The Frequently Asked Questions List for

Doctor Who DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs in

North America.

Or… click here to see the VHS Home Video FAQ, or here to see the LATEST NEWS,

or here to return to the TITLE PAGE.

Last updated  May 16, 2012.   Recently updated sections are in red.

Compiled by Steve Manfred,  smanfred at comcast.net 

(change at to @ and remove the spaces to email me)

 

UPCOMING RELEASES    

 

June 12, 2012

 

            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)

 

July 10, 2012

 

            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)

 

August 14, 2012

 

            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           

 

May 8, 2012

 

            Doctor Who: Nightmare of Eden starring Tom Baker

                        (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)

 

April 10, 2012

 

            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)

 

April 3, 2012

 

            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)

 

March 13, 2012

 

            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)

 

February 14, 2012

 

            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)

 

January 10, 2012

 

            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)

 

December 6, 2011

 

            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

 

November 22, 2011

 

            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)

 

November 8, 2011

 

            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)

 

October 11, 2011

 

            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)

 

September 13, 2011

 

            Doctor Who: Day of the Daleks starring Jon Pertwee

            (4 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $34.98. Includes

            Special Editon)

 

August 9, 2011

 

            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)

 

July 19, 2011

            Doctor Who: Series 6 Part 1 starring Matt Smith

            (7 45-minute episosdes, 2 DVD discs or 2 Blu-Ray discs)

 

July 12, 2011

 

            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)

 

June 14, 2011

 

            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 UK. BBC Worldwide and their UK sales clients are all afraid that if they price Doctor Who

(or any other BBC DVDs) more in line with what the American DVD market is used to, then they

will see large numbers of UK consumers import the American editions of those DVDs, because

even with the shipping charges the price will still be lower than what it would be if they bought the

DVD off a UK store shelf.  They therefore price the North American editions at a level only

slightly lower than the UK price so that they don’t get a lot of importation going on into the UK. 

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 US (and other countries), many stories had already seen

 release in the UK. Were they to switch over to the season model, many consumers would be

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 North America in 2001 and early 2002, BBC Worldwide Americas included a

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 North America.  And so an agreement was reached whereby The Key to Time

could be released in late 2002 in North America without there having been a UK release first. 

This is the only time that this has happened, and it probably will never happen again.  Due to there

being no UK release, the volume of episodes in the set, and the quick turnaround time needed,

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 UK has become much healthier, and box sets have

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 UK, but they decided to hold off for a while on this particular

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 UK and wanted to catch us up on the titles we had never seen

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 UK’s edition of The Key to Time, and began selling it

in North America on March 3 with the “Special Edition” moniker attached to all the titles to

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 UK release company decided to release a Davros Box Set in their market.  It would

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 UK’s price point by about 50%.  The UK company were concerned that this would cause UK

consumers to simply import the North American edition and not buy the UK one, and told them

they had to increase the North American price to match  theirs if they wanted to release it.  

BBC WA felt they couldn’t sell it at that price and chose not to try. 

The UK price was inflated on this occasion due to the inclusion of the Big Finish audios, which at

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. 

 

BBC WA did try (and in fact did announce this) to release the Remembrance of the Daleks

Special Edition on its own at that time, but the UK company prohibited that as well as it wasn’t yet

available on its own in the UK market.  In the summer of 2009, however, it was finally released

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 UK summer

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 UK Davros Box Set was called The Davros Mission, and it is not available

from Big Finish, as again, it was exclusive to the UK Davros Box Set.)

 

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 North America. 

 

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 UK

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 UK’s DVD of this one too… how this happened is a mystery.)

Also, the commentary track that was recorded for the UK edition of Last of the Time Lords which

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 UK, but less so for the North American market.

 

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 Plymouth.  The broadcast version doesn’t pick this scene up until De Vries

notices the raven is missing. 

 

The Five Doctors Special Edition

This was one of the first DVDs to be released in North America in 2001, but has since been

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 UK have received extensive video

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 Milton

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 North America from Anchor Bay Entertainment. The first film was released in 1965 and

is in DVD release in North America as  "Dr. Who and the Daleks", catalog number

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

North America as "Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.", catalog number DV11578.

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 UK.  From that list of UK titles, they then select the ones that sold the best on

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 UK. 

 

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 UK directly about what they’re releasing, or to write BBC Worldwide

Americas.

 

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

New York, NY  10017

 

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 UK.

Dan Hall, Commissioning Editor in the UK, announced on August 25, 2010 that

they had at last obtained the rights from Universal to release the McGann TV Movie in countries

outside the UK including North America.  It came out in North America in 2011.   

 

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 UK (or some other country).  I want to order it from an overseas vendor. Are there

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 UK too switches from PAL to high-definition. 

 

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 UK ones… it seems that frequently a mistake or two gets made in 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 UK Remembrance of the Daleks which were reinstated for the Region 1 release. 

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 UK one first. 

 

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 UK as opposed to a year or more.

