The
Frequently Asked Questions Lists for
Doctor
Who Home Videos and DVDs and
Blu-Ray Discs in the
United States and
Canada
LATEST NEWS
Last updated June 8,
2013. Recently updated sections are in red.
Compiled by Steve Manfred, smanfred at comcast.net
(change at to @ and remove the spaces to email me)
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE MAIN DVD FAQ LIST. or
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE VHS HOME VIDEO FAQ LIST.
JUNE
IS BUSTING OUT IN COLOR
On Tuesday June 11,
2013, BBC Worldwide Americas release two classic
Doctor Who titles. One is
a special edition re-release, but the other is a new release
long-awaited on DVD. That one is…
The
Mind of Evil starring Jon Pertwee
(6 25-minute episodes, RESTORED
TO COLOR, 2 DVD discs, $34.98)
The Mind of Evil is the 2nd story from the 1971
season.
The Doctor and Jo
visit Stangmoor Prison to witness a new technique in
the treatment of
criminals where a machine
drains the offender’s mind of all its evil.
It then takes on a life of its
own and starts killing
people. Meanwhile, the Master is
attempting to hijack a missile full of
nerve gas from UNIT and
aim it at a peace conference in London.
Since the late
1970s, the BBC have only had black-and-white film copies of this story
though it was
originally made in color. Painstaking restoration has been carried out to
restore
it to color in its
entirety for this DVD release.
With this release,
the entire Third Doctor era has now been made available on DVD.
The re-release is:
Inferno
Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(7 25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs,
$34.98)
This was the season
finale of 1970. The restoration has been
redone from scratch using a
Different technique, and the results are a considerable improvement
over the original DVD
release.
A drilling project
to reach the Earth’s core strikes a super-hot green substance that changes
people into primitive
brutes, while the drilling itself becomes increasingly dangerous to the world.
With his warning
unheeded, the Doctor uses the TARDIS console to try to leave, and finds
himself in the same place
at the same time with the same danger, but in a parallel world.
Full details of
these releases are now available below.
SOME BACKSTOCK TITLES GOING OUT-OF-PRINT
Some readers of this website have been asking me why certain of the
older backstock
of classic series titles seem to be becoming hard to find and sometimes
very high-priced.
Upon checking with BBC Worldwide Americas, I have been told that 19*
titles are now
being allowed to go out-of-print and will not be restocked this
year. (They did not rule
out the possibility of them becoming available again in some fashion in
the long-term
future, however.)
Here is the list of what’s gone or is going out-of-print:
Starring WILLIAM HARTNELL
The Rescue / The Romans The Web Planet The Time Meddler The
Gunfighters
Starring PATRICK TROUGHTON
The Invasion The War Games
Starring JON PERTWEE
Terror of the Autons The
Time Monster Planet of the Spiders
Starring TOM BAKER
None.
Starring PETER DAVISON
Black Orchid Earthshock* Time-Flight The Awakening
Frontos Planet of Fire
Starring COLIN BAKER
The Mark of the Rani The Two Doctors
Starring SYLVESTER McCOY
Battlefield Ghost Light The Curse of Fenric
Additionally, there are 2 Jon Pertwee titles
that have gone out-of-print but which
have been or are being
replaced by Special Edition releases later this year.
These are Inferno and The Green Death.
*Earthshock has been added to the list, which would make it 20, however, it will be
made available again in a
bare-bones form later this year as the example story for
the Fifth Doctor’s era in the forthcoming
release of The Doctors Revisited: 5-8.
The exact release date is not yet known, but would be in September at the very
earliest. (October seems most likely.)
BEGINNING REPRINTING ERROR
Recently, BBC Worldwide Americas reprinted The Beginning box set of the series’
first three stories. They took the opportunity to change the
packaging from the
original larger Amaray cases to a thinner tray-type case. In the reprinting process,
a mistake was made where the labels on
discs 2 and 3 were exchanged with each
other. The on-disc contents are OK, it’s just disc 2
says it’s disc 3 and vice versa.
This issue has been flagged and future repressings should see it
corrected, but for
now these versions may be all that’s
available.
Complete Stories Countdown:
There is now only
one story that is complete in the BBC's archives that has yet to
have a DVD release. It is Terror
of the Zygons starring Tom Baker.
UPCOMING RELEASE
CALENDAR
July 16, 2013
The Doctors Revisited: 1-4
(4 DVD discs, $39.98)
The Doctors Revisited: 1-4 is a box set of the first four of the “Doctors Revisited” series of
specials
that BBC America is running
monthly during this 50th anniversary year. These are looks at each
Doctor’s era in cross-section, with relevant interview subjects focusing
on that Doctor himself,
his companions, and his star
villains. Each is approximately 25 minutes
long. Each is then
followed (both on the BBC
America broadcasts and on these DVDs) by an “example” story for
that Doctor. These will be presented on these DVDs in
“movie form,” with the episodic breaks
and cliffhangers removed, and stretched
to 16:9 widescreen as seen on the BBC America broadcasts.
They will likely be using the restored versions from their original DVD
releases (unlike some of the
BBC America broadcasts). The
original 4:3 versions in 4-part episode form will now also be included.
There will be no other extras.
The example stories are, for the First Doctor, The Aztecs, for the
Second Doctor, The Tomb of the Cybermen,
for the Third Doctor, Spearhead from
Space, and for
the Fourth Doctor, Pyramids of Mars. This set
is intended as a primer for viewers new to the
classic series.
This was originally scheduled for June but has been put back to July,
which didn’t have a title
at all after Terror of the Zygons, which had
originally been scheduled for here, was delayed until
September in the UK (and thus likely until October in
North America).
At about this same time, the UK will be seeing compilation re-releases
of older titles in
special new packaging, minus
the special features they had in their original releases.
It is unlikely these will be released in North America.
(One is a collection of all the regeneration stories called, Regeneration, and the others are
collections based around the top
popular monsters.)
August 13, 2013
Spearhead from Space Blu-Ray Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(4 25-minute episodes,
1 Blu-Ray disc, $29.98)
Uniquely in the series
history, this story was recorded entirely on film.
This makes a
high-definition Blu-Ray release feasible, and that’s what
will
be happening here. THIS IS THE ONLY
CLASSIC SERIES
TITLE THAT WILL BE
HAVING A TRUE HIGH-DEFINITION
RELEASE because it was
the only one shot entirely on film. All
the
other
stories were shot predominantly on videotape using the
standard
definition of the time and no increase in native resolution is
therefore
possible.
The Green Death Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(6 25-minute episodes,
2 DVD discs, $34.98)
Later in 2013…
The following releases have been announced with release dates for the UK
market
in 2013.
It is possible, therefore, to deduce when they will be released in North
America
as well, usually on the 2nd
Tuesday of each month. The dates below
come from those
deductions and should be
considered unofficial.
September 10, 2013
The Ice Warriors starring Patrick Troughton (6 25-minute
episodes. Episodes 2 & 3
currently missing from the BBC
archives, to be covered with animations.)
Sometime from September onwards, expect to see a further Doctors Revisited
4-disc compilation, this one covering Doctors 5-8. The Fifth Doctor story that will
be in that is known now to be Earthshock, the Sixth Doctor
story will be
Vengeance on Varos, and for the
Eighth Doctor, the only choice is his TV Movie.
The title chosen
for the 7th Doctor is not yet announced.
There should also
be a final compilation near the end of the year or possibly into
2014 for Doctors
9-11.
October 8, 2013
Terror of the Zygons
starring Tom Baker (4 25-minute episodes)
This is the only Fourth
Doctor story not yet to have a DVD release.
This will complete his era,
and is also the last complete story of the entire
classic
series to have a DVD release. (some incompletes still remain, see below)
Scream of the Shalka
starring Richard E. Grant, Sophie Okonedo,
and Derek Jacobi
- Animated webcast that ran on
the BBC’s Doctor Who website in 2003
as a pilot for a
“Ninth Doctor” series with
Richard E. Grant in the title role. The series wasn’t taken
up as
the new TV series was announced and got underway.
November 12, 2013
The Moonbase
starring Patrick Troughton (4
25-minute episodes. Episodes 1 and 3
are
currently missing from the BBC archives and will be completed with animations
to the
surviving original soundtracks.)
December 2013
The Tenth Planet starring William Hartnell (4 25-minute
episodes. Episode 4 is
currently
missing from the BBC archives and will be completed with animation to
the
surviving original soundtrack.)
