The upcoming Doctor Who DVD range! (1 Viewer)

[Roger_R]

Currently, 273 episodes have been, or are scheduled to be, released in the US. These releases include 5 box sets, whose episode count ranges from 12 to 26 episodes. The remaining DVDs each contain a complete serial, the length of which can range from 2 to 8 episodes, but most often is either 4 or 6 episodes. This works out as 48 separate releases, not counting the releases that were broken out of the boxsets. A bit unwieldy, but more manageable than you are implying.

And if you have a region free DVD player, you can buy some of the box sets Amazon.co.uk has released, like the Jon Pertwee box. They've also done the same with dalek and cybermen stories.

 

[Tony J Case]

Thats interesting. I always liked Eric Sayward's stuff. If i recall he had a few good Space:1999 episodes. I would have to say i agree with him about JNT. I always felt that JNT was getting bored with the show. I know i read he wanted out but the BBC wouldnt let him go. So i guess he was tyring to kill the show. The last 2 years with McCoy, are for me, unwatchable.

I don't he was trying to kill the show - if that were the case, JNT could have simply left. If anything, it was probably his love of the show (he had been involved in it's production in one capacity or another since the end of the Trouton days), that kept him on. I've read interviews with him where he said that he could have left resigned the post, but he got the very distinct impression from upper management that the show would simply coast to a halt without a producer. So between that and a lack of work for him at the BBC, he stayed to the end.
Is he perfect? No - plenty of miss-steps during his tenure, but from the couple of times I got to see him in person, I think he genuinely cared and did what he thought best for the show.

 

[RickER]

Saward, see thats what i get for writing after 12 hours of work. Only a week to go until i get Planet of Evil here in the States!

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

If anything, it was probably his love of the show (he had been involved in it's production in one capacity or another since the end of the Trouton days), that kept him on. I've read interviews with him where he said that he could have left resigned the post, but he got the very distinct impression from upper management that the show would simply coast to a halt without a producer. So between that and a lack of work for him at the BBC, he stayed to the end.

Agreed (but not with the spelling of Troughton!).

 

[Tony J Case]

Rumor time, kiddies, so gather 'round!
DVD site Zeta Minor has given UK release dates for various classic-era stories later this year. According to its newly updated releases page, they are as follows:
K-9 Tales - A box set comprising The Invisible Enemy and the K-9/Sarah Jane Smith spin-off story K-9 And Company: June 16
The Brain of Morbius: July 21
The Trial of a Time Lord box set: August 18
Four To Doomsday: September 15
The War Machines: October 13
Battlefield: November 17
In addition, Revenge of the Slitheen and Eye of the Gorgon, both from spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, are slated to be released on one DVD on January 12, 2009.
I cant wait for Trial on DVD. That one has *SUCH* potential for extras, it's not even funny. The fireing of Colin, the missing 23rd season, the sudden changes in mid-story arc. And if the music video of Doctor in Distress isnt included, I shall be very sad indeed.

 

[RickER]

Tony, thanks for posting. Course i live in the US, so who knows when we will see some of those titles. I would be interested in the Trial extras as well...give me some good dirt!
Four to Doomsday, a big time pass. One of the worst Who episodes ever! Cringe inducing stuff like the Doctor wearing a motorcycle helmet, and his usual getup, and nothing more, while in space.

 

[Tony J Case]

Yeah, Four to Doomsday was a poor episode - but I'm a completist, so I'll probably pick it up anyway. Besides, even if the show is poor the extras will be outstanding.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

Steve Roberts over at the Restoration Team Technical Forum made an interesting comment:

There is every intention to release every story, including those with episodes missing, within the next four years.

It's been obvious that they have significantly upped the release scheudle recently, but to know they are aiming to finish the entire run quite that quickly is (to my knowledge) new information.
(And, by his comment about "including those with episodes missing", I assume he means stories like The Ice Warriors or The Tenth Planet that are almost complete with only one or two episodes missing - since the orphaned episodes have been covered by Lost In Time).

 

[Tony J Case]

So from the Utterly Rumor department, we have this for the 2009 releases:
Cybermen Boxset - Revenge Of The Cybermen / Attack Of The Cybermen / Silver Nemesis
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=7360
The E-Space Trilogy - Full Circle / State Of Decay / Warriors' Gate
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ting.php?id=15
The Keys Of Marinus
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=7359
Delta And The Bannermen
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=6185
The Black Guardian Trilogy - Mawdryn Undead / Terminus / Enlightenment
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=5752
The Chase
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=4808
The War Games
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=4785
I'd guess the Pertwee release(s) would include
Planet Of The Spiders
http://www.zetaminor.com/dvd/incomin...ng.php?id=3705
Like I said - pure rumor, but it comes from the highly reliable Zeta Minor website, so I'd say it's a very strong rumor.