 

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 North America, and most (but not all) can be set

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

The Keys of Marinus

6

1

mono

24.98

6

The Aztecs

4

1

mono

9.98

7

The Sensorites

6

1

mono

24.98

10

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

6

2

mono

24.98

11,12

The Rescue / The Romans

6

2

mono

34.98

13

The Web Planet

6

1

mono

19.98

15, 16

The Space Museum and The Chase

4 & 6

3

mono

49.98

17

The Time Meddler

4

1

mono

24.98

23

The Ark

4

1

mono

24.98

25

The Gunfighters

4

1

mono

24.98

27

The War Machines

4

1

mono

24.98

14,21,

24

Lost in Time

6 + 2 audio

1

mono

19.98

 

starring PATRICK TROUGHTON

 

 

 

 

32,33,

35,36,

38,40,

41,43,

49

Lost in Time

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

The Tomb of the Cybermen Special Edition

4

2

mono

34.98

44

The Dominators

5

1

mono

24.98

45

The Mind Robber

5

1

mono

19.98

46

The Invasion

8

2

mono

34.98

48

The Seeds of Death

6

2

mono

29.98

50

The War Games

10

3

mono

49.98

 

starring JON PERTWEE

 

 

 

 

51

Spearhead From Space

4

1

mono

14.98

52

Doctor Who and the Silurians

7

2

mono

34.98

54

Inferno

7

2

mono

29.98

55

Terror of the Autons

4

1

mono

24.98

57

The Claws of Axos

4

1

mono

19.98

58

Colony in Space

6

1

mono

24.98

59

The Dæmons

5

2

Mono

34.98

60

Day of the Daleks

4 + special edition

2

mono

34.98

61

The Curse of Peladon

4

1

mono

19.98

62

The Sea Devils

6

1

mono

24.98

63

The Mutants

6

2

mono

34.98

64

The Time Monster

6

1

mono

24.98

65

The Three Doctors Special Edition

4

2

mono

34.98

66

Carnival of Monsters Special Edition

4

2

mono

34.98

67,68

Dalek War Box Set

Contains 2 stories: Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks

12

4

mono

59.98

69

The Green Death

6

1

mono

19.98

70

The Time Warrior

4

1

mono

24.98

71

Invasion of the Dinosaurs

6

2

mono

34.98

73

The Monster of Peladon

6

2

mono

34.98

74

Planet of the Spiders

6

2

mono

34.98

 

starring TOM BAKER

 

 

 

 

75

Robot

4

1

mono

24.98

76

The Ark in Space

4

1

mono

14.98

77

The Sontaran Experiment

2

1

mono

14.98

78

Genesis of the Daleks

6

2

mono

29.98

79

Revenge of the Cybermen

4

1

mono

24.98

81

Planet of Evil

4

1

mono

24.98

82

Pyramids of Mars

4

1

mono

19.98

83

The Android Invasion

4

1

mono

24.98

84

The Brain of Morbius

4

1

mono

24.98

85

The Seeds of Doom

6

2

mono

34.98

86

The Masque of Mandragora

4

1

mono

24.98

87

The Hand of Fear

4

1

mono

19.98

88

The Deadly Assassin

4

1

mono

24.98

89

The Face of Evil

4

1

mono

24.98

90

The Robots of Death Special Edition

4

2

mono

34.98

91

The Talons of Weng-Chiang Special Edition

6

3

mono

34.98

92

Horror of Fang Rock

4

1

mono

19.98

93

The Invisible Enemy 

(with K9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend)

4 + 50 min special

2

mono

34.98

94

Image of the Fendahl

4

1

mono

24.98

95

The Sun Makers

4

1

mono

24.98

96

Underworld

4

1

mono

24.98

97

The Invasion of Time

6

2

mono

34.98

98

The Ribos Operation Special Edition

4

1

mono

24.98

99

The Pirate Planet Special Edition

4

1

mono

24.98

100

The Stones of Blood Special Edition

4

1

mono

24.98

101

The Androids of Tara Special Edition

4

1

mono

24.98

102

The Power of Kroll Special Edition

4

1

mono

24.98

103

The Armageddon Factor Special Edition

6

1

mono

34.98

98-103

The Key to Time Special Edition

26

 

7

mono

99.98

104

Destiny of the Daleks

4

1

mono

24.98

105

City of Death

4

2

mono

29.98

106

The Creature from the Pit

4

1

Mono

29.98

107

Nightmare of Eden

4

1

Mono

24.98

108

The Horns of Nimon

4

1

mono

24.98

110

The Leisure Hive

4

1

mono

& Dolby 5.1

19.98

111

Meglos

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

The Keeper of Traken

4

1

mono

24.98

116

Logopolis

4

1

mono

24.98

115-117

New Beginnings Box Set

(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

Castrovalva

4

1

mono

24.98

118

Four to Doomsday

4

1

mono

24.98

119

Kinda

4

1

mono

24.98

120

The Visitation

4

1

mono

19.98

121

Black Orchid

2

1

mono

14.98

122

Earthshock

4

1

mono

19.98

123

Time-Flight

4

1

mono

19.98

 

124

Arc of Infinity

4

1

mono

19.98

125

Snakedance

4

1

mono

24.98

126-128

The Black Guardian Trilogy

(Box Set of Nos.126 Mawdryn Undead, 127 Terminus, and 128 Enlightenment)

12

4

Mono

& Dolby 5.1

 Sp. Edit.

