Audio Commentaries

[thestrangequark]

I have a question for you wonderful folks. Well, two questions. I remember when series 2 was first airing, the BBC put videos of the episode commentaries up on their Doctor Who website. Now, I may be imagining things, but I could swear that the commentaries I've listened to on my series 2 dvds are not the same commentaries as were posted on the website. Granted, it has been some long while since I listened to those first commentaries, but I thought sure that David Tennant did the one for episode 2, and I vaguely remember anecdotes from the episode 1 commentary that were missing when I watched on my dvd. I was wondering, firstly, am I crazy? -- are there two sets of commentaries? And secondly, have the original commentaries (the ones that were up on the BBC website) disappeared into the void never to be seen and/or heard again?

 

[ITL]

I can't say whether there are two sets of commentaries, as I don't own any DVD's - but yes, the website commentaries get taken down after a while. I know this, as I've been too late to grab certain commentaries before.

 

[Peak]

Yes, the commentaries are different. The only instances when they reused the podcast-commentaries are for the christmas episodes, if I remember correctly.

 

[danjamesb]

yes, the website commentaries get taken down after a while.

Well, yes and no.

For Series Two and Series Three, the commentaries were posted on the website for download, and are still available.

Series Two is here, and Series Three is here.

Then, due to a change of rules within the BBC, they could no longer offer such huge audio files for download unless they were related to a radio show. Therefore, when Series Four started, the podcast commentaries were actually broadcast on the radio late at night as Doctor Who: The Commentaries, and could then be downloaded as the official podcast of that radio show.

However, the BBC only makes each episode of its radio podcasts available to download for a week or so, so the Series Four commentaries disappeared from iTunes soon after the episodes aired. They're archived here for streaming, but there's nowhere you can (legally) download them.

 

[ITL]

Interesting! Thanks for the info.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Yes, the commentaries are different. The only instances when they reused the podcast-commentaries are for the christmas episodes, if I remember correctly.

They also did it for either "The Sound of Drums" or "Last of the Time Lords" because John Barrowman broke out into song on the DVD commentary and there were music rights issues that prevented that commentary track from appearing outside of R2.

 

[Brendan Moody]

^It was "Last of the Time Lords," and it was all three participants rather than just Barrowman singing. BBC America was eventually able to make it available for free download, so anyone who's curious can get it here.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Ah, thanks for clarifying and thanks for the link.

 

[thestrangequark]

Wow, thank you for such detailed answers. For a moment there I thought I was going mad!