The Fiftieth Anniversary Special starring Matt Smith, David Tennant, and
John Hurt
as
the Doctor, Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, and
who
knows who else. (Title
and length not yet known. Most likely 60 minutes.)
* This release will
include An Adventure in Space and Time,
a 90-minute docudrama
about
the behind-the-scenes origins of the series, focusing on William Hartnell’s
journey
into the part and his subsequent tenure. Starring David Bradley as
William Hartnell, Jessica Raine as Verity
Lambert, Brian Cox as Sydney Newman,
and
Sacha Dhawan as Waris Hussein.
Sometime in 2014
There are two more stories that have
missing episodes, and which have half of their
episodes intact, and thus are candidates to be
completed with animated episodes.
These stories not yet mentioned above are:
The
Crusade starring William Hartnell (4 episodes, #s
2 and 4 missing) and
The
Underwater Menace starring Patrick Troughton (4
episodes, #s 1 and 4 missing)
All the other stories with missing episodes
have what's left of them already in release
in the Lost
in Time DVD sets, and are thus
unlikely animation candidates, unless the
costs of doing animations somehow
plummet.
The Special
Edition (or Revisitation) program of re-releases will continue
intermittently
beyond the natural end of the DVD range
once all the complete stories have been released.
Frequently
Asked Questions: Why are we getting these re-released Special
Editions? What are the Revisitations? Are they delaying the release of
"fresh" titles?
Answers:
Over the last three years there has been an
ongoing series in the UK where many of the
titles that were released very early on in
the DVD range have been seeing re-releases
in 3-story box sets called Revisitations. These re-releases include restoration that
has
been redone from scratch (using techniques
available now that weren’t 10 years ago when
they first came out) and including the
sorts of making-of featurettes that have become
standard in the rest of the range but which
weren’t in common use at the start of it.
Three of these sets have come out in the
UK. Similar treatment was also given to
Jon Pertwee’s
debut story Spearhead from Space and
released as part of a 2-story “Auton”
box set alongside new-to-DVD story Terror of the Autons.
A special edition of
Vengeance
on Varos also came out in September, and now also
The Claws
of Axos has a
special edition on the docket for October in the UK and November in
North America.
These re-releases had been slow to come out
in North America as we were behind the UK
in getting "fresh" titles
out. As of August 2012, North America
has caught up with all
the re-releases the UK has had to date, and
should remain in near-sync with them in the
future.
The name Revisitations is not being used
in North America, and they are not available in
box sets.
Instead they came out as individual titles with the moniker “Special
Edition”
attached to them.
As they prepare to release a Special
Edition, they are stopping “reprints” of the original
editions of those titles, which is why some
of those older titles are now becoming very hard
to order as supplies run out.
Q. The two “Dr. Who”/Dalek movies starring
Peter Cushing have just been re-released in
high-definition on Blu-Ray in the
UK. Will they be released like this in
North America
too?
If not, can we import them?
The rights to these two films are not controlled by the BBC or BBC
Worldwide Americas.
My usual contacts therefore have no knowledge of what any international
release plans
may be, and I’ve yet to hear any news on
this from other sources. As far as I
know, they
are not scheduled for North American
release. I do know that the UK releases
have been
encoded for Region B and thus
will not play in ordinary North American Blu-Ray players.
So, importing them probably will not work for you, unless you have a
region-free Blu-Ray
player.
OTHER RECENT RELEASES
May 28, 2013
The Snowmen starring Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman
(1
60-minute episode, $14.98 for DVD of $19.98 for High-Def
BluRay. 1 disc.)
and
Series 7, Part 2 starring Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman
(8 45-minute episodes,
$24.98 for DVD or $29.98 for High-Def BluRay. 2 discs.)
May 14, 2013
The Visitation Special Edition
starring Peter Davison (4 25-minute episodes, 2 discs,
$34.95)
This is a re-restored re-release of the Fifth Doctor’s fourth story from
season 19 in 1982.
A spaceship carrying alien convicts crash-lands in the woods outside a
17th-century English
manor. A month later, the
TARDIS crew arrive and are accused of being plague carriers
by the locals, who act against them in
either fear or strange trances.
The Doctor would like to help the aliens to leave, but they have
terrible plans of their own.
April had no new release.
March 12, 2013
Doctor Who: The Aztecs Special Edition starring William Hartnell
Includes Episode 3 of Galaxy 4 (Air Lock), the formerly-lost
episode recovered
in
2011, and a reconstruction of the other 3 episodes.
(5 25-minute episodes,
2 discs, $33.98)
Doctor Who: The Ark in Space Special
Edition starring Tom Baker
(4 25-minute episodes,
2 discs, $33.98)
February 12, 2013
Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror
starring William Hartnell (6
25-minute episodes,
1 disc, $23.98)
January 14 , 2013
Doctor Who: Shada (starring Tom Baker)
with More Than Thirty
Years in the TARDIS
(Shada is 1 hour, 50 minutes, and More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS is
90 minutes.
A 3-DVD disc set, $39.98)
November 20, 2012
Doctor Who: Limited Edition Gift Set starring Christopher Eccleston, David
Tennant,
and Matt Smith
(87 episodes, 45 minutes or more each, 41 DVD discs, $249.99)
Contains all of the discs from the Series 1 through Series 6 box sets.
November 13, 2012
Doctor
Who: Series 7 Part 1 staring Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill
(5 45-minute episodes,
2 DVDs for $23.98 or 2 high-definition Blu-Rays for
$28.98)
and
Doctor Who: The Claws of Axos Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(4 25-minute episodes,
2 DVDs for $33.98)
October 13, 2012
Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death
starring Jon Pertwee
(7 25-minute episodes, 2 discs,
$33.95)
September 11,
2012
Doctor Who: Planet of Giants
starring William Hartnell
(3 25-minute episodes, 1 DVD
disc, $23.98)
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos Special Edition starring Colin Baker
(2 45-minute episodes, 2 DVD
discs, $33.98)
August 14, 2012
Doctor Who:
Spearhead from Space Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
(4
25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $23.98)
and
Doctor
Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy starring Sylvester McCoy
(4
25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $23.98)
July 14,
2012
Doctor Who: The Krotons
starring Patrick Troughton
(4
25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $23.98)
and
Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks
starring Jon Pertwee
(4
25-minute episodes, 1 DVD disc, $23.98)
June 12,
2012
The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Fifth Season
(6
30-minute episodes comprising 3 stories, 1 DVD disc, $18.98)
Doctor Who: The Seeds of Death Special Edition starring
Patrick Troughton
(6
25-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $33.98)
and
Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks
Special Edition starring Peter Davison
(2
50-minute episodes, 2 DVD discs, $33.98)
JUNE
RELEASES IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The Mind of Evil starring Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who, Roger Delgado
as the Master, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Katy Manning
as Jo Grant, Richard Franklin as Captain Yates, and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.
A 2-disc set.
On Disc 1:
- All 6 25-minute episodes of The Mind of Evil. The story has been restored
to full
color throughout for the first time since the late 1970s.
The color recovery
technique was applied to episodes 2 to 6 and had its most
successful results to
date. Episode 1, however, had to be manually recolored, and
this was done
painstakingly over 18 months by Stuart Humphreys (@babelcolour on Twitter)
and Peter Crocker, and if anything is the best looking
episode of the set.
- Graphical menus, episode selection features,
and scene selection features.
- Commentary track moderated by Toby Hadoke.
The participants are actors
Katy
Manning, Pik-Sen Lim (Chin Lee), and Fernanda Marlowe
(Corporal Bell),
Director Timothy
Combe, Producer Barry Letts, Script Editor Terrance
Dicks,
and Stunt Arranger Derek Ware.
- Production Notes subtitles option. Displays pop-up
production information as the story
plays.
On Disc 2:
- The Military Mind. A
23-minute making-of-the-story featurette featuring
actors
Nicholas
Courtney, Fernanda Marlowe, and Pik-Sen Lim, script editor Terrance
Dicks, producer Barry Letts, and director Timothy Combe.
- Now and Then. A 7-minute featurette
comparing and contrasting the locations as
they appeared when the story was made in 1970 with how they
look in the present.
- Behind-the-Scenes: Television Centre. A documentary made in 1970 about a typical
24 hours at
the BBC TV Centre. 24 minutes.
- Photo Gallery. A
5-minute compilation of still photos taken during the production of
the story.
- PDF Files. Place this disc into a computer and you can
access PDF files of the
priginal Radio Times billings for the story, and a 1971 Kellogg’s Sugar
Smacks
Doctor Who promotion.
- Coming Soon.
