Doctor Who: The Collection Season 12 • Tom Baker Season 1 - Limited Edition

[Fnord Prefect]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

This set looks amazing, but my pragmatic side says don't pre-order, wait to see if there are manufacturing issues or authoring errors first.

If this range continues, Tom's years would no doubt be popular but the latter seasons of the show must surely be a hard sell (to put it mildly). I wouldn't want to be the guy who has to write the marketing blurb for a Season 24 blu-ray set.

I've a feeling this'll be quality controlled to death, chances of it making onto the market with authoring/manufacturing errors is pretty remote.

Though the debates already been had on the thread the "wouldn't want to right the blurb for season 24" comment did make me laugh.

[HarrySullivan]

Ironically, it’s the sheer quantity of alluring extras which makes me wary of ordering early; there’s so much that could go wrong with such a comprehensive set. But once I hear all is well, I’m in.

As for the latter seasons, they don’t just have the lack of popularity working against them, they are also only half the length of Tom’s seasons. If £35 is going to be the price point for 26 episodes of the show at its best, what price 14 episodes of the show at its worst?! £20? Perhaps they will pad out the bonus content with the many existing early edits of episodes to save money rather than commissioning much new material.

On the subject of extras, which DVD extras WON’T get to blu-ray? Obviously “A Fix With Sontarans”, but anything else which has issues arising since the DVD range? Which DVDs might be worth holding on to?

[Fnord Prefect]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

Ironically, it’s the sheer quantity of alluring extras which makes me wary of ordering early; there’s so much that could go wrong with such a comprehensive set. But once I hear all is well, I’m in.

As for the latter seasons, they don’t just have the lack of popularity working against them, they are also only half the length of Tom’s seasons. If £35 is going to be the price point for 26 episodes of the show at its best, what price 14 episodes of the show at its worst?! £20? Perhaps they will pad out the bonus content with the many existing early edits of episodes to save money rather than commissioning much new material.

On the subject of extras, which DVD extras WON’T get to blu-ray? Obviously “A Fix With Sontarans”, but anything else which has issues arising since the DVD range? Which DVDs might be worth holding on to?

Indeed there's tons that could go wrong but I'm sure that this early in the game BBC Worldwide won't balls anything up.

I've stated this before but may as well say so again. Knowing how finicky fans can be about such things if BBC Worldwide want to keep spines the same size with sets containing more or less the same number of discs it would make sense to do two Sylvester McCoy sets (Season 24 + 25 part 1 and Season 25 part 2 + 26) and a complete Colin Baker (Season 22 + 23) sets rather than individual seasons, especially as for reasons already discussed I doubt they would contain much new bonus material.

Bonus material wise the plan appears to be to include everything that BBC Worldwide still has the rights too with occasionally where appropriate certain story/season specific material moved the relevant set.

Other than a A Fix With Sontarans convention footage from the original Tomb of the Cybermen and Three Doctors DVDs may not be included, and I'm sure the coming soon trailers wont either.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

Ironically, it’s the sheer quantity of alluring extras which makes me wary of ordering early; there’s so much that could go wrong with such a comprehensive set. But once I hear all is well, I’m in.

As for the latter seasons, they don’t just have the lack of popularity working against them, they are also only half the length of Tom’s seasons. If £35 is going to be the price point for 26 episodes of the show at its best, what price 14 episodes of the show at its worst?! £20? Perhaps they will pad out the bonus content with the many existing early edits of episodes to save money rather than commissioning much new material.

On the subject of extras, which DVD extras WON’T get to blu-ray? Obviously “A Fix With Sontarans”, but anything else which has issues arising since the DVD range? Which DVDs might be worth holding on to?

Season 12 is 20 episodes, not 26.

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

Indeed there's tons that could go wrong but I'm sure that this early in the game BBC Worldwide won't balls anything up.

I've stated this before but may as well say so again. Knowing how finicky fans can be about such things if BBC Worldwide want to keep spines the same size with sets containing more or less the same number of discs it would make sense to do two Sylvester McCoy sets (Season 24 + 25 part 1 and Season 25 part 2 + 26) and a complete Colin Baker (Season 22 + 23) sets rather than individual seasons, especially as for reasons already discussed I doubt they would contain much new bonus material.

Bonus material wise the plan appears to be to include everything that BBC Worldwide still has the rights too with occasionally where appropriate certain story/season specific material moved the relevant set.

Other than a A Fix With Sontarans convention footage from the original Tomb of the Cybermen and Three Doctors DVDs may not be included, and I'm sure the coming soon trailers wont either.

