The Frequently Asked Questions List for
Doctor Who
VHS Home Videos in
Or… Click here for the DVD FAQ, or click
here for the LATEST DVD
and VHS NEWS.
Links and website address updated
Compiled by Steve Manfred, smanfred at comcast.net (change at to @ and remove the spaces to
email me)
VHS BEING DISCONTINUED
BBC Worldwide Americas have given me a new update on the status of the backstock of VHS Doctor Who titles.
All of the titles that were in the “Active” category have now been moved to the “Sell-off” category, and the range is being discontinued.
No further tapes will be made, and when current stocks run out, they’ll be gone for good.
Until recently, each title in the VHS range could be fitted into one of three categories, which I call “Active,” “Sell-off,” and “Extinct.”
There were until recently 86 “Active” titles. These were stories that were still selling well enough that BBC Worldwide Americas were maintaining
sales of them. They have now moved all of them into the “Sell-off” category.
There are another 53 titles that were already in “Sell-off”. These are stories that weren’t selling as well and were not being restocked when the
supplies ran out.
And then there were just 13 titles that I will call “Extinct.” These are stories that were in the “Sell-Off” category but whose stocks had already
run out. .
There are now only two categories
left: the “Sell-off” and the
“Extinct.”
I am still waiting for an updated list of which titles are still in
stock.
When I get
it, I’ll pass it along here.
**** THE FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS LIST***************
1. I want to buy Doctor Who episodes on VHS Home Video. Who makes them, and where can I find them?
BBC Worldwide Americas is the BBC’s commercial branch in the
These days, your first best option to find the VHS tapes would be to try ordering online at one of the big online shopping houses like www.amazon.com or the BBC's own American sales site, www.bbcamericashop.com. VHS titles of all sorts have become very scarce in brick and mortar stores. If you have a really good one near you, however, you might try and see what they may already have. Some of the newer titles are still available in a few places. You could also try asking them to special order titles for you. If they’ve never heard of Doctor Who videos, try telling them that they’re distributed by Warner Home Video for BBC Video, and also try giving them the catalog numbers you’ll see listed later on in this FAQ.
Now that the range is being completely discontinued, your only resort may be to try online auctions such as ebay.com , or specialist science fiction dealer stores.
2. What should I know about the tapes themselves?
You should be aware that some of the videos have had edits made to them, and
that other videos have had material added into them that wasn't in the original
versions (almost like "director's cuts"). You should also know
that these changes were out of the hands of the North American
manufacturers. Before anything got released in
You should also know about the difference between "episode form"
and "movie form". The natural format of most of the Doctor
Who series is as a cliffhanger adventure serial. Each true
"episode" of the show is on average 25 minutes long and ends in a
cliffhanger and crashing theme music, and the original viewers on the BBC had
to wait most often 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
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.
3. There's too many titles to choose from! I'll have to pick and choose. What should I do?
Pick your favorites. Alternatively, you could try collecting certain story arcs or all the stories with the Daleks or all the stories with the Cybermen, etc. The Collector's Corner section of this FAQ will provide you with listings of such arcs.
4. What tapes have been edited? How bad is the editing?
Most of the early releases by BBC Video came out in "movie
format." A few of these videos had extra edits made on top of
these, most often because BBC Video wasn't being very careful about what
versions were being released. (In their archive stocks they had some movie
formats of serials that had been further trimmed to fit a specific repeat
timeslot, and some of these got used as the video masters out of
carelessness.) Around 1990, BBC Video overhauled their policies and
videos started to come out in the proper episode form and usually with no
editing. In the
5. Which tapes are in movie format? What edits have been made to them?
Here's the list. "Extra edits" I define as edits made that didn't have anything to do with the episode junctions.
starring PATRICK TROUGHTON
The Seeds
of Death
No extra edits.
starring JON PERTWEE
Spearhead
From Space
One deduction made to the soundtrack to remove a bit of a Fleetwood Mac song
("Oh Well (Part One)") used during the establishing shots of the
plastics factory to avoid having to pay Fleetwood Mac's ridiculously
expensive licensing fee on the song. No actual footage was cut. The shots
are still there with some of the background sound from the previous scene
dubbed on instead.