A 1-minute trailer for the forthcoming release of Spearhead from Space
on Blu-Ray.
Doctor
Who: Inferno Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
as Doctor Who, Caroline John
as Liz Shaw, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and John Levene
as Segeant Benton.
This story was originally released on DVD in
2006. It was felt the picture quality of the
episodes on that release
was not up to par with the others in the range, and this edition
remedies that. The restoration was redone using a different
technique to before, and the
result is a considerable improvement.
Other features that are new to this edition and
were not present on the 2006 edition are
listed in
italics below.
A 2-disc set.
On Disc 1:
- All 7 episodes of this serial. The episodes are 25 minutes each.
- Episode selection
and scene selection menus, and optional subtitles for the hearing impaired.
- Commentary track with actors Nicholas
Courtney (the Brigadier) and John Levene
(Sergeant Benton), producer/director Barry Letts, and script editor
Terrance Dicks.
- Information Text subtitles option. This plays pop-up production trivia
throughout the story.
These notes have been re-researched and
rewritten for this release.
- 1 Easter Egg. Highlight the blank area that follows to
learn what it is and how to reach it:
- From the Episode
Selection menu, go to Episode 7 and press play.
As the episode begins to
run, press rewind. The program will
rewind 30 seconds further back than the opening titles.
When it’s done rewinding, either
let your player go forward by itself again, or you may
need to press play once it’s at the start. (This depends on how your player was
programmed
by its manufacturer.) Anyway,
this 30-second extra bit is the opening countdown
chalkboard
slate from the leader on the master tape of Episode 7.
On Disc 2:
- “Can You Hear the Earth Scream?” A new 35-minute making-of-Inferno documentary
featuring interviews with actors
Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier), Caroline John
(Liz Shaw), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), producer/director Barry Letts,
script editor Terrance
Dicks, and stuntmen Ian Fairbairn, Derek Ware, and
Alan
Chuntz (the latter in an archival segment).
- Hadoke Versus HAVOC. A
28-minute featurette where Toby Hadoke
reunites four surviving
members of
the original HAVOC stunt team (Derek Ware, Roy Scammell,
Derek Martin,
and Stuart
Fell) and gives them one last mission: to teach him how to do a high fall.
- Doctor
Forever! Lost in the Dark Dimension. A 27-minute featurette where the interview
subjects recount
the various attempts (real and imagined) at the series’ return during
the void period between
1990 and 2003. Features Doctor Who
Magazine editors
Tom Spilsbury, John Freeman, and
Gary Russell, actor David Burton who at one time
was claiming he was the
new Doctor, writer Adrian Rigelsford and director
Graeme
Harper who both worked on a prospective 30th
anniversary special called “Lost in the
Dark Dimension,” Stephen Cole of BBC Worldwide, and new
series Executive Producer
Russell T. Davies.
- “The UNIT Family –Part One” A new 36-minute featurette
about the family of characters
that surrounded the
Doctor during his exile to Earth by the Time Lords.
This is “Part One” and spotlights the late Second Doctor and
early
Third
Doctor eras.
(Future parts of this appeared on other DVD releases.)
Features
interviews with actors Nicholas Courtney, Caroline John, and John Levene,
stuntman Derek Ware, script
editor Terrance Dicks, producer Barry Letts, and
script editor/producer
Derrick Sherwin.
- Visual Effects Promo Film. A 6-minute film made in 1970 by the BBC
Visual Effects
Department to tout
their capabilities to the industry at-large. It includes many shots
made for the 1970
season of Doctor Who including for Inferno.
- Deleted Scene. This presents a scene from episode 5 of the
story where the Doctor,
the Brigade Leader,
and Section Leader Shaw listen to a radio news report of earth
tremors all over
England. This was removed from the
program before its original BBC
broadcast because the news
reader’s voice was so obviously Jon Pertwee’s own
voice.
The
scene survived intact in the North American tapes that were sold for overseas
broadcast, and it is
presented here. (This scene was left in the body of the program
when this story was
released on VHS. Here it’s been moved to
a Deleted Scene option,
as it should be.)
- Pertwee Years Intro. This
presents the first 3 minutes of the VHS tape The Pertwee Years
that came out in the
early 90s and features Jon Pertwee introducing his
era,
the tape in general, and episode 7 of Inferno.
- Photo Gallery. This plays a 7-minute reel of
behind-the-scenes photo stills.
- Doctor Who Annual 1971. Pop this DVD into a PC or laptop, and you can
have a look at
the entire 76-page 1971
Doctor Who Annual using Acrobat Reader.
(Annuals are
short story and artwork
collections that were sold in the year listed on the cover.)
- Radio Times Billings. Similarly, the TV listings billings from the
Radio Times magazine
are presented here as
a pdf file for Acrobat Reader.
- Coming
Soon. A 1-minute
trailer for the DVD of The Mind of Evil.
- Subtitles option for the hearing impaired.
- Another Easter Egg. Highlight the blank area here to see what it
is and how to reach it:
- On the main menu, page 1, arrow down to the “Next” button, then
press your
left arrow. A green “Doctor Who” logo will appear on the
left-hand side of the screen.
Click this and you will see the complete opening titles for this
story, including the
special molten lava footage, clean of captions.
MAY RELEASES
IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The
Snowmen starring Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman.
- Contains the 2012 Christmas special. 60 minutes’ duration.
5.1 surround sound.
- Available in either standard definition
DVD or 1080i Blu-Ray.
- Graphical
menus, episode selection features, and scene selection features.
- “Clara’s White Christmas” A 3-1/2 minute featurette that shows a little of
the making of the story.
- “Vastra
Investigates” A
2-1/2 minute “prequel” scene to the story that
shows Madam Vastra, Jenny, and Strax wrapping up a criminal case
for Scotland Yard.
- “The Great Detective” A 3-minute “prequel” scene to the
story that was part
of the BBC’s Children in Need telethon for 2012, where Vastra, Jenny,
and Strax attempt to coax the
Doctor back into action with promises of
strange goings-on in London.
Doctor Who: Series
Seven Part Two starring Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman.
A 2-disc set. On both discs:
- Graphical
menus, episode selection features, and scene selection features.
- 5.1 surround sound.
On Disc 1:
- The first four episodes of this set: The Bells of Saint John, The Rings of Akhaten,
Cold War, and
Hide.
45 minutes each.
- “The Bells of Saint John – A Prequel” A “prequel” scene
featuring the Doctor
meeting a young girl in a playground, discussing the friend
he’s lost.
On Disc 2:
- The remaining four episodes: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS,
The Crimson Horror, Nightmare in
Silver, and The Name of the Doctor.
That
last one guest stars Alex Kingston as River Song and John Hurt as
the Doctor.
- “Clarence and the Whispermen” A “prequel”
scene showing how Clarence the
serial
killer from The Name of the Doctor came
to know his message to
Vastra about the Doctor, courtesy
of the Whispermen.
Doctor
Who: The Visitation Special Edition starring Peter Davison as the Doctor,
Matthew
Waterhouse as Adric, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, and Janet
Fielding
as Tegan.
Features listed in italics are new to this Special
Edition. Those listed in plain text were
present on the original edition.
A 2-disc
set. On Disc 1:
- All 4 episodes
of the story, digitally restored and remastered. Episodes
are 25 minutes each.
The restoration has been redone from scratch
for this edition, including new transfers of the
location film footage which was not done
on the original version.
- Graphical
menus, episode selection features, and scene selection features.
- Commentary
track with actors Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, and
Janet Fielding, and
director Peter Moffatt.
- “Directing Who
– Peter Moffatt” A
26-minute featurette that interviews director
Peter
Moffatt and profiles the six stories he worked on on Doctor Who.
(which were this one, State
of Decay, Mawdryn Undead, The Five Doctors,
The Twin Dilemma, and The Two Doctors.)
- “Scoring The Visitation” A 16-minute featurette
where composer and restoration team
sound guru Mark Ayres
interviews composer Paddy Kingsland about his music
for this story.
- Film
Trims. 5:30 of alternate takes shot
during the location filming of the story.
- Isolated Score
option: plays the episodes with only the incidental music track playing.
- “Writing a
Final Visitation” A
13-minute interview with writer Eric Saward.
-
Photo Gallery. 5 minutes of behind-the-scenes production
stills.
- Information
Text. Displays pop-up production trivia
subtitles as the episodes play.
These
have been rewritten and revised for the Special Edition.
- 1 Easter Egg. Highlight the
invisible text area below to see what it is and how to find it.
