Doctor Who: The Collection Season 26 (Sylvester McCoy Season 3)

[Bobbyjoe766]

Originally Posted by RossyG

So you like The Sunmakers but from Underworld onwards....?

(For me, Doctor Who ended in 1989, when the Doc and Ace headed off for new adventures (and New Adventures) at the climax of Survival.)

Horror of Fang Rock was the end of the road for me. Although I did enjoy some of the 80s serials.

[Sc0tty]

Is it really 7 discs for a 4 serial series?

[SoundableObject]

Originally Posted by Sc0tty

Is it really 7 discs for a 4 serial series?

Disc 1 - Battlefield
Disc 2 - Battlefield VHS and DVD Extended Versions
Disc 3 - Ghostlight
Disc 4 - The Curse of Fenric
Disc 5 - The Curse of Fenric VHS and DVD Extended Versions
Disc 6 - Survival
Disc 7 - Bonus Disc

[Billz]

I wonder how many discs are going to be faulty in this set...

[van1]

Originally Posted by openviews

Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 26 Blu-ray

Up for pre-order at Amazon. 23rd December 2019.





Season 26 features four epic adventures traversing a future Britain invaded by inter-dimensional knights, a strange Victorian house haunted by ghosts from Ace’s past, an alien world populated by Cheetah People and a 1940s army camp under siege from monstrous vampires.

With guest stars including Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Anthony Ainley (The Master), Jean Marsh, Nicholas Parsons, Anne Reid, Ian Hogg, Sylvia Syms and comedy duo Hale & Pace, this fondly-remembered set of stories saw the end of an era for Doctor Who, and set the stage for its hugely successful revival.

Doctor Who: The Collection Season 26 contains several special features, including:

Rare Restored Extended Cuts
• The Curse Of Fenric VHS Extended Version
• The Curse Of Fenric DVD Special Edition
• Battlefield VHS Extended Version
• Battlefield DVD Special Edition

5.1 surround sound & isolated scores
• On all 14 broadcast episodes, plus 5.1 sound on all extended versions of The Curse Of Fenric and Battlefield.

Behind the Sofa
• New episodes with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, plus companions Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Anneke Wills and Jodie-Whittaker-era writers Pete McTighe & Joy Wilkinson.

Showman - the Life of John Nathan-Turner
• A feature-length look at the life and career of Doctor Who’s longest-serving producer, who fought to keep the programme on-air during the 1980s. Contributors include Peter Davison and Colin Baker.

Making ‘The Curse of Fenric’
• A brand new documentary featuring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Tomek Bork, Nicholas Parsons, Cory Pulman, Marek Anton, Ian Briggs, Andrew Cartmel, Mark Ayres and Ian Collins featuring unseen behind-the-scenes footage and photographs.

In Conversation
• Matthew Sweet chats to companion Sophie Aldred.

The Writers’ Room
• Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt, Ian Briggs, Rona Munro and Andrew Cartmel discuss their work on Season 26.

Becoming The Destroyer
• Actor Marek Anton and prosthetics designer Stephen Mansfield recall the creation of one of Doctor Who’s best ever monsters.

Blu-Ray trailer
• Sophie Aldred back in character as Ace.

Brand new Ghost Light extended workprint
Unseen studio footage
Rare archive treats
Convention footage
HD photo galleries
Scripts, costume designs, rare BBC production files
and other gems from our PDF archive

And lots more!

Hopefully an opportunity to fix the missing dialogue at the end of
The Curse Of Fenric DVD Special Edition

[pferreira]

Well this is an easy buy for me. Just disappointed they didn't keep this one till last to end the series on a high. Also finally Curse of Fenric gets a making of documentary.

Originally Posted by thecooldud

Sadly this sort of thing is why season 22 is still so sorely underrated, despite being easily one of the top 3 seasons of the 80s.

Nah, it's not underrated.

Originally Posted by mar3o

I'm not familiar with most of Sylvester McCoy's episodes. I was hoping for Resurrection of the Daleks as I like that one,

Wrong Doctor. You want Peter Davison.

Originally Posted by Dragon Ranger

It'll be the same for the people moaning about Whittaker; they'll just never get over it even in decades to come.

To be fair, with Whittaker there's a lot less to love.

