Doctor Who: The Complete Fifth Series (DVD & Blu-Ray) Specs/Cover Art (1 Viewer)

[SWFF]

Matt Smith makes a better Doctor than David Tennant! There, I've said it! May those who want me to be damned, be damned themselves! I was all set to hate this guy, and did for quite some time after his face was plastered all over the web.



Too young, I said.



And, then I saw the opening episode and that magnificent bastard won me over!



Can you believe it?!


This is the first season set from the new Doctor Who series that I can actually picture myself buying, and, trust me, that says a lot, since I'm a die hard Tom Baker fan. Matt Smith is good but he ain't no Tom Baker. There I've said that, too.



Right now, however, with other DVDs taking priority, it will have to make itself at home on my DVD Empire wishlist.



Series (Season) 5 streets November 9th:


P.S. Amy Pond, his new assistant, is hotter than Hell! Scorching, dare I say! There, I've even said that!






[SIZE= 16px]STANDARD DVD (AMAZON US): $51.99[/SIZE]

[SIZE= 16px]BLU-RAY (AMAZON US): $59.99[/SIZE]



Extras (DVD & Blu-Ray):

• Meanwhile in the Tardis: Newly filmed scenes written by Steven Moffat, exclusive to DVD and Blu-ray, telling what happens between the episodes
• Doctor Who Confidential: An inside look at each episode
• In-vision commentaries
• Monster Files: Get under the skin and inside the minds of the new Doctor's most challenging opponents
• Outtakes
• Video diaries

 

[ATimson]

I suppose it's too much to hope that the US release will finally get a real Blu-ray case like the UK got for The Complete Specials and Torchwood: Children of Earth (and maybe earlier Torchwood) instead of digipacks...

 

[SWFF]

I've noticed packaging is always better on the UK editions, at least, the artwork is. Just compare the two regions of the SPACE:1999 covers. Region 2 has the better one. At least, in this DOCTOR WHO instance the dvd covers are the same, except for one important aspect -- the UK edition will get a 3D lenticular cover, but I don't know if it's for the blur-ray, or the standard, or both.


Haven't heard anything about that being ported over to us Americans.


Oh, well.

 

[Will_B]

Interesting trivia, the Doctor Who Confidentials that air immediately after the episodes in the UK are about 45 minutes long.


It seems they are cut down to 15 (?) minutes of highlights for the home videos.


Shawn, I agree with everything you said about Matt Smith winning you over within 1 episode.


And the character of Amy Pond is great -- the first companion in a long time who seems genuinely excited about being on adventures.


I grew up on the Tom Baker era, like most Americans. Then more recently,of the modern era I quite liked Christopher Eccleston's Doctor, and was sad he quit immediately after his first season. I found David Tennant to be a bit too manic and frenzied though he had some standout episodes (The Girl In The Fireplace). The modern show itself, both with Eccleston and Tennant, was a bit too loud and colorful and frenzied. Almost like a children's show in many episodes.


But this latest incarnation with Matt Smith has a really good tone. It has the same sort of adult tone that the Tom Baker years did -- without Baker's gravitas, but with the same sort of writing designed for adults to enjoy, not kids. Matt Smith is excellent, as is the rest of the main cast. And with the exception of the Venice episode, the entire season feels like real science fiction from a thoughtful mind -- not merely a writing staff pressing to come up with something on short notice.


I also like the nod to the late 1960s that is Amy Pond's outfit (leggings!).


And the accents of both the Doctor and Pond, although difficult in a few moments to understand, are really interesting and a nice change from past seasons. Pond in particular.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

for those of you who may be thinking of importing the UK BluRay, bear in mind that there's (hopefully) a pretty good chance this time that the episodes will be encoded at 1080i at 50hz, which can cause problem for a good many BluRay players Stateside.


I won't bore you with the details, but before anyone thinks of importing the Series 5 BluRays from the UK, you'd probaby better read a few reviews first or make sure your player/TV can handle 50hz BluRays.


(the reason I say there's a chance this release will be 1080/50, rather than 1080/60, is that the individual/vanilla releases were 50hz, albeit with only 2.0 stereo sound. It's not a guarantee, though, as the BBC cheaped-out on "The Specials" and released them as 60hz worldwide as a cost-cutting measure).

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by Will_B

Interesting trivia, the Doctor Who Confidentials that air immediately after the episodes in the UK are about 45 minutes long.


It seems they are cut down to 15 (?) minutes of highlights for the home videos.

The sets are already expensive enough - I'd hate to see how much they'd try to charge for the 10 disc set with complete Confidentials & their music rights!

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney


(I'm almost hoping they are 50 Hz - then I have an excuse to import. From what I hear, my Samsung BD-P1500 plays 50 Hz material fine, as long as it's on Blu-ray and not DVD...)