Go to the 2nd page of the Special Features menu and
highlight the Photo Gallery option, then
press the left arrow. A Doctor Who will appear. Click on this and you will see the BBC1
continuity announcements that topped and
tailed some of the episodes of this story on their
original UK
broadcast. (This Easter Egg was on the original release too, it’s just been
hidden in a
different place on this special edition.)
On Disc 2:
- Grim Tales. A new 45-minute making-of documentary where
Peter Davison, Janet Fielding,
and Sarah Sutton are interviewed by Mark Strickson
(Turlough in the later Davison
stories) about the making of the story on the original
locations. Also features actors
Michael
Melia (the Terileptil) and
Peter Van Dissel (the Android), production designer
Ken
Starkey, make-up designer Carolyn Perry, costume designer Odile
Dicks-Mireaux,
and the proud present-day owners of the manor house
location.
- The Television Centre of the
Universe: Part 1. A new 32-minute
documentary hosted by
Yvette
Fielding of Blue Peter spotlighting the recently-closed BBC Television Centre
and Doctor Who’s role within it. Features a tour of the
facility with Peter Davison,
Janet
Fielding, and Sarah Sutton, and interviews with regular Doctor Who crew
members. To be
continued on future DVDs…
- Doctor Forever – The Apocalypse
Element. A new 27-minute documentary,
part of an
ongoing series of DVD featurettes
looking at the spinoff merchandising that was
happening while the series was off-the-air. This one spotlights Big Finish Productions,
who have been making original Doctor Who audio dramas since
the late 1990s.
Features
interviews with Big Finish producers Nicholas Briggs, Gary Russell, and
Jason
Haigh-Ellery, writers Paul Cornell, Rob Shearman,
Mark Gatiss, Justin Richards,
and Joseph Lidster, actor-director
Lisa Bowerman, Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker,
actor William Russell (Ian Chesterton), director David
Richardson, and new series
showrunner and writer Russell T.
Davies. Also looks at the BBC’s own
audio
productions by talking with Michael Stevens from AudioGO.
Hosted by Ayesha Antoine.
- PDF Files: Place this disc into a computer and you can
access two PDF files. One is
the original Radio Times billings for The Visitation, and
the other is the BBC
Enterprises “sales sheet” advertising the story to potential
buyers.
- Coming Soon. A 1-minute trailer for the
forthcoming Inferno Special Edition.
The original edition contained a “Who’s Who” biography section that
listed the further
credits of the main cast. This has been
left off of this edition.
MARCH
RELEASES IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The Aztecs
Special Edition starring William Hartnell as
Dr. Who,
William
Russell as Ian Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright,
and
Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman.
Also includes Doctor Who: Galaxy 4 (Episode 3: Air Lock) starring William
Hartnell as Dr. Who, Maureen O’Brien as Vicki, and Peter Purves as
Steven.
Features described below in
italics are new to this edition and were not present on the
Original release of The Aztecs.
A 2-Disc Set.
On Disc 1:
- All 4 25-minute episodes of
The Aztecs.
-
Graphical menus,
episode selection features, and scene selection features.
-
Fresh restoration of all 4 25-minute episodes,
including a better-refined version of the
VidFIRE video-look process. This story
has been selected by BBC America to represent
the First Doctor era in their “The Doctors
Revisited” series of repeats. The prints
they
used were NOT restored. The prints on this DVD look eye-poppingly better than what
BBC America’s used.
- Commentary by actors William Russell (Ian
Chesterton), Carole Ann Ford (Susan),
and Producer Verity Lambert.
- Production Notes subtitles option.
Displays pop-up production information as the story
plays.
These notes are newly-researched
and rewritten from the original edition.
-
“Remembering the
Aztecs” - 28 minutes of new interviews with three of the guest
cast from the story: Ian Cullen (Ixta), Walter Randall (Tonila),
and John Ringham
(Tlotoxl).
-
“Cortez and
Montezuma” – a 6 minute BBC educational feature from 1970 briefly
describing the
real-life Aztec civilization.
-
“Restoring the
Aztecs” 8 minute compare-and-contrast featurette
about the restoration
And clean-up
given to these episodes, and the VidFIRE video-look
process.
This feature has
an optional production notes feature that displays if the general
Production Notes
feature has been switched on. (highly
recommended that you switch
them on before
watching this one)
-
TARDIS-Cam No.
3, from the BBC online website for Doctor Who.
-
Intro
sequences. There are six different
introductions from the interviewed members
of the guest cast
that randomly play at the beginning when you select the “Play All” feature
on the main menu.
-
“Designing the
Aztecs” 25 minute interview feature with Barry Newbery, the production
designer on the
serial, featuring many photographs from his own collection.
-
“Making Cocoa” –
a South Park-style animated featurette starring Tlotoxl and Tonila from
the story, where
they tell you how the Aztecs made cocoa.
-
An
Arabic-language alternate soundtrack on the fourth episode, salvaged from the
1960s
overseas
syndication package, which also features different incidental music from the
original.
-
Photo Gallery.
- 1 Easter Egg. To know how to access it and what it is,
highlight the following blank space:
-
Go to the “Special Features” menu. Highlight “Intro Sequences” and press the
left arrow.
-
A Doctor Who logo will appear and be highlighted. Click on this and you will see the
-
“Distributed by BBC TV
Enterprises” closing trailer that was used on overseas syndicated
-
film prints of BBC shows in the
1960s.1960s, like this
-
one.
On Disc 2:
-
Galaxy 4. A 65-minute presentation of this 4-episode
story. This begins with a 28-minute
abdidged
reconstruction of the first two episodes, using the surviving soundtracks,
still
photos, CGI, and two
surviving clips from the first episode (the second of which is 6 minutes
long). The recently-recovered third episode, Air
Lock, is then shown in its entirety.
That is
then followed by another
13-minute reconstruction of the concluding episode.
- Chronicle – The Realms of
Gold. A 50-minute BBC documentary made
in the early 1970s
about the conquest of the
Aztec civilization by the Spanish conquistador Cortez.
- Doctor Forever! Celestial Toyroom. A new
23-minute featurette about the various toy ranges
of Doctor Who there have been
through its history.
- It’s A Square World. A 7-minute BBC comedy sketch from the 1960s
starring Clive Dunn
(of Dad’s Army fame) as a
faux First Doctor, explaining how a British space rocket will work.
Also features David Frost
and Patrick Moore.
- A Whole Scene Going. A 5-minute segment from an arts program that
interviewed Gordon
Flemyng,
the director of the Peter Cushing-starring film Daleks
Invasion Earth 2150AD
that includes a visit to the
set.
- Coming Soon. A 1-minute trailer for the forthcoming DVD of
The Ice Warriors.
- PDF Files. Put this disc into a computer and you can
access a PDF file of the original
Radio Times billings for The
Aztecs.
There is one feature that was present
on the original edition of this DVD that’s not present on
this one. This is the Who’s Who text files of actors’
biographies.
Doctor
Who: The Ark in Space Special Edition starring Tom Baker as Doctor
Who,
Elisabeth
Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, and Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan.
Contents listed in italics
are new to this Special Edition. Those in normal type were present
in the original release.
A 2-Disc release. On Disc 1:
- All 4 25-minute episodes of the serial, newly remastered and restored.
- Graphical menus, episode selection features, scene selection features,
and optional
subtitles for
the hearing impaired.
- Commentary
track by actors Tom Baker (the Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen
(Sarah), and
Producer Philip Hinchcliffe.
- Production
Notes Subtitles. Freshly-researched and
rewritten for this edition.
- A New Frontier. A 30-minute featurette
about the making of the story, featuring new
interviews with Philip Hinchcliffe, production
designer Roger Murray-Leach, director
Rodney Bennett, and actors Kenton Moore (Noah) and Wendy Williams (Vira), and
actor Nicholas Briggs offers a fan perspective.
- Original 4:3
aspect ratio.
- New CGI Model
Sequence - The exterior shots of the Ark and its transport ship can
be replaced as you view the episodes with
computer-generated images. You can
choose to either watch all the new shots at
once via a menu choice in the Special
Features menu, or let them appear during the
episodes as you play them.
(The original unaltered episodes with the
original model footage are the default
version on the disc.)
- Roger
Murray-Leach interview from the original edition.
- Alternative
Title Sequence. An earlier, unused
version of Tom Baker’s opening title
sequence that started by using some of the
previous Jon Pertwee sequence.
- Model Effects
Roll - Selecting this plays some film reels of the original modelwork
from
1974 of the Ark’s transport ship launching
and of the Wirrn space-walking around the Ark.