I think most, including myself, will be more bothered if they go down that route, instead of actual season sets. Surely the whole point is to present this range as proper season sets, not splitting them up as per the DVDs? If anything they'll be a greater struggle to sell if after every other Doctor going through season sets, then suddenly you present Colin and Syl with complete series or part-season sets.
Colin alone has such a inconsistent run that such a complete series set would be all over the place. And Syl went through such a drastic change from his first to second season that, again, mixing them up would mean the episodes feel out of place.

Every season varies in story length, so you're never going to have a perfect set of spine widths and I think most are content with that. Season 12 is Tom's shortest season after all.

So as has been pointed out on many an occasion, it's all down to the number of stories per season, not how many episodes there are. Season 22 is 6 stories long, more than Season 12, so a complete Colin set already doesn't make sense based on what you're proposing. And assuming they do a bonus disc for every season you're looking at a 7 disc set for Season 22.

Then you have Season 26 for which there are multiple cuts for a couple of stories (Battlefield and The Curse of Fenric), so that would require extra discs (seamless branching wouldn't work because the different cuts have different colour grading and are omnibus format, rather than episodic). You're potentially looking at another 6 or 7 disc set.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by Jezza

Season 12 is 20 episodes, not 26.

If you read it again you may notice the comment was on Tom’s seasons in general; Season 12 does have 20 episodes, and Season 18 has 28, but 26 is more usual. I think the BBC will stick to a consistent price for those seasons, but by comparison McCoy seasons could look very poor value if marketed at the same price.

Originally Posted by Jezza

I think most, including myself, will be more bothered if they go down that route, instead of actual season sets. Surely the whole point is to present this range as proper season sets, not splitting them up as per the DVDs? If anything they'll be a greater struggle to sell if after every other Doctor going through season sets, then suddenly you present Colin and Syl with complete series or part-season sets.
Colin alone has such a inconsistent run that such a complete series set would be all over the place. And Syl went through such a drastic change from his first to second season that, again, mixing them up would mean the episodes feel out of place.

Every season varies in story length, so you're never going to have a perfect set of spine widths and I think most are content with that. Season 12 is Tom's shortest season after all.

So as has been pointed out on many an occasion, it's all down to the number of stories per season, not how many episodes there are. Season 22 is 6 stories long, more than Season 12, so a complete Colin set already doesn't make sense based on what you're proposing. And assuming they do a bonus disc for every season you're looking at a 7 disc set for Season 22.

Then you have Season 26 for which there are multiple cuts for a couple of stories (Battlefield and The Curse of Fenric), so that would require extra discs (seamless branching wouldn't work because the different cuts have different colour grading and are omnibus format, rather than episodic). You're potentially looking at another 6 or 7 disc set.

I think you are dead right about splitting seasons, it wouldn’t work for fans who have OCD about their disc collection shelf! But then there is no reason that a season box set has to be one disc per story, is there? A McCoy season could have all 14 episodes on two discs, two stories on each. An additional two discs for the whole season’s extras might then be adequate, allowing for a four disc set instead of six. The price could then be lower, which might help overall sales.

An alternative option is to keep the price high but pack the set with cheap extras (i.e. the poor quality early 71 edits, of which I think there are many for McCoy stories). Employing such a “never mind the quality, feel the width!” approach could work because the BBC know that the market for a McCoy season will be more predominantly made up of fans who will just buy it whatever the price is, rather than more casual buyers who look at true value.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by Fnord Prefect

Other than a A Fix With Sontarans convention footage from the original Tomb of the Cybermen and Three Doctors DVDs may not be included, and I'm sure the coming soon trailers wont either.

Maybe they could use all the Coming Soon trailers as a filler for the extras on a Season 1 set if they are a bit light on bonus content!

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

If you read it again you may notice the comment was on Tom’s seasons in general; Season 12 does have 20 episodes, and Season 18 has 28, but 26 is more usual. I think the BBC will stick to a consistent price for those seasons, but by comparison McCoy seasons could look very poor value if marketed at the same price.



I think you are dead right about splitting seasons, it wouldn’t work for fans who have OCD about their disc collection shelf! But then there is no reason that a season box set has to be one disc per story, is there? A McCoy season could have all 14 episodes on two discs, two stories on each. An additional two discs for the whole season’s extras might then be adequate, allowing for a four disc set instead of six. The price could then be lower, which might help overall sales.

An alternative option is to keep the price high but pack the set with cheap extras (i.e. the poor quality early 71 edits, of which I think there are many for McCoy stories). Employing such a “never mind the quality, feel the width!” approach could work because the BBC know that the market for a McCoy season will be more predominantly made up of fans who will just buy it whatever the price is, rather than more casual buyers who look at true value.

