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The Complete
First Series Box Set starring Christopher Eccleston as Doctor Who and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler.
The box consists of a clear plastic sleeve that has some of the artwork and all of the back cover text on it. Taking this off leaves a slim
case that looks like the police box TARDIS exterior. This box folds out three times to reveal an interior-of-the-TARDIS artwork motif
on the interior of the box and on the discs themselves. There are 5 discs. The four discs with episodes are on the right two folds of the box,
and the 5th disc on the 2nd one from the left. The left-most fold is a sleeve that contains a reply mailer, an ad flyer for tie-in books, and a
16-page “Collectors’ Edition Episode Guide” booklet that details the set’s contents and offers a few other little snippets.
The exterior of the box set looks like this:
And the interior of the box looks like this:
(you can’t see disc 5 in this shot only because it’s hidden behind the doors on the left)
- On all 5 discs:
- Graphical menus, “Play All” selection, Episode Selection, and Scene Selection Features.
- Special Features menu that accesses the featurettes.
- Set Up menu that accesses the subtitles for the hearing impared and the soundtrack options (Dolby 5.1 sound on all the episodes
or a commentary track)
- All episodes are 45 minutes in length and in their original 16:9 aspect ratio.
- On Disc 1:
Episode
1: Rose Originally transmitted on
and, a mysterious stranger who calls himself the Doctor, who enlists her aid in stopping them.
Guest stars Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith and Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler. - Optional commentary track by Russell T. Davies (writer and executive producer), Julie Gardner (executive producer),
and Phil Collinson (producer)
Episode
2: The End of the World Originally
transmitted on
The Doctor takes Rose five billion years forward in time to the day the sun will expand and consume the Earth, to be witnessed by a
party of very rich alien life forms... a party that starts to get smaller as one of them starts to bump of the other guests.
- Optional commentary track by Phil Collinson and Will Cohen (visual effects producer)
Episode
3: The Unquiet Dead Originally transmitted on
The Doctor and Rose next take a trip back in time, to Christmas of 1869 in Cardiff, Wales, where none other than Charles Dickens
is giving a recital from A Christmas Carol, at the very same time that seemingly real ghosts take over a nearby undertakers...
- Optional commentary track by writer Mark Gatiss, director Euros Lyn, and actor Simon Callow (Charles Dickens)
Special Features:
- BBC Breakfast Interview with Christopher Eccleston. A 12-minute interview that Eccleston did during the series’ press launch.
- “Destroying the Lair” A 3-minute featurette on the modelwork that depicted the destruction of the Nestene lair in Rose.
- “Making Doctor Who with Russell T. Davies” A 15-1/2 minute featurette of behind-the-scenes footage shot by Russell T. Davies
himself during the first weeks of production on the series.
- “Waking the Dead” An 18-minute featurette of footage that writer Mark Gatiss shot during his writing process for
The Unquiet Dead (and some of the production of the episode)
- “Laying Ghosts” An 8-minute featurette about the making of The Unquiet Dead
- “Launch Trailers” Almost 3 minutes worth of promotional trailers that ran on BBC1 that advertised the episodes on this disc.
- “Storyboard of Opening Trailer” 1 minute of storyboard images that went into the making of the main ad trailer.
- On Disc 2:
Episode
4: Aliens
of
Optional commentary track by Julie Gardner, Will Cohen, and actor David Verrey (“Joseph Green”)
Episode
5: World
War Three (part 2 of that 2-part story) Originally
transmitted on
Optional commentary track by Phil Collinson, script editor Helen Raynor, and actress Annette Badland (“Margaret Blaine”)
In this two-part story, the Doctor takes Rose back home for a visit, and at the same time an alien spacecraft crash-lands in the middle
of
to figure out what these other aliens are up to...
Guest starring Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Penelope Wilton as Harriet Jones- MP Flydale North,
and Annette Badland as “Margaret Blaine”.
Episode
6: Dalek
Originally transmitted on
Guest stars Bruno Langley as Adam Mitchell
The Doctor and Rose investigate a distress call and find an alien museum belonging to the “owner” of the internet... whose prize possession
is his one living specimen... a robotic creature kept locked in a cell that refuses to speak... until it sees the Doctor and says...
“EXTERMINATE!”
- Optional commentary track by writer Robert Shearman, visual effects producer Dave Houghton, and actors Nicholas Briggs
(Dalek Voice) and Bruno Langley (Adam Mitchell).
Special Features:
- “Deconstructing Big Ben” A 5-minute featurette on the model shot of the Slitheen spaceship crashing into Big Ben.
- “On Set with Billie Piper” A 10-minute collection of behind-the-scenes material shot by Billie Piper herself.
