The first DVD release was in November 1999, by the time they release the last one (probably 'Tenth Planet' in November 2013) it will mean that it has taken 14 years!!!! No other series has taken anything close to this. (or cost as much)
I don't think that any other series has 33 seasons, a ton of specials and a T.V. movie. (Well over 700 episodes total.)
Also, I am not sure if any other series has ever undertaken the amount of restoration (rebuilding episodes, animating episodes, Vidfireing Episodes and simply searching for missing episodes) that doctor who has.
Doctor Who is unique in many, many aspects of which scope is one of the largest. It will have taken 13 or 14 years to release everything simply because there is that much to release. The stores, the fanbase and the production company all needed the lengthy release schedule. If 200-300 Doctor Who DVDs had all been dumped into the system within a couple of years, nobody would have been able to handle it.
(Note : I inserted your missing apostrophes, I can't abide that.)
Yes they would have finished. Budgets would have been re-directed etc... increasing team size.
The BBC must love you.
Of course it is ridiculous. Everything should have been completed a long time ago.
Based on what research?????? Or do you simply speak on behalf of the majority?
Not particularly believable.
I'm so sorry. Three weeks.
So that means that three weeks after the 1st release of Zygons, Spearhead gets it's third release. The point is still VERY much valid.
I don't need one, I have an expensive multi-region DVD/Blu-Ray player. I have the Key to Time R1 release and am not impressed with the quality, I only bought that because for some reason the BBC didn't think the British public deserved it at the time.
The BBC's reasoning is obvious. They have deliberately dragged the releases out to last until the Anniversary. This enabled them to bang out re-releases along the way to keep on milking the fans. the Aztec release just proves the point, as did the 'Terror of the Autons' release.
I feel its going round in circles here. No they would not have finished as dan hall only found an affordable way to animate stories (thetamation) in early 2011 (after spending years trying to find an affordable way) we would still be waiting for stories like reign,ice warriors and tenth planet to come out. Animation takes time and Increasing team size would be problimatic as on the limited budget they had for reign they could barely afford the software let alone being able to hire more people. We would also still be waiting mind of evil as it as been worked on over the last 5 years and it still isnt finished and on the limited budget they get given they cant afford to hire anybody else to help out.There was a poll on the gb forum wen the eps were found and a huge Majority of fans wanted the recon for galaxy 4. You may not believe there was no room for reign of terror but when you take into consideration the 6 episodes run in total to 148 minutes and there are almost 35 minutes of extras you cant really add any more to that disc
But come on, 14 years. Name any other TV series that took that long to release completely.
Any other series is released quickly and completely.
Babylon 5 - boxsets in a period of months
Star Trek - the same
etc... etc...
Even with 26 years worth of episodes it really shouldn't have taken that long.
But star trek babylon 5 etc had next to zero restoration done to them. Each who release has had hundreds of man hours trying to get the picture quality the best possible on a very tight budget and if you think how many releases there has been over the years the mind boggles how much time has been spent trying to give the fans the best possible quality
But it's a rather pointless complaint. If they were saying: "We won't release everything until 2020" then, yeah, I'd be a bit narked. But it'll all be out by the end of next year, so what's the point in complaining about it?
The horse has bolted. It's pointless fiddling with the gate.
Totally agree. If they had released everything years ago i doubt we would have got mind of evil or ambassadors in colour and we wouldnt have got animated episodes for reign etc. They said back in 2008 (or was it 07?) they planned to have everything available out by november 2013 and they are well on their way to reaching that target. Considering we are 11 months from that finishing line there really is very little point moaning about how xyz isnt released yet
Yes it does. I have a copy of the full re-con, I only want the missing episode. It could easily have been included in a 'new' release and not a re-visitation. It is a deliberate act from the BBC, just as the release of 'Terror of the Autos' also forced us to re-buy 'Spearhead from Space'. I was ripped off. Oh, and now they are releasing Spearhead on Blu-ray which makes four releases (VHS, DVD, DVD re-release and Blu-Ray). So how can we possibly justify 3 optical disk releases of Spearhead before we have even one release of Zygons?????