Originally Posted by afraidofsunlight

The reasons for Doctor Who's hiatus after Season 26 have very little to do with the quality of the writing, acting, or direction. But as you acknowledge yourself, the BBC (Michael Grade and later Jonathan Powell) hadn't liked Doctor Who for years, and placing it opposite Coronation Street and cutting the budget so heavily that everything was filmed on 1" video tape instead of 2" -- in effect setting it up to fail -- was an excuse to kill a show they were ashamed of because it wasn't a prestige drama.

I never bought the whole Coronation Street excuse. Not everyone watched the soap back then. Season 26 got poor ratings because the BBC didn't promote it at all which is why the first episode of Battlefield did so poorly.

Originally Posted by Bobbyjoe766

Horror of Fang Rock was the end of the road for me. Although I did enjoy some of the 80s serials.

Not even Image of the Fendahl? That one was better than Fang Rock.

Originally Posted by Dragon Ranger

And Star Wars is doing just fine thanks for asking.

I think it's very debatable whether Star Wars is doing fine.

Originally Posted by van1

Hopefully an opportunity to fix the missing dialogue at the end of
The Curse Of Fenric DVD Special Edition

"Neit", I mean yes of course.

Originally Posted by mar3o

It's a hugely popular term lately on arstechnica, which a tech-news site with one of the nastiest, poorly-moderated discussion sections I've ever seen. The mud-slinging in the article comment sections is appalling for such an "informed and intelligent" base of readers.

Yeah? Well numerous times I've been called a 'white supremacist incel' so there, nadi nada nar.

Originally Posted by LnM

This isn't reddit/tumblr. Are you lost?

They infect Facebook. It's very sad.

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by van1

Hopefully an opportunity to fix the missing dialogue at the end of
The Curse Of Fenric DVD Special Edition

Nope, that was apparently a creative decision as the scene works without it on the SE. The DVD SE is a totally different re-edit, different scene ordering etc. to the transmitted versions. The VHS extended version just added extra bits into the transmitted version where they would fit.

[MisterKorman]

Seasons 10 and 26 are my two favorite seasons of Classic Who, so you can bet that this Doctor Who fan is having a happy 2019.

[LnM]

Originally Posted by pferreira

Season 22
Nah, it's not underrated.

Do not blaspheme!

[Pondosinatra]

Originally Posted by mar3o

It's a hugely popular term lately on arstechnica, which a tech-news site with one of the nastiest, poorly-moderated discussion sections I've ever seen. The mud-slinging in the article comment sections is appalling for such an "informed and intelligent" base of readers.

OMG, the discussions on Ars makes the ones here seem like the very definition of civilized, thoughtful, and respectful.

[Fnord Prefect]

Originally Posted by Dragon Ranger

You blatantly aren't over it. If you didn't care you wouldn't have written the above. Amusing how you say they will "definitely" be gone; do you work for the BBC? Do you make the hiring and firing decisions? I'm guessing not and that you just read a bunch of websites and convinced yourself it was true. The truth is no one outside of the actor; the show runner and the BBC executives know how long they will be in their roles.

And Star Wars is doing just fine thanks for asking.

Shedding millions of fans both lifelong and casual while failing to attract new, a Star Wars film bombing at the box office, Galaxy's Edge under attended to the point of laying off staff, no one buying the merchandise or comics. Yeah Disney Star Wars is in glowing health.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

I'm over caring. I still believe Chibnall totally ****ed over my favourite TV show and Whittaker was miscast and poorly directed but it doesn't make me angry any more. Chibnall's tenure has turned into a PR disaster and a commercial failure, he (and Whittaker) will be gone sooner rather than later.

Except it's not a commercial failure: even with constantly declining ratings, the show was still pulling in more viewers than Capaldi's last two seasons by any metric (the figures were no more 'doctored' by iplayer numbers than previous seasons), and from the BBC's point of view that's a successful revitalisation of the show. Even the press has been overwhelmingly positive despite the terrible writing and bad character work, so again from the BBC's point of view it's a PR triumph rather than a disaster. Whittaker will probably get the traditional three seasons even if the ratings continue to slide in season two and she still completely fails to get any grip on an increasingly ineffectual character.