59.98

129

The King’s Demons

2

1

Mono

14.98

130

The Five Doctors 25th Anniversary Edition

90 minutes & 100 minutes

2

Dolby 5.1

34.98

131

Warriors of the Deep

4

1

mono

24.98

132

The Awakening

2

1

mono

14.98

133

Frontios

4

1

Mono

24.98

134

Resurrection of the Daleks

4

1

Dolby 5.1

14.98

135

Planet of Fire

4 + 66-min.SE

2

Mono &

Dolby 5.1

sp.ed.

34.98

136

The Caves of Androzani - Special Edition

4

2

mono

24.98

 

starring COLIN BAKER

 

 

 

 

137

The Twin Dilemma

4

1

Mono

24.98

138

Attack of the Cybermen

2 45-min. eps.

1

mono

24.98

139

Vengeance on Varos

2 45-min. eps.

1

mono

14.98

140

The Mark of the Rani

2 45-min. eps.

1

mono

19.98

141

The Two Doctors

3 45-min. eps.

2

mono

29.98

142

Timelash

2 45-min. eps.

1

mono

24.98

143

Revelation of the Daleks

2 45-min.

eps.

1

Dolby 5.1

19.98

144-147

The Trial of a Time Lord

14 25-min. eps.

4

mono

59.98

 

starring SYLVESTER McCOY

 

 

 

 

148

Time and the Rani

4

1

mono

24.98

149

Paradise Towers

4

1

mono

24.98

150

Delta and the Bannermen

3

1

Mono

24.98

151

Dragonfire

3

1

Mono

24.98

152

Remembrance of the Daleks – Special Edition

4

2

Stereo &

Dolby 5.1

24.98

153

The Happiness Patrol

3

1

Stereo

24.98

154

Silver Nemesis

3

1

Stereo & Dolby 5.1

24.98

156

Battlefield

4 & 1:35 movie

2

stereo &

Dolby 5.1

34.98

157

Ghost Light

3

1

stereo &

Dolby 5.1

19.98

158

The Curse of Fenric

4 & 1:44 movie

2

stereo &

Dolby 5.1

29.98

159

Survival

3

2

Stereo &

Dolby 5.1

34.98

 

starring PAUL McGANN

 

 

 

 

160

The Movie: Special Edition

86-min movie

2

Stereo

34.98

 

starring CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON

(45 min eps start here)

 

 

 

161-170

The Complete First Series Box Set

13

5

Dolby 5.1

99.98

161-163

Series One: Volume One

(Rose, The End of the World, The Unquiet Dead)  

(no extras)

3.

1

Dolby 5.1

19.98

164-165

Series One: Volume Two

(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

The Complete Second Series Box Set

14

6

Dolby

5.1

99.98

182-191

The Complete Third Series Box Set

14

6

Dolby 5.1

99.98

192-202

The Complete Fourth Series Box Set

14

6

Dolby 5.1

99.98

203

The Next Doctor

1

1

Stereo

14.98

204

Planet of the Dead

1

1

Stereo

14.98DVD

19.98BD

205

The Waters of Mars

1

1

Dolby 5.1

14.98DVD

19.98BD

206

The End of Time

2

2

Dolby 5.1

14.98DVD

19.98BD

203-206

The Complete Specials

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

The Complete Fifth Series Box Set

13

6

DTS 5.1

79.98DVD

89.89BD

217

A Christmas Carol

1 62-min. special

1

DTS 5.1

14.98DVD

19.98BD

218-222.5

Series Six, Part One

7

2

DTS 5.1

24.98DVD

29.98BD

222.5-227

Series Six, Part Two

6

2

DTS 5.1

24.98DVD

29.98BD

218-227

The Complete Sixth Series Box Set

14

6

DTS 5.1

79.98DVD

89.99BD

228

The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

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 UK, so they used the real photos that they did have on hand, which were all black-and-white.  

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 North America on Nov. 2, 2004, in the Lost in Time DVD set, described above.

 

***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 North America as of May 8, 2001.)

 

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 UK has also seen the release of a Doctor Who-themed Scene It DVD video clips game

based on the new series.  This is probably also not going to see the light of day in North America.

 

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 UK by the end of 2013 (just in time for the series’ 50th anniversary), with North

America following on shortly after that.  If missing episodes turn up or get the animation treatment,

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 May 16, 2012, there are the following numbers of complete stories left to release for

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 North America by

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)