Nyder can I humbly suggest instead of whinging and moaning about it you get yourself on Ebay and sell your existing copy of Aztecs, then you won't 'loose' as much money if you re-buy it. You should get a decent price for it if you sell it before the new version comes out and with Christmas around the corner etc etc
Totally agree. If they had released everything years ago i doubt we would have got mind of evil or ambassadors in colour and we wouldnt have got animated episodes for reign etc. They said back in 2008 (or was it 07?) they planned to have everything available out by november 2013 and they are well on their way to reaching that target. Considering we are 11 months from that finishing line there really is very little point moaning about how xyz isnt released yet
Absolutely.
And pre-2005, the interest in the show was significantly less, so these classic DVDs may well have even stopped.
Shada (Legacy Box Set): UK: January 7th, US: January 8th
The Reign of Terror: UK: January 28th, US: February 12th
The Ark in Space (SE): UK: February 18th, : US: NA
The Aztecs (SE) (plus Galaxy 4 ep 3): UK: March 11th, US: NA
Dalek Movies (Blu-Ray): UK: May 27th, US: NA
Terror of the Zygons: UK: June 24th, US: NA
Spearhead From Space (Blu-Ray): UK: July 15th, US: NA
Inferno (SE): UK: NA, US: NA
and
The Mind of Evil
The Tenth Planet
The Ice Warriors
The Underwater Menace: Episode 2
The Visitation - Special Edition
With possible future Special Editions:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Web Planet
The Mind Robber
The Green Death
Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
The Hand of Fear
Horror of Fang Rock
City of Death
The Leisure Hive
Earthshock
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Shada (Legacy Box Set): UK: January 7th, US: January 8th
The Reign of Terror: UK: January 28th, US: February 12th
The Ark in Space (SE): UK: February 18th, : US: NA
The Aztecs (SE) (plus Galaxy 4 ep 3): UK: March 11th, US: NA
Dalek Movies (Blu-Ray): UK: May 27th, US: NA
Terror of the Zygons: UK: June 24th, US: NA
Spearhead From Space (Blu-Ray): UK: July 15th, US: NA
Inferno (SE): UK: NA, US: NA
and
The Mind of Evil
The Tenth Planet
The Ice Warriors
The Underwater Menace: Episode 2
The Visitation - Special Edition
With possible future Special Editions:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Web Planet
The Mind Robber
The Green Death
Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
The Hand of Fear
Horror of Fang Rock
City of Death
The Leisure Hive
Earthshock
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Any more U.S. dates as of yet?
Normally U.S releases are the 2nd tuesday of the month when it comes to classic who releases so i would put both ark in space and aztec special editions down as a probable 12 march release date.
If the coming soon trailer for ice warriors is on aztecs as rumours suggest we could get it as soon as 1st april (going by dan hall's comments about a release every 3 weeks).
Two releases i feel should be added to the list of possible special editions and they are moonbase and crusade. Both never got a proper release ie its own disc, dvd cover, artwork extras etc and as they both only have 2 eps missing they both have the possibility of being considered for animation. Seeing as there are rumours floating round that a commentary has been recorded for moonbase i would not rule out the possibility of a release of at least 1 of them.
If they had season sets they would not have had as much restoration work done as they would have had as they would have had less budget to work with and we most certainly would not have had ambassadors and mind in colour and animated episodes either
Really ? Why wouldn't they have had much restoration work done. Season sets have been released of other series with plenty of restoration work done. Indeed Season 16 was a perfectly excellent release with the full bells and whistles.
There is no reason why they could not have revisited Ambassadors and Mind of Evil as single releases at a later date or held the season release back.
Really ? Why wouldn't they have had much restoration work done. Season sets have been released of other series with plenty of restoration work done. Indeed Season 16 was a perfectly excellent release with the full bells and whistles.
There is no reason why they could not have revisited Ambassadors and Mind of Evil as single releases at a later date or held the season release back.
You have to remember key to time had an original rrp when it first came out of about 80 quid if i recall correctly. You wouldnt be able to price every release that highly not in the current financial climate. Plus you have to take into account key to time had 6 fairly easy and cheap to restore stories. Other series arent so lucky (especially the first 2 pertwee series and most of the 60s eps) and are far more difficult and more expensive to restore than the key to time series. Even on the limited budget they get alocated per release the cost of restoring a 25 episode series 8 for example would cost a lot more than k2t and would have next to zero budget left over for any extras. With the cost of restoring it being quite high i would expect it to be priced an rrp of at least 100 quid to even turn a profit (like it or not bbcww are a buisness and a buisness is there to make a profit). Its just not affordable for most in the current finacial climate.Each release is budget by how much it is likely to sell and considering how some sells as low as 10 k a box set of series 8 would have to be priced mighty high to break even or the price would get lowered and no restoration work would get done. If they had held back series 7 or 8 for ambassadors or mind there would be complaing that the rest of the series should be released as the rest are ready. Also if they revised mind of evil or ambassadors some people would complain that they are being forced to buy it again as they should have colourised it first time round.