Day of the
Daleks
No extra edits.
The Time
Warrior
No extra edits.
Death to
the Daleks
No extra edits.
starring TOM BAKER
The Ark in
Space
No extra edits.
Revenge
of the Cybermen
No extra edits.
(Terror of the Zygons)
No extra edits. This movie version was withdrawn from
general sale and was replaced with an unedited episodic version on
Pyramids of
Mars
Approximately 2 minutes total of small cuts scattered
throughout the story.
(The Brain of Morbius)
The original release is missing 30 minutes, mostly from the
Sisterhood's sub-plot. There has since been a "Collector's
Edition" released in episode form with no
edits, but this older version may still be out there somewhere. The Collector's Edition is actually marked
"Collector's Edition."
The
Deadly Assassin
No extra edits.
The Robots
of Death
No extra edits.
The
Talons of Weng-Chiang
One edit made to the martial arts fight scene in the street
near the start to remove any and all shots of one of the Tong members wielding
nun-chuks. At the time
of the original release in the
another child with nun-chuks while imitating something they'd seen on a video. This scene has been left in on the new DVD.
starring PETER DAVISON
The Five Doctors
This is one of only two stories made to be shown as a movie, so there are no
"cliffhanger" edits in this movie form, however, the original VHS release has
approximately 2 minutes of small cuts scattered throughout the story. There has
since been a "Collector's Edition" released without these and in fact
with an extra 10 minutes that weren't there to begin with... more on that
later. The true “original” version
of this story minus any cuts or additions has never been released in any format
in
starring WILLIAM HARTNELL, COLIN
BAKER, SYLVESTER McCOY, and PAUL McGANN
None.
6. Are there Special
Videos available of things that never aired in
Specials are usually compilations
of disparate episodes from partially missing serials and/or interview tapes, or
special Who-related shows that ran in the
In most cases, these disparate
episodes were never broadcast anywhere in
This is the list of the Special tapes.
The Edge of
Destruction / Dr. Who: The Pilot Episode plus The Missing Years (
including The Underwater Menace episode 3)
The correct version of this, bearing catalog number E1578, contains the
following:
On one videotape, the normal 2-part William Hartnell story The Edge of Destruction, with prints that were given film restoration treatments.
This is followed by the original pilot recording of Doctor Who's first episode, An Unearthly Child, along with two retakes of the TARDIS scene.
The pilot was not broadcast as part
of the series and has never been broadcast in
***Beware that an incorrect version of this, bearing catalog number E1497, was
initially released by error. There is nothing wrong with the second videotape,
but the first used non-restored and edited broadcast masters for The Edge of
Destruction and the final version of An Unearthly Child rather than
the pilot version.
If you're buying The Edge of Destruction,look at the catalog number
on the UPC code on the back. If it says
E1578, it's safe to buy. If it says E1497, it's the mistaken version.
The Hartnell
Years
Host: Sylvester McCoy. Contains the originally unaired pilot version of episode
1 of An Unearthly Child, episode 3 of The Crusade, and episode 4
of The Celestial Toymaker. Also contains a few other clips. Episodes are
b&w.
The Troughton
Years
Host: Jon Pertwee. Contains the Hartnell-to-Troughton regeneration scene from The
Tenth Planet, episode 2 of The Abominable Snowmen, episode 3
of The Enemy of the World, and episode 2 of The Space Pirates.
Also contains a few other clips. Episodes are b&w.
The Pertwee Years
Host: Jon Pertwee. Contains episode 7 of Inferno, episode 6 of Frontier
in Space, and the black and white film print of episode 5 of The Dæmons.
Also contains a few other clips including an unused version of the theme music
intended for use in season 10 until someone slapped the producer and made him
see sense. J
Editor's Note: there is very little on this tape that isn't available on other
tapes and should probably be saved for the bottom of your shopping list if
you've already got the other episodes. Episodes are color except The Dæmons.
The Tom Baker
Years (2-tape pack)
Host: Tom Baker. An approximately 3-hour trip down memory lane with Tom Baker,
who watches selected clips from every one of his stories and shares his
reactions and memories (or lack of memories) as they come to him, warts and
all. Color.
