Someone Buy Who Magazine Issue Four Five Three!

[Alan Grover]

Speaking at the reconstruction event today, DVD producer Dan Hall outlined some of BBC Worldwide's plans for releases during the course of next year.

With the exception of one boxed set (believed to the the Legacy set of Shada and More than Thirty Years in the TARDIS due to come out after The Claws of Axos special edition) all releases next year will be individual stories. New titles include Terror of the Zygons, The Mind of Evil and The Reign Of Terror and there will also be at least four Revisitations (one of which is the previously announced Inferno).

The recently recovered episode Air Lock from Galaxy 4 is still in the process of being restored, but is hoped to be released alongside another title next year; the status of The Underwater Menace's episode two was not clarified, however.

During a discussion over the animation of The Reign of Terror (The Tyrant of France being shown at the event), he explained that it was unlikely that more than two episodes could be animated within allocated budgets - though intimated, there were no formal announcements of further forthcoming animated episodes at present.

There was also clarification over the forthcoming Shada release, which will not be a complete version of the story. Hall explained that he felt his role was not to 'create' new (id est, original) material and this was a decision that would need to be made by the BBC rather than BBC Worldwide - he also thought that such a project couldn't be undertaken to the required BBC quality guidelines within the budgets available to the DVD range. From a personal perspective, he believed that, editorially, it should also remain unfinished, reflecting the series production.

The range is expected to have a story released every three weeks during 2013, leading up to the fiftieth anniversary. The first DVDs of this 'full schedule' will be announced in the next edition of Doctor Who Magazine.

[Simon Smith]

Four revisitations? FOUR? Anyone know which ones? And what do they mean by the Shada statement? Will they even have the Tom Baker 1992 narration? What about the the 1992 models effects? Personally, I feel Hall's decisions about what does and doesn't go on these DVDs have been pretty poor.

[Deleted]

Oct 1, 2012 8:23:22 GMT Simon Smith said:

Personally, I feel Hall's decisions about what does and doesn't go on these DVDs have been pretty poor.

Agreed. A lot of the "extras" in recent years have been of minimal value or interest which is galling when there was archive material that got pushed aside to make way for something less worthy.

[Deleted]

Thanks for passing on the news to us all here, Alan!

Four revisitations? I'm hoping for Silurians being one of those personally as I reckon that it could look even better now.

[Simon Smith]

I've just re-read this, and the comment '''The range is expected to have a story released every three weeks during 2013''' does certainly make me think. What else is there? "At least" four Revisitations?

[Simon Smith]

Apparently, as things stand now:

Legacy Box Set - Shada/More Than 30 Years In The Tardis Doc. 7th Jan

Reign Of Terror - 28th Jan

Ark In Space Special Edition - 18th Feb

The Aztecs Special Edition - 11th March. Will include episode 3 of Galaxy 4 as an extra

Terror Of The Zygons - 25th June

But, he said "at least four Special Editions". And there's an obvious gap there. It's also a bit much putting the Galaxy 4 episode on a "Special Edition" set where most of us have already bought the original.

[Vaughan Stanger]

>> The Aztecs Special Edition - 11th March. Will include episode 3 of Galaxy 4 as an extra.

What a mean-spirited thing to do.

[Deleted]

Oct 18, 2012 10:14:18 GMT Vaughan Stanger said:

>> The Aztecs Special Edition - 11th March. Will include episode 3 of Galaxy 4 as an extra.

What a mean-spirited thing to do.

Utterly unacceptable. Blatant exploitation. What next then? "Tomb Of The Cybermen" as a standalone reissue with "Underwater Menace" ep 2 as an extra? I don't want to be seen giving Dan Hall any ideas mind...

[Rob Moss]

What would you rather they do with it, out of interest..? Standalone release..? Because that would probably cost about the same!

[Simon Smith]

It could have been released on the "Tenth Planet" DVD.

[Deleted]

Oct 18, 2012 13:46:23 GMT Simon Smith said:

It could have been released on the "Tenth Planet" DVD.

Indeed - the most logical place to include it since that's gonna be a "special" release so the extra episode would had been more ideal there and an extra bonus incentive to invest in it instead of being fobbed off into buying a story we already have all over again.

[Vaughan Stanger]

I agree about placing it on a future "Tenth Planet" DVD. That's a much better idea than requiring fans to buy The Aztecs again. (I've nothing against The Aztecs but...)

[Daniel Hornby]

A release every 3 weeks during the year is only justified if there is enough new material to warrant it. Could it be there has been a recent find? Almost 100% no but it would fully justify an increased amount of releases.
More likely it is blatant cashing in on the 50th anniversary which given how much fans have contributed to the DVD releases over the years (personally knowing fans who have all of the DVDs including re-releases) is more than cheeky.
Given that technology has come on since the original DVD release in 1999 there is some definite justification for releasing older episodes to give better picture quality. But my thought is when would this end?
We could in theory get re-releases of 2010 DVDs in 2020 and those ones getting another release in 2030. There would be some fans willing to keep putting their money in but a lot would see it as a needless drain of cash.

I personally think that when Mind of Evil is released, alongside some (if not all) animations of missing episodes and a couple of revisitations are put out, that should be the end of the affair. When more supply is needed they can be re-printed. Fans in 20 years time will not get a better result with improved technology because high-def is the current way to go. Apart from 'Nu Who', DW is not in HD and therefore the old episodes should be left once they are all released on DVD and not exploited for continual re-releases.

Will that happen though?

[John Wall]

There are a few older releases that would definitely benefit from a "refresh". I found that I could spot the episodes of The Sea Devils that had been through the Reverse Standards Conversion. However, The Curse of Peladon was absolutely brilliant - particularly when you read on the RT site what was involved ! I recall something to the effect that the aim is to get all the colour stories though the Transform PAL Decoder; any story that exists on 2" quad can't really have much more done to it.

[Paul Vanezis]

Oct 18, 2012 19:34:40 GMT John Wall said:

There are a few older releases that would definitely benefit from a "refresh".

I've said it elsewhere, so I'll say it here for clarity. It's been 10 years since 'The Aztecs' was released and in the years since technology has massively improved. The new restoration is a huge improvement and worthy of a new release.

I don't know the ins and outs of the decision to put the Galaxy 4 episode with 'Aztecs' and not 'Tenth Planet', but it would have been more than just putting it on without thought. It's probably got more to do with the additional content on Tenth Planet which would reduce the bit-rate below acceptable levels. The Special Edition treatment on Aztecs would allow more space and therefore better bit-rate and consequently better quality overall. Of course, I may be reading into this more that I need to. They may have just decided to put it onto the first Hartnell they could so the fans could get to see it quicker...

There will be constant improvements in the range; personally I would like to see everything released on Blu-Ray. Some think this is nuts, because BD is high definition and classic DW is not. But you're forgetting of course that due to higher capacities, BD can support much higher bit-rates meaning that classic DW could be put on the discs in SD, but in broadcast quality. This means that fans could have copies identical in quality to the original broadcast tapes. That would be the ultimate release for me.

Regards,

Paul