Normally U.S releases are the 2nd tuesday of the month when it comes to classic who releases so i would put both ark in space and aztec special editions down as a probable 12 march release date.
Yeah, you are right; I am just looking for officially set dates so that I can be absolutely sure.
If the coming soon trailer for ice warriors is on aztecs as rumours suggest we could get it as soon as 1st april (going by dan hall's comments about a release every 3 weeks).
Two releases i feel should be added to the list of possible special editions and they are moonbase and crusade. Both never got a proper release ie its own disc, dvd cover, artwork extras etc and as they both only have 2 eps missing they both have the possibility of being considered for animation. Seeing as there are rumours floating round that a commentary has been recorded for moonbase i would not rule out the possibility of a release of at least 1 of them.
And you are correct on this as well, although, they wouldn't be Special Editions so much as the initial releases.
There are just a handful of serials which fall into this 2 missing episode or less category which have not, as of yet, been announced (or already made). Crusade and Moonbase are definitely two of them. I need to double-check my master list and probably add them to the waiting-to-be-released list.
P.S. I have been watching The Key to Time boxset that I picked up on Tuesday (along with the E-space trilogy). I am not sure if I have ever seen The Pirate Planet before. It is both freaky and good.
I checked my excel spreadsheet last night and, if I remember correctly, there have been 795 proper episodes of Doctor Who. This does _not_ include any Comedy one-off deals and does _not_ include the animated Tennant stuff, but it does include Shada (since the BBC kept story number 109 for Shada, it would seem that the episodes should count and that it is cannon). It does include the 1996 TV movie but not the 1960's theatrical movies (since, once again, they are not cannon).
That is an amazing amount of episodes. No other (non-anime) show comes close. The next in line would be Bonanza or The Simpsons or maybe Scooby-Doo, but each of those are at somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 episodes, not 800.
And that is why it takes so long to release it all on DVD.
It'd be fun to have a Pyramids of Mars, City of Death and Horror of Fang Rock Special Editions in a Boxset named "Best of Baker" or "Best of Four".
The only 1 id say id buy is fang rock and that would be based upon what extras it holds. The other 2 are fine. I just want green death done (2 disc set which would make the eps less compressed,its the only pertwee story not to have a making of and they could add the what katy did next documentary which was dropped as there was no room left) and im pretty much done. I do like the revisits but the rest of the early releases are pretty much fine as they are
Really? I moan as much as anyone about the SE but you really think the sales of Classic Who would have suffered without newwho?
This is a show that had massive VHS sales and an ongoing magazine for a show off air for 15 years
The classic fans will always buy something - although like me, I'm sure teh DVD's is the last time will be buying the stories!
Appart from spearhead and the tv movie (the latter being quite unlikely due to cost of getting access to the original film prints and replacing the origial effects by scratch) im not bothering with blu ray. The rest wont see an improvment if they upscale them (apart from space) so i will stick with dvds for the rest.
The only 1 id say id buy is fang rock and that would be based upon what extras it holds. The other 2 are fine. I just want green death done (2 disc set which would make the eps less compressed,its the only pertwee story not to have a making of and they could add the what katy did next documentary which was dropped as there was no room left) and im pretty much done. I do like the revisits but the rest of the early releases are pretty much fine as they are
Wow. This sounds like fun. I think it might have been dropped becauase it wasn't suitable for a family audience.