The Colin
Baker Years
Host: Colin Baker. Much the same format as The Tom Baker Years, only
with Colin Baker sitting down to watch clips from his stories. Color.
Daleks - the
Early Years
Host: Peter Davison. Contains The Daleks' Master Plan episodes 5 and 10,
and The Evil of the Daleks episode 2. Also contains other archival Dalek
clips including 1960s BBC trailers, footage from the Peter Cushing Dalek
theatrical movies, and interviews with cast and crew members from the early era
of the Daleks.
Episodes are b&w.
Cybermen -
the Early Years
Host: Colin Baker. Contains The Moonbase episodes 2 and 4, and The
Wheel in Space episodes 3 and 6. Also contains other archival Cyberman
clips and interviews with cast and crew from these Cyber-stories. Episodes are
b&w.
More
Than Thirty Years in the TARDIS
An approximately 100 minute documentary first made in 1993 then augmented and
changed around in 1994 for home video that takes a look at the entire series,
packed chock full of interviews and footage from every era.
Color. Stereo. Closed Captioned.
K9 and Company
This is a 50-minute pilot for a prospective spinoff series for K9 made in 1981
that stars Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and John Leeson as the voice of
K9 (mark III). Most of the PBS stations that ran Doctor Who never aired this special or only showed it once as it is
"outside" the series and had to be purchased separately and rather
expensively. If you ever wondered how the heck Sarah had K9 in The Five
Doctors, this will answer your questions. (The Doctor does not
appear.) Color. Closed Captioned.
The Curse of
Fatal Death
This is a 60-minute tape containing the special Doctor Who parody sketch
made for the BBC's 1999 Comic Relief charity telethon starring Rowan Atkinson
as the Doctor, Julia Sawahla as companion Emma, Jonathan Pryce as the Master,
with cameos by Richard E. Grant, the recently Oscar-winning Jim Broadbent, Hugh
Grant (yes, that Hugh Grant), and Joanna Lumley all as the Doctor.
The sketch itself runs in two 10-minute episodes and is followed by a 30-or-so minute
documentary about the making of the sketch, which is perhaps even funnier than
the sketch itself. This is followed by three other, older Doctor Who
parody sketches including one by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, and another
by Lennie Henry. For more information, click here.
Color. Stereo. Closed Captioned.
7. Why are there no "Years" tapes for Peter Davison or Sylvester McCoy?
The "Years" tapes were all produced by former Doctor Who producer, the late John Nathan-Turner. He made tapes for the first four Doctors and then intended to move along to the last three. Due to scheduling quirks, the links for Colin Baker's tape were shot in advance of Davison's and McCoy's, and then before those other two could be made, John Nathan-Turner left (or was asked to leave) BBC Video, and the Years projects came to an end. With the Colin Baker tape already in the can, it made little sense to hold it back, so it was released. There will probably not be any further Years tapes of this format produced.
8. Do any of the episode form videos have edits?
Unfortunately, yes. Here's the list:
HARTNELL “NEXT EPISODE” CAPTIONS
Episodes made during the Hartnell era usually ended with a caption saying "Next Episode" and then the title of next week's episode. On many of the Hartnell video releases, this caption (and any action taking place on screen behind it) has been removed from the final episode on the tape because that next episode referred to by the caption isn't present on the tape since it's part of the next serial. (It was thought that this could confuse consumers into thinking there should be another episode on their tape, and then said consumers would take the tape back to the store to complain or ask for a refund, and rather than have that happening, they lopped the caption off.) The videos that have this caption cut off are An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, The Aztecs, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Rescue/The Romans, and The Web Planet. Also, The Web Planet has the credits from the North American movie form on the end of episode 6, even though it's in episode form. (This was due to the fact that the print that was called up from the archive had an altered credit that said the Next Episode was The Space Museum and not The Lion as it was part of a package sold to Arabic-speaking countries to whom it was decided not to sell the Crusade serial of which The Lion was a part.)
The version of The Celestial Toymaker episode 4 that appears on The Hartnell Years is missing its caption, but on this occasion it was the doing of an Australian broadcast company from whom this print was recovered (it had been a missing episode before that). They had removed it for their broadcast purposes.