Too many people who dislike the show's latest incarnation (and yes, the last season was terrible in so many ways) try to project their own dislike onto the show's general reception and commercial viability, building up wishful thinking scenarios where the BBC will see the error of its ways and purge the show of those they dislike (you see the same thing with Daniel Craig's Bond films: even the last two films grossing $2b between them isn't enough to dislodge the insistence of those who hate his Bond that the era is a complete failure and the series' future is in serious trouble). The best that can be realistically hoped for is that Chibnall goes before then, though the length of JNT's tenure despite growing audience discontent and falling ratings because no-one else wanted the job doesn't make that look very likely: the job is a poisoned chalice and as long as the money keeps rolling in - and it is - the BBC will just leave him to it, no matter how increasingly inept he is at it. As far as the BBC is concerned, the last season of the show was a success and has attracted a new audience that more than compensates for any 'lost' fans that the Corporation haven't taken very seriously anyway since the 70s (though in all probability they're still doggedly watching it through gritted teeth).

[RossyG]

The media rallying behind a woke show isn’t a metric of success though.

Look at the difference between the media’s reaction to The Last Jedi and the audience’s.

Virtue signalling beats out good stories every time in the woke media’s eyes. It’s all about staying “on message”.

[Aclea]

But the better ratings than Capaldi got are just such a metric: season 11 episodes in both the UK and US were up - in the UK over a million more people watched the S11 finale than the last episode of Capaldi's last season. They got the best consolidated ratings for the show since 2013 (and much better ratings than season 26 got at a time when there was a larger pool of viewers and fewer channels to choose from). And that's with the hardcore Whovians supposedly turning their back on the show and refusing to watch by that point.

Look at the difference between the media’s reaction to The Last Jedi and the audience’s.

I think the echo chamber of the internet completely distorts the general audience reaction to certain properties, especially scifi. TLJ was the highest grossing film of the year and performed exactly the same way with the same percentage drop at the box-office as the two previous second films in the previous SW trilogies (albeit with better reviews: neither Empire nor Clowns were particularly popular with critics on their initial release). If audiences really hated it it would have done Solo business (which could be described as The Clone Wars or Caravan of Courage of the franchise), just as if The Phantom Menace really was as hated as the vocal minority on the internet said it wouldn't have had the kind of exceptional holds it had (only 15% of its domestic total came from its opening weekend: films as despised as TPM was supposed to be don't have those kind of legs, just as TLJ wouldn't have grossed another $400m domestic after its opening weekend if its reputation was as toxic among audiences as the internet chatter would imply).

Doctor Who, like Bond, Transformers and Star Wars, is another property prone to that wishful thinking fans echo chamber that's outside the general audience and not reflective of the general audience reaction. The last season was a stinker, but that's never been a hindrance for success: it took five by most accounts exponentially worse Transformers films for the box-office to take a significant hit even though fans were insisting it was doomed from the start for changing too much from the TV series, just as hardcore fans of the comics who never forgave the X-Men for giving up the yellow spandex had to wait eight films before the box-office disaster they constantly predicted struck (by contrast, Whittaker will just have the usual three seasons).

If the quality doesn't improve (and it's doubtful they'll even try after getting good ratings and a free pass from critics in S11 removing any incentive to improve or would be able to even if they did make the effort) the ratings for Who may continue their decline to the point where there genuinely is a problem, but at the moment the show is definitely a success with the general public.

[moorje]

I don't get this criticism for Series 12 being too 'woke' when it was all done much better in Season 26.

[Aclea]

To be honest the show has always been pretty woke - or at least since the colour era and never more so than in Pertwee's run - but they did it with a lighter touch and without stopping the story dead in its tracks to heavy-handedly hit you over the head with a lecture the way the last season did (though to fair RTD's insistence on constantly stopping the plot dead to 'out' supporting characters as gay and proud for no narrative reason was just as clumsy and heavy-handed).

[pottyaboutpotter1]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

Shedding millions of fans both lifelong and casual while failing to attract new, a Star Wars film bombing at the box office, Galaxy's Edge under attended to the point of laying off staff, no one buying the merchandise or comics. Yeah Disney Star Wars is in glowing health.