The Restoration Team and DVD range producers have said on frequent occasions that there is a mountain of archive material from the McCoy years that 'should' have been on the DVDs.
Time and the Rani especially apparently has a lot of stuff and in theory should have been a 2-disc set, but obviously it and much of McCoy's run isn't especially well loved so they were often relegated to just one disc.

If you look at many of the documentaries there's often behind-the-scenes clips, but they're not view-able as a separate feature on the disc.

So there's already a lot of 'cheap' extras and that's probably where the McCoy seasons will be bulked out. Even the Season 12 set has a lot of 'cheap' archive extras for this set, so I can only imagine what the latter seasons will be like.

The Restoration Team and any other's associated with them have been at this a very long time, so they know the best route to releasing the seasons. I know a lot are worried about its longevity, price, if the market is there and anything else, but I'm not because of the people involved in this release. If this was just a quick cash-in then I would be.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by Jezza

The Restoration Team and DVD range producers have said on frequent occasions that there is a mountain of archive material from the McCoy years that 'should' have been on the DVDs.
Time and the Rani especially apparently has a lot of stuff and in theory should have been a 2-disc set, but obviously it and much of McCoy's run isn't especially well loved so they were often relegated to just one disc.

If you look at many of the documentaries there's often behind-the-scenes clips, but they're not view-able as a separate feature on the disc.

So there's already a lot of 'cheap' extras and that's probably where the McCoy seasons will be bulked out. Even the Season 12 set has a lot of 'cheap' archive extras for this set, so I can only imagine what the latter seasons will be like.

The Restoration Team and any other's associated with them have been at this a very long time, so they know the best route to releasing the seasons. I know a lot are worried about its longevity, price, if the market is there and anything else, but I'm not because of the people involved in this release. If this was just a quick cash-in then I would be.

It would certainly be harsh on McCoy fans if his season sets were pared back to keep costs down, when those stories have so much contemporaneous extra material available. But then how much space would very low quality video (the early edits) even take up on a BD? Perhaps they could reduce the disc count and still include everything? I have to admit I wouldn't buy any of them myself whatever they do, but hope the sets are as comprehensive as possible.

In terms of episode quantity, a Season 2 set would be about the same as McCoy's entire three seasons! What price a nine story Hartnell season boxset?! £35? Yes please!

[oddbox83]

Actually, many of the McCoy early edits are superior quality to the finished transmission masters. Depends if the original tapes survive or not, Ghost Light is one casualty where the early edits only survive on VHS.

Using the early edits to improve the quality of the restorations has already been done for DVD and was the cause of the infamous missing video effects on the first version of Remembrance of the Daleks.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Actually, many of the McCoy early edits are superior quality to the finished transmission masters. Depends if the original tapes survive or not, Ghost Light is one casualty where the early edits only survive on VHS.

Using the early edits to improve the quality of the restorations has already been done for DVD and was the cause of the infamous missing video effects on the first version of Remembrance of the Daleks.

If they are high quality that could actually end up saving MORE space than if they were low quality. By using branching to switch from transmission versions to early versions and back again, only the few minutes of deleted footage per episode would need to be included.

[oddbox83]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

If they are high quality that could actually end up saving MORE space than if they were low quality. By using branching to switch from transmission versions to early versions and back again, only the few minutes of deleted footage per episode would need to be included.

The early edits aren't final sound mixes though. Would be very sloppy to seamlessly branch them so best left to the deleted scenes package. Delta had one on in full for the DVD as a curiosity since it was edited very differently to the final piece.

The best hope is for more re-edits like Fenric, or a few more added as curios. Only a die-hard few would watch them in full if the meat has already been stripped out elsewhere as deleted scenes.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

The early edits aren't final sound mixes though. Would be very sloppy to seamlessly branch them so best left to the deleted scenes package. Delta had one on in full for the DVD as a curiosity since it was edited very differently to the final piece.

The best hope is for more re-edits like Fenric, or a few more added as curios. Only a die-hard few would watch them in full if the meat has already been stripped out elsewhere as deleted scenes.

They could include a second audio track for the 71 edit if they wanted to use branching to play the whole extended version, but as you say a deleted scenes package would probably be the preferred option. There must be SO much material available (didn't JNT sometimes tell the archive to keep entire studio taping sessions?!) it's inevitable that stuff is going to be omitted. Perhaps they should offer a download code for purchasers to watch whole 71 edits and such via the internet?