The Daleks is missing the cliffhanger at the very end of the last episode which leads into the subsequent story, The Edge of Destruction, in part because the "Next Episode" caption was shown over part of this scene. In the missing portion, the TARDIS interior is seen to be rocked by an explosion that knocks everyone to the floor.
The Edge of Destruction / Dr.
Who The Pilot Episode was at first mistakenly released using the broadcast
version of Edge which has not had the film restoration treatments and is
missing the final scene that bridged into the next story and the "Next
Episode" caption, and instead of the real pilot episode it's got the
ordinary version of episode 1 of An Unearthly Child. If you're buying The
Edge of Destruction, look at the catalog number on the UPC code on the
back. If it says
E1578, it's safe to buy as this is the corrected version. If it says
E1497, it's the mistaken version.
The Aztecs was rumored to be missing a very short shot of Ian spotting a skeleton in the tunnel he traverses in the fourth episode. It was said that this was trimmed as the film print was damaged at this spot, but the recent work on this story for its forthcoming DVD release has cast doubt on this story, and perhaps the skeleton scene was never there to begin with.
The Sensorites may be missing part of one line of dialog in episode 6, at a point where the film was damaged. If this happened, it was by mistake, and it’s still being investigated.
The Rescue has had its literal cliffhanger leading into The Romans trimmed from episode 2. This seems a bit odd since the two are sold together, but you see everything that's missing in the reprise at the start of episode 1 of The Romans.
The Crusade / The Space Museum is missing the second and fourth episodes of The Crusade, because these episodes are still missing from the BBC Archives. The gaps at these points in the story are bridged by narration by William Russell back in character as Ian Chesterton. The release also includes a CD with the complete soundtrack of these two missing episodes.
The Tenth Planet is missing its last episode (#4), because this episode is missing from the BBC Archives. The video release "reconstructs" it using a complete recording of the soundtrack, off-air stills, and the few surviving film clips.
The print of The Abominable Snowmen episode 2 used on The Troughton Years has an edit of about 3 seconds duration made to the start of the scene where the Doctor first examines the captured Yeti. The edited section was silent due to a technical glitch during the episode's production, and rather than let the sound go mute for a few seconds, it was thought better to just remove the flawed portion or else consumers would be returning tapes complaining of a sound flaw that BBC Video could do nothing about. (even the off-air fan audio recordings from 1967 have this sound gap)
The Ice Warriors is missing episodes 2 and 3, because these episodes are still missing from the BBC Archives. The gap at this point in the story is bridged by a 15-minute slide-show "reconstruction" that combines off-air still photographs, narration, and an off-air recording of the soundtrack. The release also includes a CD with the complete soundtrack of these two missing episodes.
The Dominators is
currently missing a few shots from three different death scenes that were
trimmed from the BBC's then-best master prints by overseas censors. These
scenes have since been recovered from the censor board of
The Invasion is missing episodes 1 and 4, because these episodes are still missing from the BBC Archives. Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier) appears and supplies a little narration to help bridge these gaps.
Carnival of Monsters was mistakenly released in a version that had an edit made at the end of episode 4 where Vorg plays the shell game with Pletrac, originally made at the request of Producer Barry Letts on a repeat showing because the line around Pletrac's bald cap was showing, and he felt embarrassed by that. There is, however, extra material earlier in this video. Read the "additions" section for more information.
The Brain of
Morbius Collector's Edition and the original 60-minute release are both
missing a small section of incidental music that was only ever heard on the
original
Revelation of the Daleks has had one change made to the soundtrack. The scene where Peri and the DJ use the surveillance cameras to first locate and then talk with the Doctor originally had Jimi Hendrix's "This Fire" being played by the DJ in the background. The international rights to this original Hendrix recording are in dispute in certain countries (and apparently have been for years) and could therefore not be copyright cleared for use in this video. To avoid the problem, BBC Video digitally removed the song from the soundtrack and replaced it with a generic piece of rock music.
Other than the above listed edits, the episode form videos have no cuts.
9. Do any of the videos have additional material or restored material that wasn't there when my PBS station showed it?
Yes! (Well, probably. A very few PBS stations may have aired some of the master tapes from the special videos, so if your station still airs the show they may have shown some of these.)
