Will we ever see season sets of the earlier series?
- Thread starter Dar70
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If you're talking about the Classic, 1963-89 series, there have been two official season sets released on DVD:
Season Sixteen: The Key To Time
Season Twenty-Three: The Trial of a Time Lord
Although neither are especially good examples of Classic Who. You've also got the rest of Colin Baker's era on DVD released individually, as well as all of Seasons Ten and Twenty-Six. Mainly though they prefer putting out the original series stories individually as that's the preference for many fans in the UK and it means they can give each story more attention than a season set usually allows.
Season Sixteen: The Key To Time
Season Twenty-Three: The Trial of a Time Lord
Although neither are especially good examples of Classic Who. You've also got the rest of Colin Baker's era on DVD released individually, as well as all of Seasons Ten and Twenty-Six. Mainly though they prefer putting out the original series stories individually as that's the preference for many fans in the UK and it means they can give each story more attention than a season set usually allows.
Well there already are two season sets available. Seasons 16 & 23 boxsets are out.
The rest will probably get released once the current run of all existing stories is concluded.
The rest will probably get released once the current run of all existing stories is concluded.
A major reason why the original series is released story by story rather than season by season is because each story -- especially from the earliest years of the show -- requires significant restoration. Per-story releases allow DVDs to be released on a somewhat frequent basis.
In addition many of the earliest seasons can't be released in their entirety, since 108 episodes from those years are missing.
In addition many of the earliest seasons can't be released in their entirety, since 108 episodes from those years are missing.
Well, if it's imply a matter of seeing old Doctor Who episodes in general, a very good bulk of the old shows have been released on DVD already, just not all in Season format.
In addition, each story is being released with significant extra features. If the OP hasn't checked out any classic-era DVDs, take a look at the special features. It can be said without fear of contradiction that classic-era Doctor Who is the most comprehensively covered TV series ever released to DVD. By comparison, imagine if each episode of Star Trek, or Fringe, or Bones was accompanied by multiple commentaries, documentaries, archive footage, PDF files ... A season set would, in theory, lessen this impact (I say in theory because the two sets that have been issued certainly didn't skimp on the extras, but then again they were formatted for each story to be issued separately).
The thing about classic era Doctor Who is it isn't necessary to have full-season sets -- with the exception being the 1971 season which focused on The Master and the two already-issued season sets mentioned above which were year-long arcs. By releasing individual stories, fans are free to pick and choose the ones they want, which is not an option with a full-season set.
I suppose when 2013 comes along and BBC Video finally ends its release schedule for the classic series (the date is per a report on the Doctor Who Information Network blog last year reporting on a presentation by a member of the restoration team who indicated the DVD-format releases are expected to continue until the 50th anniversary at least) they might put the existing stories together in sets. Maybe by then they'll have also restored the missing stories with animation or cut a deal with Loose Cannon to issue their unofficial restorations or whatever. Maybe by then someone will have also worked out a magic fix for the Blu-Ray problem and they'll put them all out again.
Otherwise, I don't expect to see any season sets. And to be honest I don't know if I want to see them. I quite like having the individual stories released. Yeah, it's more expensive than buying a set, but as far as I'm concerned I'm paying for overall quality.
Alex
It was reported a few years back that BBC DVD were looking to release season sets, but whether they will depends on sales - they might have found that there's a limited market for them, as everyone who's interested wil have already bought the original releases, while the more cynical strategy of releasing a box set which mixes re-releases with one or two discs of new content seems to have fallen flat on the Davros box set.
If they were to re-release complete season sets, then seasons 10, 22 and 26 have all been released in full (in addition to 16 and 23, which were released as season sets in the first place). Seasons 7, 12, 14, 15 and 19 are all within one story of a complete release, while already scheduled releases for this year get seasons 17 and 20 to the same point.
If they were to re-release complete season sets, then seasons 10, 22 and 26 have all been released in full (in addition to 16 and 23, which were released as season sets in the first place). Seasons 7, 12, 14, 15 and 19 are all within one story of a complete release, while already scheduled releases for this year get seasons 17 and 20 to the same point.