What I would really like to see branching used for on future sets is an option to play episodes with continuity announcements at the start and end. Included in this would be the original titles and credits as broadcast.

The RT did a lovely job of replacing every title and credit sequence with a sparkly clean transfer for the DVDs, but that's not how the episodes looked originally! The Tom titles and credits could vary considerably in colour from story to story, and the Davison credits would sometimes end with a mess of blotches and scratches on the final white-out.

Yes, all those black scratches looked terrible, but it's what 8 million people saw back in the day. As these discs are products designed in part to tap into a sense of nostalgia, an option to view the episodes as originally broadcast would be a lovely feature, and presumably very easy to implement.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

They could include a second audio track for the 71 edit if they wanted to use branching to play the whole extended version, but as you say a deleted scenes package would probably be the preferred option. There must be SO much material available (didn't JNT sometimes tell the archive to keep entire studio taping sessions?!) it's inevitable that stuff is going to be omitted. Perhaps they should offer a download code for purchasers to watch whole 71 edits and such via the internet?

What I would really like to see branching used for on future sets is an option to play episodes with continuity announcements at the start and end. Included in this would be the original titles and credits as broadcast.

The RT did a lovely job of replacing every title and credit sequence with a sparkly clean transfer for the DVDs, but that's not how the episodes looked originally! The Tom titles and credits could vary considerably in colour from story to story, and the Davison credits would sometimes end with a mess of blotches and scratches on the final white-out.

Yes, all those black scratches looked terrible, but it's what 8 million people saw back in the day. As these discs are products designed in part to tap into a sense of nostalgia, an option to view the episodes as originally broadcast would be a lovely feature, and presumably very easy to implement.

The problem is what you're asking for is just stuff for a novelty factor, not an ideal way to watch the episodes or extras.

Watching the early edit of Delta Part One is interesting, but I wouldn't care for it for every episode that exists as a 71 edit. It's just more compact and easier to watch the deleted scenes as a separate feature, not as part of an early edit.

The continuity announcements are again just a novelty now. It's not going to enhance my experience of watching the episodes if they are tagged on at the beginning. (In any case most of the continuity announcements no longer exist anyway, particularly from the 70s.)
Similarly watching the unrestored titles feels even more redundant. Yes they varied from episode to episode, but they were never intended to, it's just how they were played in at the beginning of each episode. The fact that all the titles exist on film (other than McCoy) is one of the reasons this set is so appealing, to finally be able to see every detail and effort that went into their creation.
If you're going down that route you might as well take it right back to watching the whole episodes unrestored, as they were back in the day.
The purpose of any restoration is to view the film/TV show as they were intended to be seen, not necessarily how we initially experienced them.

I don't think what you're proposing is good honestly, it's just novelty for the sake of novelty and probably more effort than it's worth. There wouldn't be any gain to it.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by Jezza

Similarly watching the unrestored titles feels even more redundant. Yes they varied from episode to episode, but they were never intended to, it's just how they were played in at the beginning of each episode. The fact that all the titles exist on film (other than McCoy) is one of the reasons this set is so appealing, to finally be able to see every detail and effort that went into their creation.
If you're going down that route you might as well take it right back to watching the whole episodes unrestored, as they were back in the day.
The purpose of any restoration is to view the film/TV show as they were intended to be seen, not necessarily how we initially experienced them.

I don't think what you're proposing is good honestly, it's just novelty for the sake of novelty and probably more effort than it's worth. There wouldn't be any gain to it.

There would be a huge gain from it for some, but anyone who didn't watch the original transmissions just wouldn't get it. Obviously that includes all overseas buyers and anyone under the age of about 40 who would perhaps be puzzled by it, but as an optional extra (hidden away as an Easter Egg if it was felt its inclusion might be too bewildering for some!) it would take virtually no space and have no negative impact on the set at all.

I don't know who it was, but I remember an old discussion online about the very issue of the Tom title colour variation, and one of the RT lobbied hard to retain the as-broadcast colour of the titles but lost out.

For the older fans among us, it's like hearing a needle drop at the start of an album you listened to a hundred times as a kid. It's not technically better at all, but it's incredibly evocative.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by HarrySullivan

There would be a huge gain from it for some, but anyone who didn't watch the original transmissions just wouldn't get it. Obviously that includes all overseas buyers and anyone under the age of about 40 who would perhaps be puzzled by it, but as an optional extra (hidden away as an Easter Egg if it was felt its inclusion might be too bewildering for some!) it would take virtually no space and have no negative impact on the set at all.