Here's a list of these videos and what's been done to them:
It has now become standard practice
for the BBC Restoration Team to clean up the existing film prints of the black
and white episodes before release. The result is that tapes of these
stories that come out from this point on will look a great deal better
than the versions shown on television in the
If you would like to know more (a
LOT more) about the Restoration Team and their work-to-date, please follow this
link to
Steve Roberts' Restoration Team Home Page: http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/
starring WILLIAM HARTNELL
This story has never been broadcast
in
This box set also includes three
orphaned Patrick Troughton episodes that have also never been released in
The first two episodes of this story have been processed with the new VidFIRE restoration tool. The third episode was given film restoration treatments, but for technical reasons it could not be successfully processed (but this particular episode, unusually, was broadcast from film in the first place).
The
Crusade / The Space Museum
The Crusade has never been broadcast in
The North American broadcast masters are all missing the very first scene of this story, where the Doctor and Vicki first ruminate on the departure of Ian and Barbara at the end of the last story, and then discover someone hiding in the TARDIS who they’re at first afraid is a Dalek, but turns out to be Steven Taylor, also from the previous story (and who is to be their new companion). This 2-minute scene was absent from the syndication film prints that were used as masters in 1985 when the North American broadcast masters were struck and never replaced when a copy with the scene turned up some years later. The full scene is presented on this tape.
This story has been given the VidFIRE video processing treatment. Also, some of the early North American broadcast masters of this one left off the final scene which teased the next story, The Savages, probably because that story is missing. This was restored to the broadcast masters later on, however. It’s present on this video.
The War Machines
The versions of this shown on North American stations were originally recovered
by the BBC in a censored form, missing scenes deemed to be too violent in other
countries. In 1996, a reel of most of these scenes was recovered from
the British children's show Blue Peter where the serial's title machines
were previewed.
The Tenth Planet
This video presents restored film prints of the existing first three
episodes. The missing final episode is "reconstructed" using
the few surviving film clips (including the regeneration scene), telesnap
photographic stills taken of the episode as it was broadcast, and a complete
restored soundtrack recording of the episode from when it was broadcast.
starring PATRICK TROUGHTON
Three orphaned episodes from
mostly-missing stories of Patrick Troughton’s have been released as part
of the Hartnell The Reign of
Terror Box Set (simply because they were the only episodes never
released and this was as good a place as any to put them.) These episodes never aired in
The Tomb of
the Cybermen
This story was missing until late 1991 when a print turned up at a TV station
in
The Ice Warriors Collector's
Edition
This story was completely missing until 1988 when four of its six episodes
turned up behind a filing cabinet at a BBC building undergoing
renovation. This story has never been broadcast anywhere in
The Invasion
Other than on a limited experimental basis in
starring JON PERTWEE
Doctor
Who and the Silurians,
Terror of
the Autons and
The Dæmons
These three stories existed for a long time only as black and white film prints
though they were originally made and aired in color. In the early 1990s a
team of crack BBC technicians now known as the BBC Restoration Team (see above)
who are fans were successfully able to overlay the color from a 1970s off-air
American VCR recording to their film prints to create extremely good restored
color versions for these video releases.
Only the first episode of this story existed on its original color
videotape. The other six only survived
as black and white film prints, and when broadcast in
Episode 1: All color, from the original surviving
archive videotape.
Episode 2: 10 minutes of restored color, 15 minutes
black and white.
Episode 3: 4 minutes of restored color, 20 minutes black
and white.
Episode 4: All black and white.
Episode 5: All restored color, also using VidFIRE
video-look processing throughout.
Episode 6: 16 minutes of restored color, 8 minutes black
and white.
Episode 7: 16 minutes of restored color, 9 minutes black
and white.
Total: 96 minutes color, 77 minutes black and
white. (55%/45%)
This release also includes a
1-minute black and white 1970 trailer for the story at the start of the tape,
and a 1-minute featurette about the restoration process is at the end of the
second tape.
Inferno
There is a scene of characters listening to a radio news report that wasn't seen
on its original airing in the
The Mind of Evil
This story still exists only as black and white film prints, but the BBC
Restoration Team were able to restore the color to three short scenes from
episode 6. These are included at the end of this tape. The film prints
have also been cleaned up.