- “Trailers” 1 minute’s worth of trailers used to advertise these episodes on BBC1.
- On Disc 3:
Episode
7: The
Long Game Originally transmitted on
Guest stars Bruno Langley as Adam Mitchell.
The Doctor and Rose take their new companion Adam to see a satellite of Earth in the year 200,000, where the Doctor is surprised to see
history in the wrong shape, with humanity being unwittingly controlled by the satellite’s news services’ manipulation of events.
- Optional commentary track by Bruno Langley, director Brian Grant, and actress Christine Adams (Cathica)
Episode
8: Father’s
Day Originally transmitted on
Guest stars Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler and Shaun Dingwall as Pete Tyler.
Rose asks to travel back in time and visit her father just before he died, and the Doctor grants her wish. When Rose can’t stop herself
from saving her father from the car accident that should have killed him, history has its own revenge upon her, her family, and the whole world...
- Optional commentary track by writer Paul Cornell, actors Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) and Shaun Dingwall (Pete Tyler), and
producer Phil Collinson
Episodes
9 and 10: The Empty Child and The
Doctor Dances (a 2-part story) Originally transmitted on 21 and
Guest stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness
In
this 2-part story, the Doctor and Rose pursue a time vessel to
off her feet by a time agent posing as an RAF captain, who has a deal for her. Meanwhile, the Doctor’s investigations take him to a group of
homeless children who are terrified of one other of their number who stalks them, always asking for his mummy, and always wearing a gas mask...
- Optional commentary tracks by writer Steven Moffat, Dave Houghton, and actor John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness)
Special Features:
- “Mike Tucker’s Mocks of Balloons” A 5-minute featurette about the making of the model barrage balloons used in the
special effects sequences of the London Blitz
- On Disc 4:
Episode
11:
Guest stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, and Annette Badland as “Margaret Blaine”
In
present-day
when they see who the Mayor really is...
- Optional commentary track by Phil Collinson, John Barrowman, and Annette Badland
Episode
12: Bad Wolf (part
1 of a 2-part story) Originally
transmitted on
Guest stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness
The TARDIS travellers are transmatted aboard the Game Station, where they are forced to play in familiar, yet different, game shows for a global
audience. The games are deadly, but they are merely a distraction for the forces lurking behind the cameras...
- Optional commentary track by Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Phil Collinson
Episode
13: The Parting of the Ways (part 2 of that story) Originally
transmitted on
Guest stars John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, and Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler.
To protect her from the imminent Dalek invasion, the Doctor sends Rose back home against her will, then races to try and stop the invasion, knowing
that the cost of doing so may be so high he can’t go through with it. Meanwhile, Rose tries to find a way to return to the fight, at the behest of the
mysterious Bad Wolf...
- Optional commentary track by Billie Piper, John Barrowman, and Julie Gardner
Special Features:
- “Designing Doctor Who” A 21-minute featurette concentrating on the set design of the entire series
- “The Adventures of Captain Jack” An 8-minute interview with John Barrowman
- “Trailers” - Plays 2-1/2 minutes worth of trailers used to advertise these episodes
1 Easter Egg. Highlight the blank area below to see what it is and how to find it.
- From the main menu, arrow down to “Set Up,”
then arrow down again and a small orange hexagon will appear. Select this
and you will see an
alternative version of the “Trip of a Lifetime” ad trailer that was
never aired.
- On Disc 5:
This is the Doctor Who Confidential disc. This was a documentary companion series to the main series that aired each week
on BBC3 immediately after each Doctor Who episode had finished. These episodes were originally 30 minutes long and were a mix
of behind-the-scenes footage on the new series and clips of the classic series along with interviews with the classic series’ cast.
These are abbreviated versions of those 13 episodes where they’ve removed all the classic series’ material, along with a 14th short
episode that was never aired which gives a behind-the-scenes look at The Christmas Invasion, the 2005 Christmas special episode
(and the first with David Tennant as the Doctor).
The abbreviated versions are what’s used here because of the extensive and prohibitive copyright clearances that would be involved in
republishing so many of the classic series clips, and for similar reasons much of the popular music that was used in the original versions
has also had to be changed and replaced on these versions.
The
episode titles are: 1. Bringing Back the
Doctor, 2. The Good, the Bad, & the
Ugly, 3. TARDIS Tales, 4. I Get a Side-Kick Out
of
You, 5. Why on Earth?, 6. Dalek, 7. The Dark Side, 8.
Time Trouble, 9.
Special Effects, 10.
Weird Science, 11.
Unsung
Heroes & Violent Death, 12. The World of Who, 13.
The Last
If one counts this series as a continuation of the original series, then these are ten stories, numbers 161-170, and episode numbers 705 through 718.