I don't know who it was, but I remember an old discussion online about the very issue of the Tom title colour variation, and one of the RT lobbied hard to retain the as-broadcast colour of the titles but lost out.

For the older fans among us, it's like hearing a needle drop at the start of an album you listened to a hundred times as a kid. It's not technically better at all, but it's incredibly evocative.

Oh, I get where you're coming from. I too remember watching Tom Baker growing up, so being able to evoke an aspect of the past has a certain charm to it. I just think there are more effective and worthwhile ways of doing so and although it may take up no space on the disc, the effort put into that feature would be better served elsewhere.

I think the Tom titles you're thinking about are the Ark in Space Part One had a green tint added to it as an experiment, but it went no further than the one episode.
The Special Edition DVD certainly had and I'm guessing this set will too, but I honestly can't remember if the original DVD did.

[simon_r_harding]

If the sets become successful to the point where the first and second Doctors began to get season box sets, it does make me wonder what they would do with the seasons that have missing episodes. I would imagine animation would be out of the question so perhaps telesnaps or maybe just the soundtrack.

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by simon_r_harding

If the sets become successful to the point where the first and second Doctors began to get season box sets, it does make me wonder what they would do with the seasons that have missing episodes. I would imagine animation would be out of the question so perhaps telesnaps or maybe just the soundtrack.

Seasons 1, 2 and 6 in theory are doable as only one story from each season is incomplete (Marco Polo - 7 episodes missing: Season 1, The Crusade - 2 episodes missing: Season 2 and The Space Pirates - 5 episodes missing: Season 6). The Power of the Daleks and Shada have proven to be successful, so complete story animations are quite out of the question
So I would imagine they will probably tackle them first, possibly at the same time as the colour seasons are being released.

Given the amount of care and attention that has gone into this set, unless they have to, I doubt they'll just want to settle for telesnap reconstructions. But such a prospect means Seasons 3, 4 and 5 will probably be left until last and take longer than usual.

[calico]

Originally Posted by Jezza

Seasons 1, 2 and 6 in theory are doable as only one story from each season is incomplete (Marco Polo - 7 episodes missing: Season 1, The Crusade - 2 episodes missing: Season 2 and The Space Pirates - 5 episodes missing: Season 6). The Power of the Daleks and Shada have proven to be successful, so complete story animations are quite out of the question
So I would imagine they will probably tackle them first, possibly at the same time as the colour seasons are being released.

Given the amount of care and attention that has gone into this set, unless they have to, I doubt they'll just want to settle for telesnap reconstructions. But such a prospect means Seasons 3, 4 and 5 will probably be left until last and take longer than usual.

I assume you mean "are not out of the question"?

It's a bit hard to imagine *all* of S3 and S4 being animated. There's just so much. But, I'd love to be wrong! While it's possible that Crusades or Space Pirates could be animated and released as blu-ray season exclusives (to boost sales, and by taking a big chunk of the budget), there's no way it could be done that way for the other seasons. They'd need to trickle out a lot of individual releases/sales before compiling the stories into the season sets.

And in that case, hopefully they get started, and at a decent pace!

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by Jezza

I think the Tom titles you're thinking about are the Ark in Space Part One had a green tint added to it as an experiment, but it went no further than the one episode.

It was a deliberate experiment on "The Ark in Space" but later episodes could just randomly vary. I suppose some settings weren't properly balanced from week to week when transferring the film to video and the credits sequence could end up looking sometimes more blue and sometimes more brown.

[HarrySullivan]

Originally Posted by calico

I assume you mean "are not out of the question"?

It's a bit hard to imagine *all* of S3 and S4 being animated. There's just so much. But, I'd love to be wrong! While it's possible that Crusades or Space Pirates could be animated and released as blu-ray season exclusives (to boost sales, and by taking a big chunk of the budget), there's no way it could be done that way for the other seasons. They'd need to trickle out a lot of individual releases/sales before compiling the stories into the season sets.

And in that case, hopefully they get started, and at a decent pace!

Yeah, commissioning the large numbers of animated episodes needed to complete Seasons 3 and 4 must be very unlikely.

If the BBC release a season boxset every four months, we still aren’t going to see the final half dozen seasons until 2025 / 2026. A lost episode recovery by that time isn’t out of the question (IIRC, recent recoveries were in 1999, 2002, 2011, 2013). So it might be wise to leave the 60s seasons until late in the schedule, as even a single “new” episode would add a lot of value to a season set.

There might even be the possibility of allocating box set budget funds to acquiring lost episodes from collectors. The BBC have always said they wouldn’t do that, but a change in policy isn’t impossible.