Should Galaxy 4: Airlock have been released with the Tenth Planet?

[Candlelight]

Coming in March, the recently (well, a year ago now) discovered episode from Galaxy 4 is being released with... The Aztecs.

Not my first choice. Considering The Tenth Planet is missing it's final episode (which will likely be animated anyway) should Galaxy 4 Airlock have been released with that set to help sales? The Aztecs just seems like a silly choice to me.

[Andrew_Kearley]

I doubt The Tenth Planet will need any help with sales.

[Brendan Moody]

^Indeed. The reissue of "The Aztecs" is far more likely to benefit from having "Air Lock" on it. Plus, in terms of budgeting restoration and/or extras for "Air Lock," it probably helps to have it on a re-release rather than a previously unreleased story, especially one with a likely animation.

Gallifrey Base, of course, was seething with resentment at the announcement that they might have to buy a story they already owned to get "Air Lock." Between that and the announcement that nothing new was being done with "Shada," the tension was... well, entertaining, actually.

[Steve Mollmann]

^ Well, it is kinda crappy to be fair. The Aztecs is one of the three first Doctor DVDs I own! I'm not gonna buy a second copy to watch 25 minutes of new material when The Romans and The Time Meddler are still out there, unbought.

[Brendan Moody]

It does suck for people who don't want the re-release, to be sure. (I wish the plan to put the unrestored versions of the rediscovered episodes on iTunes had come to fruition.) It just doesn't suck quite as much as some at GB think. I know: fandom in "overreacts to bad news" shocker!

[Candlelight]

I'm more annoyed just from an 'it was expected' standpoint. Tenth Planrt seemed like an obvious choice.

[zarkon]

Makes sense to me.

Original Aztecs is super old and super cheap, so people either bought it ten years ago or didn't pay much for it, so it's not _as_bad_ as if it'd been a more recent release. On Aztecs it can probably have more of the budget assigned to its clean up, Aztecs could do with a cleanup itself, and tenth planet needs its budget for episode four.

bbc doesn't make a great deal of money on these classic dvds so it has to plan them out this way. if they were a big money maker we'd have had an animated Power of the Daleks years ago

[diankra]

The issue is probably that BBC-DVD have a certain budget for 'Added Value Material' for each release. If there's any sort of reconstruction of apart four on Tenth Planet, that's the AVM budget gone. Whereas if The Aztecs only has a few more extras for the re-release, then Airlock can be the rest of the AVM for that release.
Plu, of course, 10th Planet was going to sell anyway, whereas lots of us were probably going to skip a double-dip on the Aztecs. So in brutal commercial terms (and BBC DVD is a business, not a goodwill operation for fans) this was inevitable. Sure, I'd hoped the people at BBC DVD were still fan enough not to do it, but ultimately... it's fans in their time off, businessmen when earning their salary - and looking for ways to justify their continued salary.

[The Borgified Corpse]

Honestly, there's not really a sensible place to put "Airlock" at all, unless they suddenly decided to do a special edition re-release of "The Time Meddler." That's the only one that really comes close to the same chronological position. Plus, "The Time Meddler" is the only complete surviving story to feature that particular companion pairing of Vicki & Steven.

Have they announced yet what they're going to do with "The Underwater Menace, Part 2"?

Personally, I kinda want them to do a special edition of the "Lost in Time" collection. They need to add something, whether it's live action linking narration or even just text recaps to fill in the gaps of the missing episodes.

[Sindatur]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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Honestly, there's not really a sensible place to put "Airlock" at all, unless they suddenly decided to do a special edition re-release of "The Time Meddler." That's the only one that really comes close to the same chronological position. Plus, "The Time Meddler" is the only complete surviving story to feature that particular companion pairing of Vicki & Steven.

Have they announced yet what they're going to do with "The Underwater Menace, Part 2"?

Personally, I kinda want them to do a special edition of the "Lost in Time" collection. They need to add something, whether it's live action linking narration or even just text recaps to fill in the gaps of the missing episodes.

It's 2 outta 4, they could animate Eps 1 and 4 (Like The Reign of Terror 4 and 5 currently being done [2 outta 6] or The Invasion 1 and 4 [2 outta 8]).

[Brendan Moody]

A partially-animated "Underwater Menace" is certainly a possibility, but a lot is going to hinge on how the partially-animated "Reign of Terror" sells; it's the first time animated missing episodes have been fully paid-for out of the DVD budget, and if it doesn't turn a decent profit that's probably that for animation, with the possible exceptions of "The Tenth Planet" and "The Ice Warriors."

[The Borgified Corpse]

I suppose it makes sense that they would keep us in suspense about "The Underwater Menace, Part 2" until they decide if they're ever going to get around to animating any missing episodes from the three 50-50 stories (half missing, half remaining): "The Crusade," "The Moonbase," & now "The Underwater Menace."

Have they announced an American release date for "The Reign of Terror" yet?

[Candlelight]

The Borgified Corpse wrote:

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I suppose it makes sense that they would keep us in suspense about "The Underwater Menace, Part 2" until they decide if they're ever going to get around to animating any missing episodes from the three 50-50 stories (half missing, half remaining): "The Crusade," "The Moonbase," & now "The Underwater Menace."

It all hinges on The Reign of Terror. If you want the episodes animated, Reign has to do well.

[diankra]

Candlelight wrote:

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It all hinges on The Reign of Terror. If you want the episodes animated, Reign has to do well.

Thinking about it, it probably doesn't: if everything is coming out before the 50th anniversary (November 2013), then the DVDs of 10th Planet, Ice Warriors and any of the half-and-half stories would have to be in the works long before sales figures for Reign of Terror (late Jan 2013) are available.

[Brendan Moody]

It's no longer the case that everything will necessarily be out by the 50th anniversary, I think. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if animations for "The Tenth Planet" and "The Ice Warriors" were already in the works anyway. "Reign" is a good test case for half-and-half animations and the like because it's not an "event" story like "Tenth Planet" or the introduction of a familiar monster like "Ice Warriors;" if it can do well enough, any animation can.