The problem with the Davros set was it lost a major market when rights issues over that damn Beatles song in Remembrance of the Daleks forced the set's release to be cancelled about a month before it was supposed to be released in Region 1/North America. They eventually got around to reediting the episode for our sensitive ears over here and put it out a few weeks back, but they didn't include the bonus stuff from the UK set (which IIRC included an exclusive Big Finish audio drama, though elements of Big Finish productions were retained in the Davros documentary that was included in the Region 1 release).
Lots of people seem to like making the claim that the BBC classic series DVDs don't sell, yet for some reason they keep churning them out, they continue to have tons of extras (if you believe some of the nags, that was supposed to have been stopped 3-4 years ago), and they have things roughly mapped out for another 3 1/2 years. Doesn't sound like the actions of a company that considers them a losing venture, does it.
The fact they haven't done season sets is more a case of the BBC recognizing the concept of "double dipping" isn't appreciated, and that most of its target market will have already bought the initial releases. Yes, they're reissuing a few (and I mean a few - as in 3 or 4) older releases later this year, some of which are more than a decade old, with restoration and additional extras. But a decade is far beyond any sort of "statute of limitations" when it comes to double-dipping. The Key to Time set was a special case, because the original Region 1 version was rush-released with minimal extras and restoration, so when the UK finally got around to issuing it, improvements were made and more extras added, and the only "double dip" occurred in North America. And even then it was something like 6 years after the original release.
The point I'm making is the BBC could indeed start issuing some season sets, but they'd have to be seasons with substantial numbers of never-before-issued stories. Otherwise, they really don't have to.
Alex
A lot of the stories are also available via iTunes if splashing out DVD price for a single story is a problem. The individual eps weigh in at £1.89 (about $4), although that said Amazon have been offering a lot of the DVDs for around the £6-7 mark which is on a par.
Several years ago at the Gallifrey convention, somebody from either BBC Video or the Restoration Team (I'm sorry I can't remember which, but this was at least four or five years ago) talked about this issue, and said that there were plans afoot to reissue full seasons together once all the stories in that season had been released separately, with perhaps some way for those who'd bought the separate releases to buy the smaller, full-season packaging. I still think they should do that.
^That would be nice. I love Doctor Who but part of what gives me pause about it is that I just don't have the shelf-space for it. (Which is making me reconsider which Doctors I really want to be collecting. I'm considering liquidating most of my Colin Baker collection and I'm discovering that a lot of Sylvester McCoy's stories are crap.)
I like the Key to Time arc. It was one of my first exposures to Doctor Who. My favorite from the arc is "The Androids of Tara." I also love the initial sniping between the Doctor & Romana in "The Ribos Operation," the OTT villainy of the Captain in "The Pirate Planet," and K-9's laser-nose heroics in "The Stones of Blood."
I can't see how that would be possible. Current restoration technology doesn't even make the stories look particularly good on DVD sometimes.
BTW, what is it about gunfire that the video picture always gets a little worse during shots with gunfire in them?
I like the Key to Time arc. It was one of my first exposures to Doctor Who. My favorite from the arc is "The Androids of Tara." I also love the initial sniping between the Doctor & Romana in "The Ribos Operation," the OTT villainy of the Captain in "The Pirate Planet," and K-9's laser-nose heroics in "The Stones of Blood."
I can't see how that would be possible. Current restoration technology doesn't even make the stories look particularly good on DVD sometimes.
BTW, what is it about gunfire that the video picture always gets a little worse during shots with gunfire in them?
That's pretty much the point I was trying to make: season boxes of already bought stories might not sell, while a season box of re-releases and one or two unreleased stories might sell - to only to the half of the potential market for the new releases who were willing/able to double dip.
Hm. Interesting. And I suppose there's no way to digitially eliminate that interference?
Also, the first six original seasons are missing 108 of the 253 episodes broadcast. While Season 2 for example is only missing 2 episodes, there will be some major gaps in some seasons; Season 4 only has 9 out of 34 episodes left. (I think that's right).
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