- Trailer for
Episode 1
- Photo Gallery
- 3D Technical
Schematics - This selection displays a computer-generated schematic
animation of the structure of the Ark.
- TARDIS-Cam No.
1- This selection plays a 1-minute modern modelwork featurette
of the TARDIS having landed on a desolate
planet which has the remains of a
Cyberman’s head on
it. This was a sort of promo for the
BBC’s own official
Doctor Who website at www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho
for which other TARDIS-
Cam short subjects were made and shown. Those have been discontinued, but this
was present on the original edition so has
been left here as well.
- 3 Easter Eggs. Use your mouse to highlight the blank-looking
area below and you’ll see
how to find them and what they are.
- Egg 1: On the Main Menu, immediately press your left
arrow and you will see the
Doctor Who logo appear out of
nowhere. Click the logo, and you will
see the 30-second
countdown clock and slate for Part Two of the story used at the start of
its master video tape.
- Egg 2: Go into the 2nd page of the
Special Features menu. Highlight the
Photo Gallery
Selection, then press the left arrow.
A Doctor Who logo will appear. Click this and
the Doctor will appear for about 17 seconds, tell you “goodbye” and that
he can’t stay
long because he’s going to Blackpool, and that
you should brush your teeth.
A caption card for a Doctor Who exhibition in Blackpool
then displays.
(This was an advertisement for said exhibition.)
- Egg 3: At the conclusion of the final episode, after
the credits have finished rolling,
the Doctor appears again in another short segment for that Blackpool exhibition that
would appear to have been used at the exhibit itself as people left
because he asks you
to tell everybody about it, and to mind the steps.
On Disc 2:
- Graphical menus and
optional subtitles for the hearing impaired.
- The Ark in Space: Movie Version.
A one hour-ten-minute continuous edit of the story
that was used in by the BBC
during a rerun season. This copy has not been
restored.
- Doctor Forever! Love and War. A
new 28-minute featurette about how Doctor Who
continued in new fiction books
from 1991 to 2005. Features interviews
with
Virgin Books editor Peter Darvill-Evans, BBC books editors Steve Cole and Justin
Richards, actress Lisa Bowerman, David Richardson from TV Zone, audio and TV
authors Rob Shearman and Joseph Lidster, and book authors (and in many cases,
future writers or producers of
new series episodes) Paul Cornell, Russell T. Davies,
Mark Gatiss
and Gary Russell.
- Scene Around Six. 8 minutes of
film footage of Tom Baker on a promotional tour
of Belfast, Northern Ireleand, being mobbed by huge crowds of kids everywhere he
goes.
- Robot 8mm Location Film. 1
minute of 8mm home movie footage shot during the
making of Tom Baker’s debut
story, Robot.
- Coming Soon. A 1-minute trailer
for the DVD of The Aztecs Special Edition.
- PDF Files. Place this disc into
a computer and you can access four PDF files.
They are:
-- The original Radio Times
billing for this story from 1974.
-- The complete Doctor Who
Technical Manual, an oversize paperback published in 1983.
69 pages of technical schematics of the
popular props, sets, and monsters seen up to
that point (and some
unpopular ones).
-- Promotional materials for
Crosse & Blackwell. Flyers that were
included in cans of
baked beans.
-- Promotional materials for
Nestle. Candy bar wrappers featuring
Doctor Who
characters from this era of
the show.
There are three features that were
present in the original edition of this release that
are absent from this one. The first two were features unique to the
North American
editions which were eliminated as a
series when the range was unified to have the
same contents worldwide. These were the “Who’s Who” text files
containing extra
biographies of the cast, and the
15-minute featurette that compiled all of the
Howard Da Silva narrations that were
used in the initial 1978 syndication package
to U.S. TV stations to introduce the
episodes to the uninitiated American audience.
The third feature was a BBC local news
item that visited the location filming on
Revenge of the Cybermen in the Wookey Hole caves. This segment is now present
on the DVD of Revenge of the Cybermen and so was
felt to be redundant here.
(the Cybermen DVD wasn’t out at the time of the original
release and wasn’t until
many years later)
The original
release also had a flaw on the main feature that is not present on this
new
edition. This took the form of the picture dimming at
various points in the last two
episodes if the
subtitles were switched on.
FEBRUARY RELEASE IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror starring William Hartnell as Dr. Who,
William Russell as Ian
Chesterton, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright,
and Carole Ann Ford as
Susan Foreman.
1 disc.
- Graphical menus and episode selection features.
- Subtitles for the hearing impaired.
- All 6 episodes of the serial, 25 minutes each, black-and-white.
Episodes 1, 2, 3 and 6 are the
original TV versions, digitially remasted
and
restored and with the VidFIRE video-look restoration process applied.
Episodes 4 and 5 are missing
from the BBC archives and are here represented
with newly-created animations
made to match copies of the original TV
soundtracks that have survived
thanks to fans who made off-the-air audio
recordings.
- Optional Commentary tracks. The
surviving episodes feature actor
Carole Ann Ford (Susan) and
production assistant Timothy Combe, and
they are joined on the relevant
episodes by guest actors Neville Smith
(D’Argenson),
Jeffry Wickham (Webster), Caroline Hunt (Danielle), and
Patrick Marley (Soldier). Episode 4 has a full interview with actor
Ronald Pickup (Physician), and
Episode 5 has interviews with missing episode
hunters Paul Vanezis
and Philip Morris. All episodes moderated by Toby Hadoke.
- Don’t Lose Your Head. A new
25-minute making-of-the-show featurette
featuring interviews with Carole
Ann Ford, William Russell, and Timothy Combe.
- Robespierre’s Domain Animated Backgrounds Tour. A 3-minute featurette
showing off the animation
backgrounds used to help recreate episodes 4 & 5.
- Photo Gallery. A 4-minute
slideshow of photo stills taken during the TV production.
- Animation Gallery. A 4-minute
slideshow of some of the animation materials.
- Information Text option. This
option displays pop-up production trivia
information as subtitles as the
episodes play.
- Coming Soon Trailer. A 1-minute
trailer for the forthcoming DVD of
The Ark in Space Special Edition.
- PDF Files. Place this disc into
the DVD-ROM drive of a computer and you can see
the original Radio Times listings from 1964.
JANUARY RELEASE IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: Shada with More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS
Shada starring Tom Baker as
Doctor Who, Lalla Ward as Romana,
and
David Brierley
as the Voice of K9.
A 3-DVD disc set.
On all 3 discs:
- Graphical menus and episode selection features.
- Subtitles for the hearing impaired.
On Disc 1:
- Shada (VHS
Version)
This is nearly all of the completed footage of the story
assembled into story order, with
the missing scenes bridged partially by
narration delivered by Tom
Baker. This is nearly the same edition
that came
out on VHS in 1992, with the
same music score and special effects that were
used then, however, the picture
elements have all been remastered and restored
as with any other Doctor Who classic series DVD. The complete program lasts
1 hour 50 minutes.
- BBCi / Big Finish Version for DVD-ROM. Place this disc into the optical drive
of a computer and you can play a
complete, but different version of Shada that
was made by audio drama
producers Big Finish for the BBC Online website in
2003, with the story slightly
rewritten to star Paul McGann’s Doctor. Lalla
Ward returns as Romana, and John Leeson provides
the voice of K9. A file
marked “Shada
Viewer” is on the disc, and this will launch in your browser and
play the Flash animation of the
entire story. 6 episodes, approx. 25
minutes each.
- Information Text option. This
option displays pop-up production trivia
information as subtitles as the
episodes play. This applies to the Tom Baker
television version only, not
the Flash Paul McGann animated version.
- Coming Soon Trailer for the forthcoming DVD of The Reign of Terror. 1 minute.
On Disc 2:
- Taken Out of Time. A new
26-minute making-of-the-show documentary about
Shada and the reasons for its
cancellation, featuring interviews with actors
Tom Baker and Daniel Hill (Chris
Parsons), director’s assistant Olivia Bazelgette,
production assistant Ralph
Wilton, assistant designer Les McCallum,
Cambridge choir member Angus
Smith, and director Pennant Roberts.
- Now and Then. A 13-minute
documentary comparing the locations of the story
as they looked in 1979 versus
how they looked in 2012.
- Strike! Strike! Strike! A new
28-minute documentary about the history of BBC
strikes and how they affected
the production of other stories in the series.