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by ATimson


(I'm almost hoping they are 50 Hz - then I have an excuse to import. From what I hear, my Samsung BD-P1500 plays 50 Hz material fine, as long as it's on Blu-ray and not DVD...)

I certainly hope they're 50hz. I have an Oppo and a multi-system TV, so my setup handles 50hz natively. A 60hz set would be somewhat akin to an unnecessary standards conversion.


For what it's worth, I've heard that the only reason that Being Human was released 50hz in the UK was they didn't expect it to have much of a following in the US. Then, lo and behold, it's a runaway hit on BBC America, so they had to do a 60hz version for the US anyway. Too bad these releases had music replacements, though.


So, your BluRay player can handle 50hz but can't cope with PAL?

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney
So, your BluRay player can handle 50hz but can't cope with PAL?

It can handle PAL content on a Blu-ray disc - the special features from the UK Life on Mars discs work fine. But it throws up its hands at a regionless PAL DVD I created on my computer.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by ATimson




It can handle PAL content on a Blu-ray disc - the special features from the UK Life on Mars discs work fine. But it throws up its hands at a regionless PAL DVD I created on my computer.

does it handle pre-recorded PAL DVDs (if you have any)? If so, I'd suspect that maybe the burnt disc wasn't finalised to DVD-VIDEO, or maybe the BluRay player can't be made region-free for DVD discs and is so picky it expects Region 1 or else (which wouldn't seem likely).

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney

does it handle pre-recorded PAL DVDs (if you have any)? If so, I'd suspect that maybe the burnt disc wasn't finalised to DVD-VIDEO, or maybe the BluRay player can't be made region-free for DVD discs and is so picky it expects Region 1 or else (which wouldn't seem likely).

I don't have any region-free pre-recorded PAL DVDs to try with, just R2, so I can't try those. But NTSC ones I've created work just fine, and it throws up a "wrong video format" error message, which makes me pretty sure that it's not a problem creating the disc...

 

[AndyMcKinney]

Originally Posted by ATimson


(I'm almost hoping they are 50 Hz - then I have an excuse to import. From what I hear, my Samsung BD-P1500 plays 50 Hz material fine, as long as it's on Blu-ray and not DVD...)

a poster on Roobarb's forum just confirmed today that the UK release of the Series 5 boxset is indeed encoded at 50hz, so any US fans even thinking of importing better make sure their equipment can handle 1080/50i before buying.

 

[Brian Borst]

I have to say, Matt's Doctor took me a few episodes to like. I loved David Tennant's take on the Doctor, so I was sad to see him go after three seasons. And when I first saw pictures of Matt, I thought they would go with a Tennant-like character (must've been the haircut). When I first saw him, I thought he was weird just for the sake of being weird. Either it was toned down after a couple of episodes, or I just got used to him, but I really like him as the Doctor. And Amy Pond as well, obviously.

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by Brian Borst /forum/thread/304755/doctor-who-the-complete-fifth-series-dvd-blu-ray-specs-cover-art#post_3750752

 

[ChadMcCallum]

I've posted this in another thread but I think it may be worth re-posting for those who didn't see the other thread:


They've sent review copies of this set out and it seems they've really phoned in the set this year.


First off there's the disc breakdown which is as follows:


Disc 1: The Eleventh Hour (with and without in-vision commentary)/The Beast Below + additional scene between the episodes

Disc 2: Victory Of The Daleks(with and without in-vision commentary)/The Time Of Angels(with and without in-vision commentary)

Disc 3: Flesh & Stone/The Vampires Of Venice(with and without in-vision commentary)/Amy's Choice + additonal scene after Flesh & Stone

Disc 4: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood(with and without in-vision commentary)/Vincent And The Doctor

Disc 5: The Lodger/The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang (with and without in-vision commentary)

Disc 6: Cut-down Confidentials, trailers and teasers

The Monster Files and video diaries are dotted across the discs and the outtakes are on Disc 5


As you can see they've split the Angels 2-parter across two discs and all of the episodes could have easily fit on 4 discs, especially on blu-ray which probably would have driven the price down too.


There are only commentaries on 6 of the 13 episodes and they feature:


In vision commentary for The 11th Hour features Beth (producer), Piers (producer) & Moffat (show runner and writer)


In vision commentary for Victory of the Daleks features Gatiss (writer) , Barnaby Edwards (Dalek Operator) & Nick Briggs (Actor, Voice of the Daleks)


In vision commentary for Time of the Angels features Moffat & Karen Gillan (Actor, Amy Pond)


In vision commentary for Vampires of Venice features Johnny Campbell (Director) , Toby Whithouse (writer) & Alex Price (Actor, Francesco)


In vision commentary for Cold Blood features Ashley Way (Director), Alun Raglan (Actor, Mo) & James Dehaviland (Second Assistant Director)


In vision commentary for The Big Bang features Toby Haynes (Director), Gillan (Amy) & Arthur Darvill (Actor, Rory Williams)


As you can see Matt Smith isn't on any of the commentaries.