Galaxy's Edge is actually doing alright. The only reason it's not doing amazingly well was because Disney made the stupid decision to not have any of the rides open when they opened the park. At the moment, only one attraction (the Millennium Falcon simulator 'Smuggler's Run') is open. The big-ticket dark ride attraction ('Rise of the Resistance') isn't due to open until December. That's the park being open for seven months without its central attraction. Imagine if Universal had opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for seven months without the central attraction, 'Harry Potter And The Forbidden Journey', being open. At the moment, Galaxy's Edge is just a corner of the park with some nice theming, a simulator, a few restaurants/shops and the occasional chance to see Rey or Kylo Ren but that's it. It's not enough just yet to pull guests away from parts of the park that offer way more to do (IE more than one attraction). We're basically seeing people go to Galaxy's Edge, ride Smuggler's Run and then move on to another area of the park that offers more to do without lingering too long because there is nothing else to do. Besides, attendance at Disney Parks was down as a whole this summer and wasn't just unique to Star Wars. So attendance being down at the parks as a whole and the major attraction not being open for another seven months is the main reason why Galaxy's Edge hasn't kicked off amazingly well yet.

As for your other points, The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi were among the highest grossing films in their respective years, merchandise for those films sold well (reports of TLJ merchandise being on clearance was because the merchandise was released too early and toy stores wanted space for new stock) and Solo bombed not because of 'TLJ backlash' but because it was a film no one had interest in seeing alongside it recasting a beloved character (no one wanted a Han Solo prequel, especially one without Harrison Ford). Disney Star Wars is doing just fine. Disney is raking in billions from it every year and it's one of their best-performing brands alongside Marvel, Frozen, Disney Princess, Cars and Toy Story.

[RossyG]

Merchandise sales are declining, as are book and comic sales, according to Disney's own fiscal report. Rogue One toys sold less than Force Awaken toys, which Disney and Hasbro had expected, but Last Jedi toys sold less than Rogue One toys, which Disney and Hasbro certainly hadn't expected.

The Last Jedi made $1,332,539,889 worldwide. If Solo was a blip, then Rise of the Skywalker should approach or exceed that. If it makes less than a billion then that confirms that SW is on a downward trajectory.

But getting back on topic, I like The Curse of Fenric.

[pottyaboutpotter1]

Originally Posted by RossyG

Merchandise sales are declining, as are book and comic sales, according to Disney's own fiscal report. Rogue One toys sold less than Force Awaken toys, which Disney and Hasbro had expected, but Last Jedi toys sold less than Rogue One toys, which Disney and Hasbro certainly hadn't expected.

The Last Jedi made $1,332,539,889 worldwide. If Solo was a blip, then Rise of the Skywalker should approach or exceed that. If it makes less than a billion then that confirms that SW is on a downward trajectory.

But getting back on topic, I like The Curse of Fenric.

Hasbro has already said they released Rogue One and TLJ merchandise way too early, which is what they've attributed the lower sales to. Because by the time the movies came out, the toys had been on shelves for four months and Toy shops were trying to shift it all to make way for new stock. Basically Hasbro realised they need to take the Marvel approach with Star Wars merchandise now where there's a much shorter gap between the merchandise being released and the movie being release. Rise of Skywalker merchandise now won't release until mid-late October for this reason.

It also didn't help that none of the main characters in TLJ had new looks. Only Rey, Luke and Leia debuted massively different looks to TFA, everyone else just had variations of their TFA costumes (Kylo and Finn are pretty much exactly the same bar Kylo's scar and a patch on Finn's jacket). So it's no surprise that everyone is debuting vastly different looks for Rise of Skywalker; to help boost merchandise sales. It's essentially what Marvel do; all the superheroes have hugely different looks in each film in order to boost merchandise sales. Kids and parents won't buy toys of existing characters if they look exactly the same as they did last time, essentially buying the same toy again.

[DrWally]

The popular wisdom about Solo being a box office dud also needs qualifying a little bit. Solo had an opening weekend well over $100 million. That's bigger than any James Bond movie ever bar one. Better than any Star Trek movie ever bar one. Better than any Planet of the Apes, Jason Bourne, Alien or even Indiana Jones movie (even if most of them belong to a different era). Better than either of the Fantastic Beasts movies. Point being, Star Wars on the absolute floor is still putting up numbers that most other high profile franchises would love to have.

It's all relative.