Features television experts,
plus Doctor Who actors Nicola Bryant,
Peter Purves,
and Paul Seed, producers Barry
Letts and Derrick Sherwin, script editor
Gary Russell, and director
Richard Martin.
- Being a Girl. A new 30-minute
documentary narrated by Louise Jameson (Leela)
about all of the Doctor’s female
companions throughout the entire series up to 2011.
- Photo Gallery. A 5-minute
package of still photos taken during the production
of Shada.
On Disc 3:
- More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS.
A 1 hour, 28-minute documentary about
the whole of the classic series
made on the occasion of the 30th anniversary in 1993,
which was released on VHS in
1994. Features clips and interviews with
nearly
every actor and producer and
many of the writers who had worked on the series,
as well as re-creations of
classic scenes. Narrated by Nicholas
Courtney (the Brigadier).
- Remembering Nicholas Courtney.
A new 26-minute featurette about the late
Nicholas Courtney made by his
biographer, Michael McManus, utilizing a partial
interview Courtney gave in 2010
about his life, also featuring Tom Baker, as well
as earlier interviews and clips.
- Doctor Who Stories: Peter Purves. A 14-minute interview actor Peter Purves gave
in 2003 discussing his work on
the series as Steven Taylor during the First Doctor era.
- The Lambert Tapes – Part One.
An 11-minute interview with the late Verity Lambert
recorded in 2003 about her
taking on of the production of Doctor Who
and her being
the BBC’s first female
Producer. To be continued on forthcoming
DVDs.
- Those Deadly Divas. A 23-minute
featurette where contributors look at and discuss
some of the best of Doctor Who’s female villains. The contributors are actors
Kate O’Mara (the Rani), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), and Tracy Ann Oberman
(Yvonne Harper), and writers
Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman. Also
includes
some deleted scenes from The Idiot’s Lantern of Maureen Lipman as the Wire.
- Photo Gallery. A 6-minute
presentation of still photos taken during the making of
More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS.
- PDF Files. Place this disc into
the DVD-ROM drive of a computer and you can see
the original Radio Times listings for More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS.
- 1 Easter Egg. Highlight the
area of blank text below to see what it is and how to find it.
Go to the Photo
Gallery selection, then press the left arrow.
A Doctor Who logo will
appear. Click on this and you will see a 2-minute interview
with 1960s director
Richard Martin giving his
memories of the late Verity Lambert.
NOVEMBER 2012 RELEASES IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: Series 7
Part 1 starring Matt Smith as the Doctor,
Karen Gillan as
Amy, and Arthur Darvill as Rory.
A 2-disc set, available either as standard-definition DVDs or
high-definition Blu-Rays.
On both discs:
- Graphical menus, episode and scene selection features.
- Subtitles for the hearing impaired.
On Disc 1:
- Episodes 1 to 3: Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and
A
Town Called Mercy
On Disc 2:
- Episodes 4 and 5: The Power of
Three and The Angels Take Manhattan
- “Pond Life” A 5-part series of short
subjects showing Amy and Rory at home
between adventures with
the Doctor that debuted on the BBC’s websites
the week before the
season started. 6 minutes total.
- Asylum of the Daleks Prequel. A 2-1/2 minute scene featuring the Doctor
that
takes place just before
Asylum of the Daleks
begins.
- The Making of the Gunslinger. A
2-minute scene showing how the cybernetic
engineers of Kahler Jex’s people came to build
their Gunslingers.
(not a
behind-the-scenes featurette… this is a piece of
fiction)
- The Science of Doctor Who A 44-minute special that ran on BBC America
in
August 2012 about the
science and science fiction concepts the series
touches on and how
possible they may really be.
- Comic Con Piece. An 11-minute featurette showing the stars of the show and
Executive Producers
Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner visiting
San Diego Comic Con in
July 2012.
Frequently Asked Question: Will these episodes
also be part of a larger box set
of the whole of Series 7 in the future?
Answer:
Yes, they will, however, that box set will not be released until a few
months after the final episode of the series airs, and that will not be
until sometime
in the spring of 2013. Also, that
box set will not include the Science of
Doctor Who
special. (The other extras on
this set will likely all be included.)
Doctor Who: The
Claws of Axos Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who,
Roger Delgado as the
Master, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier
Lethbridge-Stewart,
Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Richard Franklin as Captain
Yates, and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.
This is a Special Edition re-release of a title that originally came out
in 2005.
The restoration has been redone from scratch. The middle two episodes in particular
were given extra attention with newly enhanced techniques that have
resulted in
better picture quality on these than in the 2005 release, particularly
on Episode 3.
The original release was 1 disc.
This one has been boosted to 2 discs, with new
extra features, detailed below.
Features listed in italics are
new to this Special Edition.
On Disc 1:
- All 4 episodes of the story, newly
restored and remastered.
-
Graphical menus, episode selection feature, and scene selection features.
-
Commentary track with actors Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Richard Franklin
(Captain Yates), and producer
Barry Letts.
-
“Deleted and Extended Scenes” A 27-minute featurette assembled from a
rare surviving “studio reel” of videotape that was recording the
entire
recording session on the first production night. It thus
includes many
behind-the-scenes moments, multiple takes of scenes, and some scenes
that were cut. It also comes with an optional information
text
subtitle feature
that commentates and informs you on what you’re being shown.
On Disc 2:
- Axon Stations! A new 27-minute
featurette about the making of the story, with
Interviews with actors
Katy Manning, Derek Ware (Pigbin Josh),
Paul Grist (Bill
Filer), Bernard Holley (Axon Man), co-writer Bob Baker,
script editor Terrance
Dicks, and director Michael Ferguson.
- “Now and Then” A 6-1/2 minute featurette
showing the outdoor locations from the film
shoots in the present day and
contrasting them with how they appeared in the 1971
program.
- “Directing Who” A 15-minute featurette that
interviews director Michael Ferguson.
- Studio Recording. The entirety
of the rare 72-minute “studio reel” of videotape
described above in the
Deleted and Extended Scenes package.
- Living With Levene. Toby Hadoke spends a weekend with Sergeant Benton actor John
Levene in his home to try to better understand this
eccentric personality.
35-minutes.
- “Photo Gallery” 11 minutes of production stills.
- PDF Files. Place this disc into a computer and you can
access PDF files of the
story’s
original Radio Times billings from
1971.
- Coming Soon Trailer for the forthcoming
DVD release of Shada,
including the
Documentary
More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS. The title card on this
trailer
reads “Legacy Box Set,” (the UK’s title) but in North America it will
be
released simply as Shada with More Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS.
OCTOBER 2012 RELEASE IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death
starring Jon Pertwee
as Doctor Who,
Caroline
John as Liz Shaw, Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart,
and
John Levene as Sergeant Benton.
A 2-disc set.
On Disc 1:
- All 7 episodes of the story, fully color-restored and digitally remastered.
- Graphical menus, episode and scene selection features.
- Optional commentary track recorded in 2009 featuring actors Caroline
John
(Liz Shaw), Nicholas Courtney
(the Brigadier), John’s husband Geoffrey Beevers
(Private Johnson), and Peter Halliday (Alien Voices), script editor Terrance Dicks,
director Michael Ferguson,
stunt arranger Derek Ware, and stunt performers Roy
Scammell
and Derek Martin. Moderated by Toby Hadoke.
- Information Text. This option
displays pop-up production trivia information as
subtitles as the episodes play.
- Subtitles for the hearing impaired.
On Disc 2:
- “Mars Probe 7: Making the Ambassadors of Death” A new 26-minute featurette
about the making of the show,
featuring interviews with the aforementioned Terrance
Dicks, Michael Ferguson, Derek
Ware, and Roy Scammell, and also assistant floor
manager Margot Hayhoe.
- Trailer. A 1:30 trailer for the
serial featuring specially recorded links from
Jon Pertwee.
- Tomorrow’s Times: The Third Doctor.
A 13-minute look at how the Jon Pertwee era
of the show was reviewed in the
press at the time, presented by Peter Purves.
- Photo Gallery. 4-minutes of
stills taken during the production of the story.
- PDF Materials. Place this disc
into the optical drive of your computer, and you can
access a .pdf
file of the original Radio Times
billings for this story from 1970.
- Coming Soon. A 1-minute trailer
for the forthcoming DVD of The Claws of Axos
Special Edition.
- Subtitles for the hearing impaired.
FAQ: The Color Restoration. What’s been done, why was it needed,
and how good is it?