Carnival of
Monsters
Although episode 4 has a cut, episode 2 has a few short extra scenes, this
being an early edit originally sent by error to
Frontier in Space
Also uses the "
Planet of the
Daleks
The BBC only have a black and white copy of the third episode of this six-part
story in their archives. For that reason, it was left out of the
North American movie form broadcast master, and to make its absence a little
less obvious, parts of episodes two and four were also cut. The episode
form packages also do not include it, and the remaining episodes were
renumbered to try to cover this up. All six episodes are presented on
this tape, with episode 3 in black and white, of course, and the other five
episodes in their original color.
The Time Warrior
The North American movie form transmission masters are missing a scene where Professor
Rubeish releases the Doctor from a programming machine. This is present on this
video.
The BBC only have a black and white
copy of the first episode of this six-part story in their archives. For that reason, it was left out of the North
American broadcast masters. The episode
form packages also do not include it, and the episode has never aired in
The Monster
of Peladon
The North American movie form transmission masters are missing a scene where
Eckersley explains that Azaxyr is part of a break-away Ice Warrior group. It's
here.
starring TOM BAKER
Terror of the
Zygons
This story was released in unedited episodic form on
The Brain of
Morbius Collector's Edition
This is the four-part unedited version of the story. It's important for US
viewers because Part One does have sound effects and music. All masters
used in North American airings be they in movie or episode form never had sound
effects or music on Part One, due to a censorship decision made when the show
was first marketed in the US in the 1970s (or at least that's what I hear was
the reason). The sound effects and music are also present in the heavily edited
60 minute version still on some video shelves. (This problem was fixed on
the transmission masters that were used by BBC America, but if PBS stations
want to use it they have to buy it specially, and they usually don't, and of
course BBC America isn’t showing Doctor
Who anymore.)
The Face of Evil
This includes a 4-1/2 minute segment from the BBC talk show Multi-Coloured
Swap Shop which interviewed Louise Jameson shortly after she took the role
of Leela in 1977. The segment appears at the start of the tape.
Every broadcast version of this that I have seen in North America either still had breaks in it for commercials, or a line of narration from Howard Da Silva early in Part Two. Neither of those should be there of course, and they are absent from this video release.
The Stones of
Blood
This video has one extra scene early in Part Two. It lasts for 30 seconds
and features the characters of De Vries and his wife Martha debating whether or
not to run before they are killed... shortly before they are killed. :) This scene does not appear on the new DVD
release.
Shada
This is the infamous unfinished story from the end of season 17. Production had
to be halted about halfway through due to a BBC strike. Nearly all of the
completed material is present and has had sound effects, special effects, and
music added. The uncompleted scenes are bridged by narration by Tom
Baker. This story never aired anywhere in the world.
starring PETER DAVISON
The
Five Doctors Collector's Edition / The King's Demons
This is a two-tape pack. One tape contains the normal 2-part story The
King's Demons as it originally aired. The other tape contains a souped-up
version of The Five Doctors that now contains 10 minutes of footage that
was not used in the original version(s). Most of the special effects were
regenerated with 1995 technology, and the sound and music have been remastered
for Dolby surround sound.
The Five Doctors
This is the original video release that had 2 minutes of edits made to it by
the BBC. However, these edits did not include five whole small scenes
that are not present on most of the masters aired in
Resurrection
of the Daleks
When this story was first shown in
starring COLIN BAKER
Attack of the
Cybermen
This video contains a five-minute extra feature at the start where Colin Baker
fields questions from callers on the BBC's Swap Shop program shortly
before his first full season debuted. (Nicola Bryant and Jacqueline
Pearce from The Two Doctors are also in the segment but say very
little.)
Revelation
of the Daleks
This video release has a 2 or 3 second extra scene of Peri crying "No!
No!" as she clambors over the DJ's dead body just after he's been
exterminated by the Daleks.
starring SYLVESTER McCOY
Time and the Rani
The movie form versions of this story in
Paradise Towers
In the North American versions, scenes of Tilda wielding a knife at Melanie
were cut on the orders of BBC Controller and axe-man Michael Grade before they
were shipped to foreign countries. They are present in full on this video,
along with establishing shots of the Towers' exterior you don't see in the
North American movie forms because the "Part Two" etc.captions were
shown over them.