More extras passed by the bbfc for ark in space:
00:27:34:20 DR. FOREVER! - NOT AS SEEN ON BBC TV - LOVE AND WAR
00:07:33:05 (SCENE AROUND SIX) (NORTHERN IRELAND CLIP)
00:00:34:14 (EASTER EGG) (DISNEY TIME CLIP)
00:01:08:23 (ROBOT 8MM LOCATION FILM)
Shada (Legacy Box Set): UK: January 7th, US: January 8th
The Reign of Terror: UK: January 28th, US: February 12th
The Ark in Space (SE): UK: February 18th, : US: March 12th
The Aztecs (SE) (plus Galaxy 4 ep 3): UK: March 11th, US: March 12th
Dalek Movies (Blu-Ray): UK: May 27th, US: NA
Terror of the Zygons: UK: June 24th, US: NA
Spearhead From Space (Blu-Ray): UK: July 15th, US: NA
Inferno (SE): UK: NA, US: NA
and
The Mind of Evil
The Tenth Planet
The Ice Warriors
The Underwater Menace: Episode 2
The Visitation (SE)
With possible future Special Editions:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Web Planet
The Mind Robber
The Green Death
Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
The Hand of Fear
Horror of Fang Rock
City of Death
The Leisure Hive
Earthshock
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Comments
I don't think that any other series has 33 seasons, a ton of specials and a T.V. movie. (Well over 700 episodes total.)
Also, I am not sure if any other series has ever undertaken the amount of restoration (rebuilding episodes, animating episodes, Vidfireing Episodes and simply searching for missing episodes) that doctor who has.
Doctor Who is unique in many, many aspects of which scope is one of the largest. It will have taken 13 or 14 years to release everything simply because there is that much to release. The stores, the fanbase and the production company all needed the lengthy release schedule. If 200-300 Doctor Who DVDs had all been dumped into the system within a couple of years, nobody would have been able to handle it.
But star trek babylon 5 etc had next to zero restoration done to them. Each who release has had hundreds of man hours trying to get the picture quality the best possible on a very tight budget and if you think how many releases there has been over the years the mind boggles how much time has been spent trying to give the fans the best possible quality
Totally agree. If they had released everything years ago i doubt we would have got mind of evil or ambassadors in colour and we wouldnt have got animated episodes for reign etc. They said back in 2008 (or was it 07?) they planned to have everything available out by november 2013 and they are well on their way to reaching that target. Considering we are 11 months from that finishing line there really is very little point moaning about how xyz isnt released yet
Nyder can I humbly suggest instead of whinging and moaning about it you get yourself on Ebay and sell your existing copy of Aztecs, then you won't 'loose' as much money if you re-buy it. You should get a decent price for it if you sell it before the new version comes out and with Christmas around the corner etc etc
Absolutely.
And pre-2005, the interest in the show was significantly less, so these classic DVDs may well have even stopped.
33 years worth of episodes (we are currently on the 33rd season and that is _not_ counting the T.V. movie or the endless number of specials).
The Reign of Terror: UK: January 28th, US: February 12th
The Ark in Space (SE): UK: February 18th, : US: NA
The Aztecs (SE) (plus Galaxy 4 ep 3): UK: March 11th, US: NA
Dalek Movies (Blu-Ray): UK: May 27th, US: NA
Terror of the Zygons: UK: June 24th, US: NA
Spearhead From Space (Blu-Ray): UK: July 15th, US: NA
Inferno (SE): UK: NA, US: NA
and
The Mind of Evil
The Tenth Planet
The Ice Warriors
The Underwater Menace: Episode 2
The Visitation - Special Edition
With possible future Special Editions:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Web Planet
The Mind Robber
The Green Death
Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
The Hand of Fear
Horror of Fang Rock
City of Death
The Leisure Hive
Earthshock
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Any more U.S. dates as of yet?
Normally U.S releases are the 2nd tuesday of the month when it comes to classic who releases so i would put both ark in space and aztec special editions down as a probable 12 march release date.
If the coming soon trailer for ice warriors is on aztecs as rumours suggest we could get it as soon as 1st april (going by dan hall's comments about a release every 3 weeks).
Two releases i feel should be added to the list of possible special editions and they are moonbase and crusade. Both never got a proper release ie its own disc, dvd cover, artwork extras etc and as they both only have 2 eps missing they both have the possibility of being considered for animation. Seeing as there are rumours floating round that a commentary has been recorded for moonbase i would not rule out the possibility of a release of at least 1 of them.
Really ? Why wouldn't they have had much restoration work done. Season sets have been released of other series with plenty of restoration work done. Indeed Season 16 was a perfectly excellent release with the full bells and whistles.
There is no reason why they could not have revisited Ambassadors and Mind of Evil as single releases at a later date or held the season release back.