This story fell victim
to the BBC Archive videotape purges of the 1970s. The original
color videotape of the
first episode is the only one to survive to this day. Black-and-white
film copies of all 7
episodes were made, however, and those survived and were used for
syndication in North
America from the 1980s onwards. Also in
the archives is a color
domestic Betamax
recording from off-air made by an American during a syndication
broadcast in the late
1970s. Unfortunately, the colors on this recording were intermittent
given the distance
between his receiver and the UHF station he was recording from.
This recording was used
to restore some of the color to this story when it was released on
VHS in the early 2000s,
however, 45% of the serial remained in black-and-white only.
The BBC Restoration Team
has successfully restored the color to all of the episodes for
this DVD release, using
a mixture of the useable color from the 1970s Betamax tape and
color retrieved from
high-resolution scans of the black-and-white film prints and put
through the Color
Recovery process that analyzes the interference patterns left by the
original colors in the
black-and-white film and uses them to reassign the original colors
of each pixel.
As for how good it all now looks, the answer is very good indeed when
compared to the
original source materials or the earlier VHS release. It’s not, however, quite as good as
having the original tapes to watch, as you’ll be able to tell when you
compare Episode 1
(which does come from the original surviving videotape) to the later
episodes. Based on
my own subjective viewing experience, if we say that the color on
Episode 1 is a 10 on a
scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the “worst” sections of Episodes 2 and 3
as a 6/10, and those
of the rest at 8/10. There are
portions of all 6 of the restored episodes that look better
than that, all the way up to 9/10 to my eyes.
SEPTEMBER 2012 RELEASES IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: Planet of Giants
starring William Hartnell as
Dr. Who, William Russell as
Ian Chesterton,
Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright, and Carole Ann Ford as
Susan Foreman.
- All 3 episodes of the
story, digitally remastered and restored and given
the VidFIRE
video-look restoration treatment.
- Optional commentary
track by BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound designer
Brian
Hodgson, vision mixer Clive Doig, make-up artist Sonia Markham, and floor assistant
David Tilby. Moderated by Mark Ayres.
- Episodes 3 & 4
Reconstruction. This story was
originally made and recorded as
4 25-minute episodes. Prior to its original broadcast in 1964,
however, it was judged
to be running too slowly, and so the second
half of the story was condensed down to
just 1 episode, making this only a 3-part
story. This featurette
is an attempt to present
the story as originally recorded using
impressionists playing most of the characters to
read the dialog in from the missing scenes
and present that alongside footage taken
from elsewhere in the story. Also, actors
Carole Ann Ford and William Russell
reprise their roles as Susan and Ian,
respectively, in this new recording. Produced
by Ian Levine. 52 minutes.
- Rediscovering The Urge
to Live. An 8-minute featurette
about the making of the
reconstruction, featuring all the cast and
the producers.
- Suddenly Susan. A 15-minute inteview
with Carole Ann Ford from 2003 where she
discusses her time as Susan.
- The Lambert Tapes -
The Doctor. A 14-minute interview with
producer Verity Lambert
from 2003 where she discusses the character
of the Doctor and the actors who'd played
him up until that point.
- Photo Gallery. A 3-minute package of production stills taken
during the making of the story.
- Information Text. Option to display pop-up production trivia as
subtitles as the story plays.
- Optional Arabic
Soundtrack. Plays all 3 episodes with
the Arabic soundtrack that was used
in some 1960s overseas sales.
- Coming Soon
Trailer. A 1-minute trailer for the Vengeance on Varos
Special Edition.
Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos Special Edition starring Colin Baker as the Doctor
and Nicola Bryant as Peri.
Features listed in normal type were
present in the original DVD release in 2002.
Features listed in italics are new to the Special Edition.
2 Discs. On Disc 1:
- The two episodes of the story, 45
minutes each, digitally remastered and restored.
- Graphical menus, episode and scene
selection features.
- Optional commentary by actors Colin
Baker (the Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), and Nabil Shaban (Sil)
- Optional 5.1 channel soundtrack
- Optional Isolated Score: plays the story with only the music track
playing. Also available in 5.1
- Optional Mono Production Audio. Plays the story with only the studio sound
playing, no music or
post-production
sound effects.
- Information Text. Displays pop-up trivia information about the
production throughout the
story. This was an option on
the original DVD as well, but the notes have been completely
rewritten here to include new
information.
On Disc 2:
- Nice
or Nasty. A new making-of documentary presented by Matthew Sweet. 30 minutes.
Features interviews with writer
Philip Martin, script editor Eric Saward, incidental
musician
Jonathan Gibbs, and actors Nabil
Shaban (Sil) and Sheila
Reed (Etta).
- The Idiot's Lantern. An 8-minute featurette
that looks at how Doctor Who has used the
medium of television within its
own narrative, in all its eras.
- Extended and Deleted Scenes. An 18-minute package of scenes cut from
the finished show,
The original DVD had 10 of these
scenes. An additional 8 have been added here, for a total
of 18.
- Acid Bath Scene with Alternative Music. An attempt to show the
infamous acid bath
sequence in a better light with
a different music track on it.
- Two BBC1 broadcast trailers. 1
minute.
- Behind-The-Scenes. A 5 minute featurette that shows “wild” footage of several of the cast
making a few
different attempts at a scene as they try to improve the scene.
- Continuities. (The BBC’s announcer
giving the time and a brief description of the upcoming show.)
- Photo gallery. 7 minutes of production stills taken
throughout the story.
- Outtakes. The cast try to perform a few scenes and
various things go wrong each time. 3 minutes.
- Tomorrow's Times - The Sixth
Doctor. Sarah Sutton presents a
13-minute featurette looking at the
press reaction to the series at this time, to the cancellation crisis of
1985, and the death of Second
Doctor Patrick Troughton.
- News. A 1-minute news item about Colin Baker's
casting in the role.
- Breakfast Time. A 6-minute interview with Colin Baker on the
BBC's Breakfast Time morning show
immediately after he'd been cast in the part.
- Saturday Superstore. A 15-minute segment from an appearance by
Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant
on this show in 1984. Also
features the Master calling in on the phone to talk to them.
- French and Saunders. An 8-minute comedy sketch shot on the set of The Trial of a Time Lord
from the French and Saunders show of the time. (Unused on the show itself.)
- Coming Soon. A 1-minute trailer for the forthcoming DVD of
The Ambassadors of Death.
- PDF Materials. Place this DVD into the optical drive of a
computer and you can access the
Radio Times TV listings from the original broadcast in 1985 and the BBC Enterprises
Sales Sheet
that advertised this story to potential overseas customers.
The Who's Who actors biographies texts present on the original DVD
release are not present on
this edition.
AUGUST 2012 RELEASES IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy starring
Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor
and
Sophie Aldred as Ace.
1 DVD disc containing:
- All 4 episodes of the story, fully
restored and digitally remastered.
- Graphical menus, episode and scene
selection features.
- Optional commentary track by actors
Sophie Aldred, Christopher Guard (Bellboy),
and
Jessica Martin (Mags), writer Stephen Wyatt, script
editor Andrew Cartmel,
and
music composer Mark Ayres. Moderated by Toby Hadoke.
- Choice of a new Dolby 5.1 soundtrack mix
or the original 2.0 stereo mix.
- Isolated Music score option. Plays the
story with only the incidental music playing.
- "The Show Must Go On" A 30-minute making-of featurette
telling the particularly
fraught
story of how this story was made, with interviews with Andrew Cartmel,
Sophie
Aldred, visual effects designer Mike Tucker, director
Alan Wareing,
production
designer David Laskey, actor Ian Reddington
(Chief Clown), and
parts
of an archive interview with producer John Nathan-Turner.
- Deleted and Extended Scenes. An 11-minute package of 33 scenes that were
trimmed
or
removed entirely.
- Lost in the Darkness. A 2-minute featurette
showing the outer space model shots that
were
to have appeared at the start of the story but were dropped, with Mike
Tucker
explaining why this was.
- The Psychic Circus. A 4-minute
music video for a song that the cast created for possible
commercial release at
the time of production, restored and remixed.
The song was
not published at the
time. The video portion is a new creation, made to look
as if it could've been
a late 1980s music video. Available either with the original
2.0 stereo sound or a
new 5.1 Dolby mix.
- Remembrance "Demo". Two scenes from the story Remembrance of the Daleks with
their
music replaced with music aspiring composer Mark Ayres wrote to
demonstrate
what he could do, which won him the job making the music for
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Available in either 2.0 stereo or 5.1 Dolby.
4
minutes.