Remembrance
of the Daleks
Like Time and the Rani, the movie form versions of this shown in
Silver Nemesis /
The Making of Doctor Who
This three-part story has had approximately 11 minutes added to it, originally
cut in order that the episodes would fit the BBC’s allotted time slot.
The video also includes a short blooper reel, and a nearly 1-hour documentary
made by New Jersey Network that recorded the shooting of Silver Nemesis.
The documentary has had a few cuts made to it, however, made to remove scenes
from older stories that were used as background material in the documentary.
This was because writer Eric Saward owned the rights to characters appearing in
those scenes and declined to give his consent for their use.
Battlefield
This release has approximately 3 minutes of material originally cut for time
slot purposes added back into it.
The Curse of
Fenric
This story has had approximately 7 minutes that were originally cut in order to
fit the
Also, all video releases of stories from Remembrance of the Daleks onwards are in stereo sound, which was not available from many PBS stations when they aired the stories. Although that includes Silver Nemesis, its stereo sound effects are more limited than the others.
10. I remember Inferno being in color when I saw it on TV, but the video cover says it's in black and white, and the photos are in black and white. What gives?
This is a mistake on the cover. The video itself is color.
11. What other mistakes are there on the boxes?
Truth be told, about half of the boxes have a mistake somewhere in the descriptive text. The answer to this question is a separate FAQ list all by itself you can read by clicking here. If you see a difference between what the box says and what this FAQ says, go with what this FAQ says. (correcting these mistakes is part of why this FAQ exists) (addendum: the mistakes FAQ is incomplete, missing the later releases, and as VHS is being phased out, I’m not going to finish this off.)
12. Speaking of the boxes, why did some of them say "Playhouse Video" or "CBS/Fox Video"?
CBS/Fox Video was the company that
first started distributing Doctor Who (and all other) videos in
13. I bought The War Games, and the sound seems to cut out on the second tape. What gives?
It appears that all of the copies of this story that are on the North American market have a sound flaw in episodes seven to nine of this ten-part story. This flaw takes the form of the volume decreasing considerably anytime a character is not speaking or when there are no other loud noises going on.
Recently, The War Games got a VHS re-release in the UK, and the Restoration Team took a look at the archived film prints and found a great deal of what appeared to be some sort of fungal damage burned into the prints of the later episodes of this story. This probably has something to do with why the sound on the original VHS release is so bad. My best guess is that someone tried to compensate for a sound problem that damage had created and turned the noise reduction up too high in the process. This is NOT a video duplication problem… they’re all like this, so it’s no good returning this to the store and asking for another tape.
14. I heard of a couple of "Dr. Who" movies that starred 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 and were made available
in
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 also available from BBC Video, as listed in the catalog below.
The first film was released in 1965
and was in VHS video release in
The second film was released in 1966 and also was in VHS video release in North America as "Dr. Who: Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.", catalog number VHS 0833. It is also color, 80 minutes, not closed captioned, and $20 or less.
15. My favorite story hasn't been released yet! Would writing to Warner help to get it released soon?
This is no longer a problem. All
of the complete stories have now been released except the Paul McGann TV Movie,
which can’t be due to rights issues.
The second episode of the First Doctor story The Daleks’ Master Plan has just been recovered (on January 14, 2004). This episode may see DVD release
someday, but there will be no North American VHS release of it.
16. 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
And the address for BBC Worldwide Americas is:
BBC Worldwide Americas Inc.
747
17. Why hasn't the 1996 Fox TV Movie with Paul McGann come out on video yet? It's been out since 1996 in the UK!
This is a special case. Under the co-production deal between the Fox TV Network, Universal, and BBC Worldwide, the video release rights in all territories except the UK are owned at least by Universal Television and maybe by Fox and BBC Worldwide as well… it’s a little confusing and unclear. What we do know for sure is that for any one of them to release it on North American video they would have to first pay off at least one of the other two with what they’d consider a fair price, and that makes any video release cost-prohibitive, especially since Fox and Universal consider the TV Movie a flop that is not worth any time or effort on their part, especially now it’s six years old.