The two "Meanwhile in the Tardis..." scenes run around 3 minutes each, the three video diaries run 10 minutes each and the outakes are around 8 minutes. The Confidentials have been cut down from 45 minutes to probably 10 minutes or so, just like they were on the box sets for the first 4 Series. I can't find an exact running time for all of the Monster Files featurettes but the one looking at the monsters seen in the final 2 episodes runs 10 minutes and sounds like its just footage from Confidential re-cut so they're short and sound very fluffy. There's trailers and tv spots included too but I haven't seen a list of exactly which ones are included.


The biggest thing missing from the set are deleted scenes. Unlike other years Series 5 had a huge number of deleted scenes, in some cases as much as 25 minutes were cut and a lot of these scenes would have fixed plot and character holes found in the episodes.


Things cut from the episodes include:



What the weird girl reading the poem in the elevator in the Beast Below was all about, more scenes of Amy mentioning Rory which proves she really did love him all along, as well as scenes that make her much more likable and an explanation for what happens to the swarm of killer alien fish in the Venice Canals


All of this is taken from a Doctor Who Magazine special looking at the making of first half of the series. The second issue looking at the final half of the season won't be out until December so its not known exactly what was cut from the final half of the series but its been confirmed that Vincent and the Doctor originally ran 75 minutes long so there are some significant cuts there too. None of this footage is on the dvd.


They've also removed the "Next Time" trailers which are sandwiched between the end of the episodes and the end credits on the UK broadcast and previous dvd box sets. The trailers aren't even included as an extra feature. The BBC logo that appears onscreen over the first scene in each episode has been replaced with the BBC Worldwide logo, which is bigger and animated so its much more distracting. If you've seen this season on BBC America or Space here in Canada you've seen the distracting new logo.


So that's what you get in the Series 5 set. Given the high price and poor or flat out missing extras I don't really think its worth the money, especially if you didn't LOVE the episodes. I own every other Doctor Who dvd but I'll be waiting for this to drop in price. Its not worth the money to me right now. I just wanted to give people who don't regularly visit Doctor Who websites a heads up on what's included in this set so they can decide for themselves if its worth getting.

 

[Tony J Case]

Ah man - that bites. I love the way the old school DVDs are treated, but the Nu-Who discs have been getting more and more shabby as time goes on. The 05 series was well represented, but it's been going downhill ever since. I guess I'll save some pennies and get the series when it goes on sale.

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by ChadMcCallum


As you can see they've split the Angels 2-parter across two discs and all of the episodes could have easily fit on 4 discs, especially on blu-ray which probably would have driven the price down too.

On Blu-ray, that would have been possible. Not on DVD - the in-vision commentaries take up as much disc space as an entire episode on their own. The only way to avoid splitting the Angels two-parter would be to have "Victory of the Daleks" on one disc and its commentary on another.

 

[ChadMcCallum]

Originally Posted by ATimson


As you can see they've split the Angels 2-parter across two discs and all of the episodes could have easily fit on 4 discs, especially on blu-ray which probably would have driven the price down too.

On Blu-ray, that would have been possible. Not on DVD - the in-vision commentaries take up as much disc space as an entire episode on their own. The only way to avoid splitting the Angels two-parter would be to have "Victory of the Daleks" on one disc and its commentary on another.

[/QUOTE]

Didn't the series 2 set have 3 episodes per disc with in-vision commentary? Maybe they've encoded the disc's differently this time to devote more space to the commentary video? Still, as you say they could have lost a disc for the blu-ray but 2Entertain has been stretching the disc count out for years, The Torchwood Series 1 blu-ray had 2 episodes per disc and it wasn't exactly packed to the brim with extra features. They've got a bit greedy lately. I guess they don't watch and learn from the show. Thank god the Restoration Team hasn't been corrupted yet. The classic series dvds are some of the best dvds ever. A lot of movies don't get the treatment the average classic episode gets.

 

[ATimson]

Originally Posted by ChadMcCallum

Didn't the series 2 set have 3 episodes per disc with in-vision commentary?

I believe that earlier series never had more than one in-vision commentary per disc (the others were normal audio commentaries), while two episodes on Disc 2 of Series 5 ("Victory" and Angels #1) have in-vision commentaries.

 

[ChadMcCallum]

My mistake. Its been awhile since I've watched the series 2 set.