 

[David Lambert]

Interesting rumors, Tony...thanks.
Did anyone notice that I posted the announcements yesterday for USA releases of War Machines and Four To Doomsday?
Doctor Who DVD news: Announcement for Doctor Who - Story #027: The War Machines and Doctor Who - Story #118: Four to Doomsday | TVShowsOnDVD.com
I'm also a completist, so I'll get Four To Doomsday even though it's a thoroughly awful episode. Gotta love the way the studio writer described the episode in the material I quoted at my story ("Peter Davison's recently regenerated Fifth Doctor is burdened by the most irritating trio of companions in the history of the show (Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan)"; "Meanwhile, Monarch, a giant green frog-thing, wants to travel back to the Big Bang to meet God, who he is convinced is himself.").

On the other hand, I've never seen War Machines, and always wanted to. I understand it bears a striking resemblance to the central idea of a certain big-budget film classic of James Cameron's, which has had numerous sequels (including more coming), and a more recent television spin-off. The plot, as I understand it, is about an immobile computer called "WOTAN" that is extremely intelligent and able to network into every other computer in the world, and decides humans are no longer needed, and causes deadly mobile robots to be built to go around and destroy them. Any of that sound familiar, hmmm? Nope, I'm not referring to Colossus: The Forbin Project (close, though).

 

[Scott Kriefall]

War Machines didn't have Ahnuld.

I can (and may) do without the McCoy serials, but the rest are must-haves. I do wish we'd see more Pertwee serials; the releases so far have been overly slanted towards the Tom Baker years.

 

[RickER]

Just get me The Deadly Assassin, and all will be good. I hate Four to Doomsday...as bad as anything McCoy did. Only, i like Peter Davison, and i dont like the McCoy Doctor. The preview on the Restoration site does look pretty cool for The War Machines. I will be broke after i buy the 4th season of new Who anyway.
I am so in for the E Space thing when that ever happens.

 

[Terry Hickey]

I am also waiting for the "Deadly Assasin", but the releases have been stepped up and so far, I enjoyed every one of them. The Restoration team has done a commendable job so far. I hope they keep it up. I prefer the classic Doctor Who stories compared to the new Doctor Who ones.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

I do wish we'd see more Pertwee serials; the releases so far have been overly slanted towards the Tom Baker years.

I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that many of the Pertwee stories need a lot of restoration work done to them, with many of them needing either Reverse Standards Conversion (with 1970s-era NTSC conversions being the only masters), re-colouring (combining the archive B/W 16mm prints with Tom Lundy's off-air Beta recordings, then VidFiring the whole thing), or in the case of four serials, some (or all) of the episodes existing only as black-and-white film prints (with no off-air source for recolouring, or one too poor to use).
I, for one, hope the stories containing B/W episodes (Ambassadors of Death, Mind of Evil, Planet of the Daleks and Invasion of the Dinosaurs) are saved until last, so that hopefully, some sort of colour source (either a master or an off-air) turns up, or the cost of having the B/W episodes recoloured comes down to an acceptable level.

 

[Tony J Case]

The War Machines is frustratingly uneven. The plot is downright illogical, but it's got good production values and it moves along so briskly that you probably won't notice any of the flaws. We get two new great companions and we ditch the Worst Companion Ever*, so that's a selling point - and the restoration looks great, even for the RT's work.

*Second to Adric, I mean

It's just a shame that this is pretty much the bulk of Ben and Polly's time as companions.

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

So from the Utterly Rumor department, we have this for the 2009 releases:

Cybermen Boxset - Revenge Of The Cybermen / Attack Of The Cybermen / Silver Nemesis

The E-Space Trilogy - Full Circle / State Of Decay / Warriors' Gate

The Keys Of Marinus

Delta And The Bannermen

The Black Guardian Trilogy - Mawdryn Undead / Terminus / Enlightenment

The Chase

The War Games

I'd guess the Pertwee release(s) would include

Planet Of The Spiders

I don't know - three box-sets seem unlikely - especially when none of the stories have been previously released, so they're not going to be a repackaging like the Davros or Bred For War boxes.

 

[Tim Tucker]

It's not unreasonable, though. We got two boxsets this year -- Beneath the Surface and The Trial of a Time Lord.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

It's just a shame that this is pretty much the bulk of Ben and Polly's time as companions.

You mean, it's the bulk of what Ben and Polly episodes that still exist, of course. This is also the only story with Ben and Polly that exists in full.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

Resurrecting an old thread (or even regenerating it, ha ha) to note what's currently scheduled so far for release in 2009 (as per article in the latest issue of DWM):
January - E-Space Trilogy boxed set (Full Circle, State of Decay, Warriors' Gate)
February - The Rescue / The Romans
March - Attack of the Cybermen
Date TBA - The Deadly Assassin, Image of the Fendahl, Delta and the Bannermen, The War Games...
...and last but certainly not least, a boxed set entitled Dalek War, containing the consecutive stories Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks, with episode three of the latter restored to full colour! Details of how this was done are here.

 

[Nebiroth]

The article also confirms that there are no less than seventeen stories planned for release this year, and four boxsets.
This means that in addition to the stories posted above there are five additional ones, some of which will be in a further boxset (the other three being the E-Space trilogy, the Rescue/Romans double pack and of course the Dalek War set).
It seems to have become an established pattern of at least 15 stories a year, and this fits in nicely with the idea of a full release by the end of 2012.
It's certainly one hell of an improvement over the ludicrous six a year, which would have completed sometime in the 2020's