name.
The Sarah Jane
Adventures – The Complete Third Season
Suggested
retail price of $29.98.
For complete
details, click the name.
The Sarah Jane
Adventures – The Complete Fourth Season
Suggested
retail price of $29.98.
For complete
details, click the name.
Doctor Who
– The Infinite Quest animated episode starring David Tennant
and Freema Agyeman. Suggested retail price of $9.98. Click the title for details.
Doctor Who –
Dreamland animated
episode starring David Tennant.
Suggested retail price of $24.98.
Click the title for details.
17. Why are the pictures on the
back of the Inferno all in
black-and-white?
I thought this story was in color.
It is in color, just like the caption
on the box says. The pictures on the
back of all the Doctor Who
DVDs come from photographic stills that were taken during production. The only existing photo
stills for Inferno were all taken with black-and-white cameras, apart from some rehearsal shots,
but though those are in color, they can’t be used as the cast are not in full costume.
(You see some of these in the photo gallery on Disc 2.) Why were they all black-and-white
photos when the show was made in color? This is probably because this was the first year of full
color for BBC1 and for Doctor Who and there was still a transition of equipment taking place.
Why didn’t they use screen grabs from the color episodes? The production deadlines that
BBC Worldwide Americas must meet for Warner’s manufacturing schedule regarding the
packaging came earlier than when the finished DVD assets were made available to them from
the
A very similar thing happened on the VHS release of this story, only in that instance, the
caption on the back of the box actually read “black and white” as well, when it should have said
color.
18. Are there any episodes that will never be released?
There are still 106 episodes missing from the BBC Archives. The missing episodes are scattered
across the first six seasons, with William Hartnell's last and Patrick Troughton's first two being
the hardest hit.
The soundtracks to all of the missing episodes still exist, however, and these have been released on
official BBC CDs with narration from cast members to explain visual action not apparent from
the dialog. All of the missing episodes have now been released in the CD format. If you’re
interested in picking these up, I can suggest you shop online at either www.whona.com or at
www.alienentertainment.com They usually have these titles in stock. All of these releases are
now also available for download from iTunes or other audio book sites such as audible.com
The surviving episodes from stories with half or less of their episodes still remaining have been
released
on DVD in
***On December 11, 2011, the BBC announced the recovery of two further missing episodes,
Galaxy 4, Episode 3 (Airlock) starring William Hartnell, and The Underwater Menace Episode 2
starring Patrick Troughton. These will be probably released on DVD sometime in 2012. ***
The Patrick Troughton story The Invasion, which is missing 2 of is 8 episodes has been
DVD-released with the two missing episodes replaced with Flash animation by Cosgrove Hall,
done in black and white, matching the original camera shots that were scripted, and mated to
the still-existing original soundtracks. Another story missing 2 of its episodes, the Hartnell
historical The Reign of Terror is now undergoing similar treatment thanks to Big Finish
Productions. This story is on the calendar for a 2012 DVD release. Indications are that one
other story with a missing episode (or two) is also being lined up for this.
Here's a complete list of what we'll likely never see in its original form though:
starring
WILLIAM HARTNELL
4. Marco Polo (7 episodes, all missing)
8. The Reign of Terror (6 episodes, missing episodes 4 and 5 –
will
be released with narration i.e. The Crusade VHS)
14. The Crusade (4 episodes, missing episodes 2 and 4;
1 and 3 are on the Lost in Time DVD set)
18. Galaxy 4 (4 episodes, missing episodes 1, 2, and 4.
Episode 3 was
recovered in late 2011.)
19. Mission to the Unknown (1 episode, missing)
20. The Myth Makers (4 episodes, all missing)
21. The Daleks' Master Plan (12 episodes, all missing bar 2, 5 &
10.
Those are on the Lost in Time DVD set)
22. The Massacre (of St. Bartholomew's Eve) (4 episodes, all missing)
24. The Celestial Toymaker (4 episodes, all missing bar
4.
4 in release on
the Lost in Time DVD set.)
26. The Savages (4 episodes, all missing)
28. The Smugglers (4 episodes, all missing)
29. The Tenth Planet (4 episodes, number 4 is missing.
In
VHS release in
starring
PATRICK TROUGHTON
30. The Power of the Daleks (6 episodes, all missing)
31. The Highlanders (4 episodes, all missing)
32. The Underwater Menace (4 episodes, missing 1 and 4. 3 in release on the
Lost in Time DVD set.
