Doctor Who: The Complete Matt Smith Years (16-discs) November 4th, 2014

[MifuneFan]

Doctor Who: The Complete Matt Smith Years Blu-ray

BBC/Warner will be releasing Doctor Who: The Matt Smith Years in a Blu-ray Giftset on November 4th. It will have all the features from previous releases, as well as new extras.

All the Bonus Features in the Original Releases PLUS: The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Death of the Doctor 2013 Doctor Who Proms Concert Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide 50th Anniversary Script to Screen Feature The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

This special release comes in a collectible lay-flat book and features:

• The Complete Matt Smith episodes, including series five through seven
• All of Matt Smith’s Christmas Specials including The Time of the Doctor, his last Christmas Special,
• Plus the 50th Anniversary Special The Day of the Doctor in 3D and 2D
• An Adventure in Space and Time all at full 1080p resolution
• New bonus features include the 2013 Doctor Who Proms Concert, Matt Smith’s two Sarah Jane Adventures episodes, the Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, and more!

A perfect gift and highly collectible item for the Doctor Who and Matt Smith fan!

[kenbenobi]

For anyone who bought the LE Series 1-7 set, like myself, it kinda sucks missing out on these new special features.

[GenPion]

This sort of seems like confirmation that BBC doesn't plan on issuing the special set that the UK is getting for the 50th Anniversary with both the special and Time of the Doctor, seeing as how both are included here.

The UK set includes the Five(ish) Doctors Reboot and An Adventure in Space and Time (which is also standalone here in the US).

This set has a exclusive concert and the two Matt Smith Sarah Jane Adventures episodes? Those aren't on anything else are they?

Of course, the 1-7 Giftset did have an exclusive concert just not the same one, I think.

Regardless, this seems like a major cash-in move to include those extras as exclusives when many (most?) fans probably got the Blu-ray gift set.

[WMAangel]

Originally Posted by kenbenobi

For anyone who bought the LE Series 1-7 set, like myself, it kinda sucks missing out on these new special features.

Very true....BBC and Warner are really milking DW to death at this point, I knew this when they just announced the S8 premiere as a standalone release...

Originally Posted by GenPion

This set has a exclusive concert and the two Matt Smith Sarah Jane Adventures episodes? Those aren't on anything else are they?

The Sara Jane episodes are (obviously) on the Series 4 release on DVD, but you can also get the episodes on the classic Who SE DVD of The Green Death...

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by GenPion

This sort of seems like confirmation that BBC doesn't plan on issuing the special set that the UK is getting for the 50th Anniversary with both the special and Time of the Doctor, seeing as how both are included here.

The UK set includes the Five(ish) Doctors Reboot and An Adventure in Space and Time (which is also standalone here in the US).

This set has a exclusive concert and the two Matt Smith Sarah Jane Adventures episodes? Those aren't on anything else are they?

Of course, the 1-7 Giftset did have an exclusive concert just not the same one, I think.

Regardless, this seems like a major cash-in move to include those extras as exclusives when many (most?) fans probably got the Blu-ray gift set.

This certainly does explain the lack of 50th anniversary set, but is also a slap in the face to those that have bought either everything separately or the Series 1-7 set.

The 'exclusive content' isn't so exclusive really as the Proms 2013 is on the 50th anniversary set and The Sarah Jane Adventures* episodes are available on the (SJA) Series Four set. Granted those are only available in the UK, but they're no more exclusive than The Five(ish) Doctors.
So really there's nothing in this set that is only available in North America, unlike the Series 1-7 set which had a bonus disc the UK release didn't get.

I will admit I do like the look of the set and if there's anybody that doesn't own Matt's episodes yet then this is a no brainer.

*This does mean though that this is the first time North America receives HD episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

[StingingVelvet]

Not much there I care about. I have his Sarah Jane episodes on The Green Death SE, and while Five(ish) Doctors was cute on youtube I'm not really aching to own it.

Even the UK anniversary set has barely anything interesting on it the standalone discs don't have. Weird.

[Diditagain]

I agree with you, Stinging Velvet. While the completest in me wants the 2013 Proms on Blu-ray, the S1-S7 Blu-ray set from last year included the 2010 Proms on the bonus disc -- of course they are not identical, but they are similar enough that I have no desire to waste money repurchasing S5-S7.

I will be purchasing the standalone Day of the Doctor and Time of the Doctor releases during the next Barnes & Noble BBC 50% off sale, and combining them into one case (probably removing the DOTD DVD) -- that's enough of a 50th anniversary collection for me.

As I look at this new set, BBC Video US basically decided to make the UK 50th anniversary Blu-ray set part of the Matt Smith Blu-ray collection, probably hoping that die-hard fans would gladly repurchase S5-S7 for the "exclusive content" not available on standalone Blu-rays.

[simonynwa]

Strange release. Surely they would be better releasing the standalone seasons.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by simonynwa

Strange release. Surely they would be better releasing the standalone seasons.

Uh, the standalone seasons have been out forever.