You have to remember key to time had an original rrp when it first came out of about 80 quid if i recall correctly. You wouldnt be able to price every release that highly not in the current financial climate. Plus you have to take into account key to time had 6 fairly easy and cheap to restore stories. Other series arent so lucky (especially the first 2 pertwee series and most of the 60s eps) and are far more difficult and more expensive to restore than the key to time series. Even on the limited budget they get alocated per release the cost of restoring a 25 episode series 8 for example would cost a lot more than k2t and would have next to zero budget left over for any extras. With the cost of restoring it being quite high i would expect it to be priced an rrp of at least 100 quid to even turn a profit (like it or not bbcww are a buisness and a buisness is there to make a profit). Its just not affordable for most in the current finacial climate.Each release is budget by how much it is likely to sell and considering how some sells as low as 10 k a box set of series 8 would have to be priced mighty high to break even or the price would get lowered and no restoration work would get done. If they had held back series 7 or 8 for ambassadors or mind there would be complaing that the rest of the series should be released as the rest are ready. Also if they revised mind of evil or ambassadors some people would complain that they are being forced to buy it again as they should have colourised it first time round.
Wasn't that the Limited Numbered (5000 IIRC) Edition though?
Yeah, you are right; I am just looking for officially set dates so that I can be absolutely sure.
And you are correct on this as well, although, they wouldn't be Special Editions so much as the initial releases.
There are just a handful of serials which fall into this 2 missing episode or less category which have not, as of yet, been announced (or already made). Crusade and Moonbase are definitely two of them. I need to double-check my master list and probably add them to the waiting-to-be-released list.
P.S. I have been watching The Key to Time boxset that I picked up on Tuesday (along with the E-space trilogy). I am not sure if I have ever seen The Pirate Planet before. It is both freaky and good.
That is an amazing amount of episodes. No other (non-anime) show comes close. The next in line would be Bonanza or The Simpsons or maybe Scooby-Doo, but each of those are at somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 episodes, not 800.
And that is why it takes so long to release it all on DVD.
Really? I moan as much as anyone about the SE but you really think the sales of Classic Who would have suffered without newwho?
This is a show that had massive VHS sales and an ongoing magazine for a show off air for 15 years
The classic fans will always buy something - although like me, I'm sure teh DVD's is the last time will be buying the stories!
The only 1 id say id buy is fang rock and that would be based upon what extras it holds. The other 2 are fine. I just want green death done (2 disc set which would make the eps less compressed,its the only pertwee story not to have a making of and they could add the what katy did next documentary which was dropped as there was no room left) and im pretty much done. I do like the revisits but the rest of the early releases are pretty much fine as they are
Appart from spearhead and the tv movie (the latter being quite unlikely due to cost of getting access to the original film prints and replacing the origial effects by scratch) im not bothering with blu ray. The rest wont see an improvment if they upscale them (apart from space) so i will stick with dvds for the rest.
Wow. This sounds like fun. I think it might have been dropped becauase it wasn't suitable for a family audience.
If you add in one more they could call it Four by Four. :cool:
3 stories, 4 episodes each plus a making of...
Baker's Dozen!
00:27:34:20 DR. FOREVER! - NOT AS SEEN ON BBC TV - LOVE AND WAR
00:07:33:05 (SCENE AROUND SIX) (NORTHERN IRELAND CLIP)
00:00:34:14 (EASTER EGG) (DISNEY TIME CLIP)
00:01:08:23 (ROBOT 8MM LOCATION FILM)
Released in USA 12th march.
Hooray! More dates!
That makes the list:
Shada (Legacy Box Set): UK: January 7th, US: January 8th
The Reign of Terror: UK: January 28th, US: February 12th
The Ark in Space (SE): UK: February 18th, : US: March 12th
The Aztecs (SE) (plus Galaxy 4 ep 3): UK: March 11th, US: March 12th
Dalek Movies (Blu-Ray): UK: May 27th, US: NA
Terror of the Zygons: UK: June 24th, US: NA
Spearhead From Space (Blu-Ray): UK: July 15th, US: NA
Inferno (SE): UK: NA, US: NA
and
The Mind of Evil
The Tenth Planet
The Ice Warriors
The Underwater Menace: Episode 2
The Visitation (SE)
With possible future Special Editions:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Web Planet
The Mind Robber
The Green Death
Genesis of the Daleks
Pyramids of Mars
The Hand of Fear
Horror of Fang Rock
City of Death
The Leisure Hive
Earthshock
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks
Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric
Maybe they've stuck the 50 years gold logo on it, and are expecting a riot from people complaining it won't match the other releases.