- Tomorrow's Times - The Seventh
Doctor. A 14-minute featurette
where Anneke Wills
presents
the best and worst of the press reaction to the Seventh Doctor's stories
when
they first aired.
- Victoria Wood Sketch. A 1-minute comedy sketch made around this time
satirizing
Doctor Who starring Victoria Wood as a
companion and Jim Broadbent as the Doctor.
- Photo Gallery. 7 minutes of still photos
taken during production of the story.
- Coming Soon. A 1-minute trailer for the forthcoming DVD of
Planet of Giants.
-
PDF Materials. Place this disc into a
computer and you can have a look at the Radio
Times billing for this story from 1988-89, and also a file
containing Mike Tucker's
design drawings for some of the visual
effects props.
-
1 Easter Egg. Highlight the blank area
of text below to see what it is and how to find it.
Go to the Special
Features menu. Highlight Deleted and Extended Scenes, then press
the right arrow to make
a Doctor Who logo appear. Click this
and you'll see a strange
1-minute video
montage of bits of many of the special features that was reported to
have been part of
some sort of marketing campaign across the BBC's DVD range that
was cancelled after
this disc had already been authored.
Doctor Who:
Spearhead from Space Special Edition starring Jon Pertwee
as Doctor Who,
Caroline John as Liz Shaw, and
Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Features listed
in italics are new to the Special
Edition. Those in normal type were also
in the original
edition.
- Graphical menus, episode selection features, and scene selection
features.
- The restoration has been redone from
scratch, and for the first time, from using the
original film negatives. This was the only story in the classic series
that was made
entirely on film (16mm).
- Commentary track 1 by actors Caroline John
(Liz) and Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier).
- Commentary track 2 by script editor Terrance
Dicks and producer Derrick Sherwin.
- "Down to Earth: Filming Spearhead
from Space" A 23-minute featurette about the
making of the story with interviews with Terrance Dicks, Derrick
Sherwin,
costume designer Christine Rawlins, assistant script editor Robin
Squire, and archive
interviews with Jon Pertwee and producer Barry
Letts.
- "Regenerations: From Black and White
to Color" A 19-minute featurette about the BBC's
transition from black-and-white to color
broadcasts, featuring interviews with Derrick
Sherwin, Terrance Dicks, actors Frazer Hines
and Wendy Padbury, designer Roger
Cheveley, directors Timothy Combe,
Michael Ferguson, and Christopher Barry, and
title
sequence designer Bernard Lodge, who also goes into detail as to how he created
the
Jon Pertwee era title sequence that debuted with this
story.
- Production Notes Subtitles, rewritten after new research.
- A 5-minute "UNIT Recruitment Film" that
was made as a spoof for a run of repeats in 1993.
- A new photo
gallery package of stills taken during production of the story. 4 minutes.
- Three BBC2 trails from the 1999 repeats of this
story. 2 minutes.
- PDF Files. Place this DVD into the optical drive of a
computer and you can see the original
1970 Radio
Times billings and feature articles that accompanied this story.
- An Easter Egg (hidden feature – highlight here to
see how to get to it):
This is accessible
as follows: from the main menu, highlight "Scene Selection" and
double
click the left arrow. The Doctor Who logo at the top will become
highlighted. Click on this
and you'll see an earlier, "first
draft" of the title sequence never used on the finished shows.
- In all previous
DVD and VHS releases of this story, a section of music that played over the
top of the establishing scenes in the
plastics factory early in Episode 2 had to be removed
due to the rights clearances for this track
being too expensive. It was the opening
guitar riffs
of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well (Part
One)," which were much cheaper for the BBC to use in
1970 when the band was still largely unknown
than it later became. These rights
issues have
at last been cleared up, and for the first
time, that music is left intact and is here on this DVD
right where it should be.
- The original edition had a series of
text-only biographies of the principal cast called "Who's Who"
which are not present in this edition.
JULY 2012 RELEASES IN DETAIL
Doctor Who: The Krotons
starring Patrick Troughton as Dr. Who, Frazer
Hines as Jamie,
and
Wendy Padbury as Zoe.
1 DVD disc containing:
- All 4 episodes of the story, amazingly restored
and given the VidFIRE video-look restoration
treatment.
- Graphical menus, episodes and scene
selection features.
- Optional commentary track by actors
Richard Ireson (Axus),
Philip Madoc (Eelek),
and Gilbert Wynne (Thara), costume designer Bobi Bartlett, make-up designer Sylvia
James, and assistant floor manager David Tilley. Moderated by Toby Hadoke.
- Second Time Around - The Troughton Years. A
52-minute documentary about the
entirety of the Patrick Troughton era. Includes interviews with actors Anneke Wills
(Polly), Frazer Hines (Jamie), Deborah Watling (Victoria), Wendy Padbury (Zoe),
script editors/writers Terrance Dicks and Victor Pemberton, new series
writer Rob Shearman,
new series script editor Gary Russell, script editor/writer/producer
Derrick Sherwin,
director Christopher Barry, an archival interview with Patrick Troughton himself,
and archival text quotes from story editor/writer Gerry Davis and
producer Innes Lloyd.
Also includes five clips from the recently-found yet-to-be-released
episode 2 of
The Underwater Menace.
- Doctor Who Stories - Frazer Hines, part
one. A 17-minute interview with Frazer
Hines
(to be continued in a future DVD release)
- The Doctor's Strange Love. A 7-minute discussion of the story between
Simon Guerrier
and Torchwood/Sarah Jane
Adventures writer Joe Lidster.
- Photo Gallery. A presentation of still photos from the
production lasting 5 minutes.
-
PDF Materials. Place this disc into a
computer and you can have a look at the Radio
Times billing for this story from 1969.
- Coming Soon Trailer. A 1-minute trailer for the forthcoming DVD of
The Greatest Show
in the Galaxy.
-
Information Text. Displays pop-up
production notes throughout the story as subtiles.
Doctor Who: Death to the Daleks
starring Jon Pertwee
as Doctor Who and Elisabeth
Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith.
1 DVD disc
containing:
- All 4 episodes of the story, amazingly restored and given the VidFIRE video-look restoration
treatment.
- Graphical menus, episodes and scene
selection features.
- Optional
commentary track by actors Julian Fox (Peter Hamilton) and Cy Town (Dalek
Operator), Assistant Floor Manager Richard
Leyland, Costume Designer L. Rowland Warne,
Special Sound Designer Dick Mills, and
Director Michael E. Briant.
- Beneath
the City of the Exxilons. A 27-minute making-of-the-show documentary
presented
by new series Dalek
Voice actor Nicholas Briggs, featuring interviews with most of the
commentary contributors, plus Arnold Yarrow
(who played Bellal).
- Studio
Recording. A 24-minute featurette of camera footage taken "wild" during
the
studio recording, showing what went on just
before and after takes.
- On the Set
of Doctor Who and the Daleks. An 8-minute featurette
about the making of
the first of the two Dalek
movies starring Peter Cushing utilizing behind-the-scenes
black and white film footage that's recently
come to light. Features interviews with
the director's son, actor Jason Flemyng, 1st Assistant Director Anthony Waye,
and
Dalek Operator
Bryan Hands.
- Doctor Who
Stories - Dalek Men.
A 13-minute featurette featuring interviews
with
Dalek Operators John Scott Martin and Nicholas Evans.
- Photo Gallery. A presentation of still photos from the
production lasting 5 minutes.
-
PDF Materials. Place this disc into a
computer and you can have a look at the Radio
Times billing for this story from 1974.
- Coming Soon Trailer. A 1-minute trailer for the DVD of The Krotons.
-
Information Text. Displays pop-up
production notes throughout the story as subtiles.
- 1 Easter
Egg. Highlight the area of blank text
below to learn what it is and how to find it.
Go to the first page of the Special Features
menu. Highlight the Photo Gallery selection,
then press the right arrow. A Doctor Who logo will appear on the
left side of the screen.
Select this, and you will see the full
opening and closing title sequences used on Jon
Pertwee's final
season without any credits on them.
There used to be a section here on the releases the UK
has already got
that North America doesn’t have yet. It’s been removed because it’s
become irrelevant, as North America is now caught up to
the UK and
will be remaining so through 2013.
Doctor Who is the copyright of the BBC, BBC Worldwide,
BBC Video, and is distributed on VHS and DVD 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!
Compiled by Steve Manfred, smanfred at
comcast.net
(change at to @ and remove the spaces to email me)
I’m also on Twitter under the name: @DrWhoExpert
I also post intermittently on the Gallifrey Base forum under my real name, Steve Manfred.