18. 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?
Yes, there's a very big one.
North American televisions are on a different technical standard to those used
in the UK and Australia. American TVs use the NTSC color technical
standard and 525 lines of pixels in the picture, while the UK and Australia
(not to mention other countries) use the PAL color standard and 625
lines. There is also a difference in the frequency that the frames are
shown. The practical upshot of this is that the standards are completely
incompatible. If you
buy a tape recorded in the PAL standard and try to play it on an NTSC VCR (or
vice versa), you will get completely scrambled picture and sound. The tapes
may look the same from the outside, and they will fit into your VCR, but the
recording on it won't work. It is possible to get a PAL tape converted to
NTSC, however in America this is usually a very expensive process (something on
the order of $1 per minute of tape in my area, for example). There are
also universal
VCRs that will play tapes in both standards, but again, these are very
expensive to get off-the-shelf in North America, however, you might have better
luck finding these for sale online.
19. I am hearing impaired, or I want to get tapes for someone who is. Are the videos closed captioned?
Many, but not all, of them are. When CBS/Fox first started releasing DW videos under their Playhouse Video label, the stories were closed captioned. Not long before they started issuing them under their main CBS/Fox label, they mysteriously stopped doing this. After a few more years, they started adding captions again, and currently all new videos that come out have closed captions. Videos with closed captions are indicated in the main catalog that follows below.
20. What is the full catalog of videos?
Well, this is. First, a key to abbreviations and terms.
CC = closed captions Cat# = Warner catalog number
Titles listed in highlighted grey are “Extinct,” meaning that stocks no longer exist and no further copies will be manufactured. Your only
chance to buy these will be second-hand.
Titles listed in normal type still had some stocks left available as of the last listing I was given. I expect a new, updated list of what’s still in stock sometime
before
No. = the story's number in the chronological order of the series.
Price is the suggested retail price in US dollars and cents. Canadian SRP's are $14.98 for single tapes and $19.98 for doubles.
Movie or Eps? = Indicates if the
video is in movie or episode form. The number in parentheses is the number of
episodes in the story. A standard episode is approximately 25 minutes long,
therefore a video of a 4-episode story (in episode form) would be 4 x 25
minutes = 100 minutes total. If the video is in movie form, it will be
6-10 minutes shorter because of the missing title sequences and cliffhanger
reprisals. Slashes are used in the listings on double or triple story releases
to set each story apart in its number of episodes from its neighbors.
** The Five Doctors was made for movie form in the first place, and
episodes from Colin Baker's first full season are double the normal length
(therefore the 2 episodes on Vengeance on Varos and the other asterisked
stories of his come to a length nearly equivalent to a 4-part story for
other Doctors.).
COLOR! appears in the b&w/color column on stories that were b&w most of the time in North American broadcasts and have since been restored to color.
Edits/ Adds: For full editing and additional details, see above. The category is listed as "none" if the only cuts are at episode junctions in movie form releases or if the only cut is the "Next Episode" or some other caption change on a Hartnell release, or if the cuts were already present on the best master tape available when the video was released. A "NA add" indicates something on the tape that was missing from most North American broadcast masters but was present on the UK transmissions.
# Tapes: Indicates how many videotapes are included in the release.
The catalog is listed in the chronological order of the stories.
Special feature: If
you've forgotten what a title was about, then click on its title for a short
description and a few photos of
the story. The photos come from Steve Hill's Doctor Who Image Archive at http://www.shillpages.com/dw/dwia.htm
The North American Doctor Who VHS Video Catalog
|
Cat # |
No. |
Title |
Movie/Eps |
b&w/color |
Sound |
CC? |
Edits/Adds |
# Tapes |
Price |
|
|
|
starring WILLIAM HARTNELL |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
E1096 |
1 |
Eps(4) |
b&w |
mono |
no |
none |
1 |
9.98 |
|
|
E1275 |
2 |
Eps(7) |
b&w |
mono |
no |
1 edit |
2 |
14.98 |
|
|
E1497 |
3 |
The Edge of Destruction / |
Eps |