[simonynwa]

Im have severe OCD . I want standard releases of the Seasons that were in the big gift set last year, preferably with Matt Smiths last two special in the Season 7 set

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by simonynwa

Im have severe OCD . I want standard releases of the Seasons that were in the big gift set last year, preferably with Matt Smiths last two special in the Season 7 set

I don't understand what you're saying. The gift set seasons that don't have standalone releases are 1-4. This set is seasons 5-7, which do have standalone releases on blu.

[Deciazulado]

Doctor Who: The Complete Matt Smith Years Blu-ray

[thepizzaguy]

I lust hope this means that the David Tennant years will get a Blu-ray release as well since they are taking their time issuing the individual seasons

[mattwil]

Well this has me frustrated. I want the DotD and Totd special features along with Fivish Doctors and the 2013 proms. I do not need to buy all these seasons in a box that doesn't even match the rest of my blurry collection for what could have been a 2013 Specials release.... why BBCA why?

[seannyd]

I guess my question now is do I sell my seasons 5-7 and Day of the Doctor special and pick up this set? Ugh...Thanks for making things difficult for me BBC/Warners.

I haven't watched the 2013 Proms but I literally just watched the 2010 Proms over this past weekend and I loved it. That's pretty much the main extra I want. I'm sure I could locate the Sarah Jane episodes if I needed to.

[Diditagain]

After doing some calculations, if you do not own the standalones for Day of the Doctor, Time of the Doctor and An Adventure in Space and Time, the Matt Smith Years Blu-ray set is a cheaper way to buy a 50th anniversary Blu-ray Collection than importing the R2 version (if you want all the exclusive extras and can wait until December, that is).

The R2 50th Anniversary Blu-ray Collection from BBC Shop UK is about US $67 including shipping.

The Amazon page for the Matt Smith Years Blu-ray shows a list price of just $148.95. Barnes & Noble usually has a BBC 50% off sale in early December, which means this set will be on sale for $74.47, but a coupon and an in-store purchase (if a store near you has it) make the price even cheaper:

With 20% coupon online: $74.47 - 14.89 = $59.58
With 20% coupon in-store: $74.47 - 7.44 - 13.40 = $53.63

B&N sometimes has higher coupons during the holidays (last years, some weeks in November and December had 25% coupons).

[mattwil]

Well now I'm debating on buying this for the bonus and making my own 50th bluray case and custom cover. But then I have to do something with the rest of the set...

[Diditagain]

mattwil, I was thinking the exact same thing. You could probably sell the S5, S6 and S7 Blu-ray discs on eBay - I'm sure there are people out there who would want one or all of those three seasons on Blu-ray but don't care about the lack of cover art (I've seen "discs only" listings before).

[Rizor]

Hmmm. What to do? I own the individual S5-S7 and also the S1-7 set as well as the releases of the last two specials. I have the UK Anniversary set on pre-order. Hopefully BBC America releases a more detailed disc breakdown soon. While it seems borderline insane to own 3 copies of S5-S7, I'd be open to it if this set included everything from the UK Anniversary set, including:

Night of the Doctor
The Last Day
Doctor Who – The Ultimate Guide
The Day of the Doctor Cinema intros
Deleted Scenes
The Science of Doctor Who

Also would be a great bonus if this set included the two children-written skits "Death is the Only Answer" and "Good as Gold" as well as the Comic Relief skit and other in-character appearances.

This item is listed as a 16-disc set. If they use the versions found in the Limited S1-S7 set, it would break down as:

Discs 1-4: S5
Discs 5-8: S6
Discs 9-12: S7
Disc 13: The Day of the Doctor
Disc 14: The Time of the Doctor
Disc 15: An Adventure in Time and Space
Disc 16: The Sarah Jane Adventures

[Diditagain]

If BBC Video US wants to do as little work as possible in terms of production of these 16 discs, then I'm guessing that Discs 1-12 will be identical to S5-S7 from last year's Limited Edition Blu-ray set (just with new disc art, as you can see in the image), while Discs 13-15 will be identical to the Blu-rays of the 3 standalone release from the past year (just with new disc art).

The open page of the book shows the first 3 discs of S5, and the contents listed match my S5 from the Limited Edition Blu-ray set.

I see that the Science of Doctor Who with Brian Cox isn't listed as a bonus. So, assuming that all bonus items are listed above, these items would be the contents of Disc 16:

SJA: Death of the Doctor - about 1 hour
Doctor Who 2013 Proms - about 1 hour and 15 minutes (same as UK set)
Doctor Who: Ultimate Guide - about 2 hours (same as UK set)
50th Anniv. Script to Screen - about 15 minutes (same as UK set)
Fiveish Doctors Reboot - about 30 minutes (same as UK set)

That is runtime of about 5 hours for Disc 16 (BBC Video US has produced BD-50s in the past with this much content on one disc with great quality).

This seems logical to me -- BBC Video US will only need to create the bonus disc from scratch, with everything else a repressing of existing material.