Which (if any) Special Editions are worth it?

[The Borgified Corpse]

Several of the classic stories have been released twice on DVD, the 2nd time with a bunch of new bonus features. Personally, I'm a big fan of Doctor Who's making-of documentaries but I know that not all making-of-docs are created equal. Which of these classic Special Edition reissues are worth the money?

The Tomb of the Cybermen
The Seeds of Death
Spearhead from Space
The Three Doctors
Carnival of Monsters
The Robots of Death
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
The Ribos Operation
The Pirate Planet
The Stones of Blood
The Androids of Tara
The Power of Kroll
The Armageddon Factor
The Five Doctors
Resurrection of the Daleks
The Caves of Androzani
Remembrance of the Daleks

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Was there a special release edition of the Key to Time stories? Must have missed that...

Definitely the Five Doctors, the original release was the "buggered about with" version. Consequently, I only ever bought the special edition of that. The Three Doctors, Remembrance of the Daleks, Spearhead from Space all corrected the mastering errors or omissions of the previous releases, so were worth it just for that in my opinion. The others have all supposedly got better picture quality too, which might make them worth a buy.

 

[Phillip Culley]

Definitely the Key to Time stories -the original editions were rushed out as a box set for the US market some 10 years ago and were very lacking to what we're used to - the SE version have a much more comprehensive set of extras. At the same time The Five Doctors improves vastly on the original release which was one of the first BBC DVDs and was pretty much the story and not much else.

As to the other SE's, it depends how happy you are with the original releases. The SE's have improved picture quality and additional bonus features, as well as some of them having new commentaries. A lot of the SE's which were originally released as single-disc released have been upgraded to 2-disc, mostly to accommodate the new features however in some cases they have more unique bonuses, such as Resurrection of the Daleks having both the regular 4-part version as well as the as-broadcast 2-part version, or Remembrance of the Daleks having a special Davros documentary

Overall, if you've not got the stories yet, then it's worth getting the SE's; likewise if you're interested in upgrading them so they're more in line with the more recent discs then they're worth getting. If you're just after the story and are happy with the original releases, then they're probably not worth it.

 

[Cutter John]

I can only endorse The Five Doctors. The original release was relatively bare-bones. But the newer addition has some lovely documentaries on the making of, as was as fandom in the 80's. Theres also a easter egg commentary that's worth the purchase price on its own.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Definitely the Key to Time stories -the original editions were rushed out as a box set for the US market some 10 years ago and were very lacking to what we're used to - the SE version have a much more comprehensive set of extras.

Ah! That explains my confusion then. As far as I was concerned, there was no special edition, just the original.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The Three Doctors, Remembrance of the Daleks, Spearhead from Space all corrected the mastering errors or omissions of the previous releases, so were worth it just for that in my opinion.

What kind of errors or omissions?

Granted, I live in the U.S., so even the Special Edition of "Remembrance of the Daleks" only has the replacement music in place of the original Beatles track.

It's been quite a few years since I've seen "Spearhead from Space," but I don't remember the picture quality being all that good. So that one might be worth an upgrade.

I'm such a big multi-Doctors fan that "The Three Doctors" might be worth an upgrade.

I already have the 25th Anniversary Edition of "The Five Doctors."

I suppose the ones that I find most tempting are "The Tomb of the Cybermen" & "The Seeds of Death," since I'm a huge Troughton fan.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Ah, sorry. I may not be the person to advise you then, as the original region 1 releases might have been intact for all I know.

The original release of Remembrance was missing the Dalek ray effect when the Dalek shoots the soldier in episode 1. Possibly this was corrected for the region 1 already.

The Three Doctors end of episode 2 repeated the last twenty seconds of the episode before the closing credits, but the audio was unaffected meaning it ended up running out of sync. Possibly that was corrected for region 1 as well, I'm sure someone else will be able to confirm that.

As for Spearhead from Space, they put back the Fleetwood Mac music in episode 1, but with different licensing arrangements over there, maybe that's still missing.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Ah, sorry. I may not be the person to advise you then, as the original region 1 releases might have been intact for all I know.

The original release of Remembrance was missing the Dalek ray effect when the Dalek shoots the soldier in episode 1. Possibly this was corrected for the region 1 already.

The Three Doctors end of episode 2 repeated the last twenty seconds of the episode before the closing credits, but the audio was unaffected meaning it ended up running out of sync. Possibly that was corrected for region 1 as well, I'm sure someone else will be able to confirm that.

Yeah. I certainly don't remember such an egregious error on my R1 copy of "The Three Doctors."

I'm not sure about the Dalek ray effect in "Remembrance of the Daleks." I'm not sure I would have noticed anyway considering the threadbare production values often seen on the classic series. Not seeing the ray would actually fit in with how Dalek guns were depicted in the old William Hartnell stories anyway.

 

[diankra]

And to add one more DVD slip up, the Invisible Enemy release had the last two chapters of episode three (ie, the last actual scenes and the end titles) in reverse order. That was corrected pretty quickly, but the preview discs and the first thousand or so copies into the shops had the mess up (you could send it back in to 2Entertain for a swap, but I never got round to it).

Taking the topic slightly off-side, does anyone have opinions on the actual special editions - the re-edits (or alternative effects options) on stories like Day of the Daleks, Planet of Fire and Curse of Fenric? Not seen the first yet, hate the second, and would love the third, but I know the music from the original so well that the new score jars (even though it's by the same composer).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I hate what they did to Rassilon's voice in the Five Doctors SE.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I was impressed with how seamless & how f---ing scary the new CGI snake is if you use the CGI effects option on "Kinda."

BTW, what about the new comprehensive Peter Davison documentary on the SE of "Resurrection of the Daleks." It sounds like it could be awesome. Is it?

 

[Cutter John]

While not a SE, I thought the added effects of the exploding castle in The Time Warrior were really impressively well done. If the rest are on-par, I'd say folk are in for a treat.

I hate what they did to Rassilon's voice in the Five Doctors SE.

Oh lord I'd forgotten that. I agree, that was a real 'wtf?' addition.