Episode 2 was recovered in late 2011.)
33. The Moonbase (4 episodes, numbers 1 and 3 are missing.
2 & 4 are in
DVD release on the Lost in Time DVD
set.)
34. The Macra Terror (4 episodes, all missing)
35. The Faceless Ones (6 episodes, all missing bar 1
and 3.
Those are on the
DVD Lost in Time set.)
36. The Evil of the Daleks (7 episodes, all missing bar 2.
2 in release on the DVD Lost in Time set.)
38. The Abominable Snowmen (6 episodes, all missing bar 2.
2 in release on
the Lost in Time DVD set.)
39. The Ice Warriors (6 episodes, numbers 2 and 3 are missing.
Others in VHS
release w/soundtracks to 2 & 3 - see catalog)
40. The Enemy of the World (6 episodes, all missing bar 3.
3 in release on
the Lost in Time DVD set.)
41. The Web of Fear (6 episodes, all missing bar 1.
1 in release on
the Lost in Time DVD set.)
42. Fury From the Deep (6 episodes, all
missing)
43. The Wheel in Space (6 episodes, all missing bar 3 and 6.
3 & 6 in
release on the Lost in Time DVD set.)
46. The Invasion (8 episodes, numbers 1 and 4 are missing.
Others in VHS release
- see catalog)
49. The Space Pirates (6 episodes, all missing bar 2.
2 in release on the Lost in Time DVD set.)
Additionally, there are 12 episodes starring JON PERTWEE that were originally
shot in
color that only exist presently in black and white. These are:
53. The Ambassadors of Death (7 episodes, 1 and 5 completely color, 4
b&w,
others
a mix of restored color and b&w )
56. The Mind of Evil (6
episodes, all b&w - in release in b&w)
71. Invasion of the Dinosaurs (6 episodes, number 1 is
b&w)
There is always the possibility that some or all of these could be restored to color with future
technology, but at present the process for a complete restoration from scratch as would be required
with these 13 is not cost-effective for BBC Video.
The
based on
the new series. This is probably also
not going to see the light of day in
19. How long is it going to take before we can get the whole series on DVD?
If the BBC maintains its current pace of release, everything that still exists of the classic series should
be available in the
that could extend the time. And of course we all hope that the new series is still making episodes
indefinitely, so we’d rather not ever have a “complete” set. J
As of
each Doctor:
First Doctor (William Hartnell): 1
Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton): 1
Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee): 3
Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker): 1
Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison): 0, complete
Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker): 0, complete
Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy): 1
Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann): 0, complete
Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston): 0, complete
Tenth Doctor (David Tennant): 0, complete
Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith): 0, but he’s still going!
Total (not including 11th Doctor): 7
20. How do you know all this? (about this site)
I own a complete collection of the entire video catalog, and have been watching the series avidly
and repeatedly since 1982. I may in fact have seen every still-existing episode of the TV series
more times than anyone else on the North American continent, and I've got lots of trivia contest
victories under my belt to back it up. For crying out loud, I even went and bought a Doctor Who
pinball machine! J Oh, and I helped Neil Gaiman a bit with mythology advice for his script for
“The Doctor’s Wife.”
This video FAQ started life as a simple listing of all the videos that were in release at the time I
first found the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.drwho, sometime circa 1991/92. For years it was
posted regularly to that newsgroup in plain text format, and when the world wide web started
a man named Bill Thompson put up a web version of that text FAQ on his website.
After a little while I put up a web page of my own, this one, and the FAQ has continued to evolve
and be updated here ever since.
Doctor Who is the
copyright of the BBC, BBC Worldwide, BBC Video, and is released on home video
in
Warner Home Video under
license. It was previously released on home video by CBS/Fox. No
infringement upon this copyright
is intended in any way by this site. This site is a
purely volunteer effort to inform consumers as to where they can find
Doctor Who videos, and it details what is on each video. All
images used by this site are also the copyright of the BBC
and/or CBS/Fox Video and/or Warner Home Video and are taken
from Steve Hill's Doctor Who
Image Archive at http://www.shillpages.com/dw/dwia.htm,
so sue him first. J
I hope this all helps!
Steve Manfred
email address: smanfred
at comcast.net (remove the spaces and substitute an @ to
email me)