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February 7th, 2013 113 comments

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Classic Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases confirmed

Classic Doctor Who DVD and Blu-ray releases confirmed

From the official site www.doctorwho.tv

Five enhanced Special Editions, a ‘reimagination’ and the first classic Doctor Who Blu-ray are amongst titles confirmed for release in 2013.

The Third Doctor’s first adventure, Spearhead from Space – which sees him battle the Autons and their masters, the Nestene Consciousness – will be released on Blu-ray in July. Due to industrial action, Spearhead is the only adventure of the 1963-89 run of the series to be made entirely on location film, which can be upscaled to Blu-ray HD.

June sees the long-awaited DVD debut of classic Fourth Doctor adventure Terror of the Zygons, with a extra sequences added to episode one; alongside gritty Third Doctor story The Mind of Evil, restored to full colour glory for the first time since the 1970s.

In August The Ice Warriors will be released, with the missing episodes two and three reconstructed using soundtrack and images, as on the 1998 VHS release.

And there will be further special editions of The Ark in Space, The Aztecs, The Visitation, Inferno and The Green Death, all of which were released early on in the Doctor Who DVD programme and missed out on improved remastering techniques and expanded special features.

The release schedule so far:

February 25: The Ark in Space: Special Edition
March 11: The Aztecs: Special Edition (plus Galaxy 4 reconstruction)
May 6: The Visitation: Special Edition
May 27: Inferno: Special Edition
June 3: The Mind of Evil
June 24: Terror of the Zygons
July 15: Spearhead from Space Blu-Ray
August 5: The Green Death: Special Edition
August 26: The Ice Warriors
September 16: Scream of the Shalka

(Note: these are Region 2 dates, Region 1 releases are normally a few days later. All dates are provisional and subject to change.)


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113 comments

  • Doctor John Smith

    March 27th, 2015 - 9:13pm

    “Due to industrial action, Spearhead is the only adventure of the 1963-89 run of the series to be made entirely on location film, which can be upscaled to Blu-ray HD.”

    Upscaled is not quite the right term to use. Rather SCANED. Film as more information then any High Definition System today, so what they have to do is scan the film on 4K, for instance, and then downscale to 1080p for Bluray.
    In the case of the episodes that were made on 2-Inch or 2-Inch tape the only solution is digitalize the 625-LINE PAL (what gives 576 lines verticaly) Tapes to 576i Digital File then upscale it to 1080i. And then de-interlace it, what gives 1080p ready for Bluray release.
    This is for most of the colour episodes. As none of the B/W episodes survived on tapeonly on 16mm or 35mmm, they can be scanned on HD (they are only to aid digital restoration) and released on Bluray, but it will still look like and upscaled version, because they were filmed electronically onto 2-Inch tape. So what the DW Restoration Team does is releasing everything on DVD.
    We have to wait possibly more 15 years, so technology will give us some other way to watch the Good Old Doctor Who on amazing High Definition (or Super-High Definition). Time will give us answers.

    Reply
  • Kevin

    December 3rd, 2013 - 4:19am

    Im pretty confused

    Is Classic DOCTOR Who all being released on blu ray
    I read ‘industrial action’ does his mean that it’s NOT getting released other than Spearhead from Space?? Please let me know

    I have Mostly all on old VHS lol

    Don’t really know of DVD is the route to go

    Reply
  • The Greater Intelligence

    April 8th, 2013 - 4:38pm

    On Amazon here in America, it just put pages to pre-order all of these titles up. Because of the price right now, I have the four titles (Zygons, Mind, Inferno, Green) that aren’t animated; if I had a hundred dollars (they’re charged at $24.49 each), I’d totally buy them.

    Reply
  • space1999

    March 17th, 2013 - 9:15am

    maybe on the ice warriors DVD it could come with the underwater menace episode 2 or the underwater menace could come out on DVD on animated

    Reply
  • The TARDIS

    February 13th, 2013 - 9:49am

    Come on BBC, stop doing all of these damned re-releases and get on with finishing off releasing everything else… And also, couldn’t they release Spearhead from Space alongside another release rather than propping up the main schedule for the month? Not everyone has a HD TV.
    On a positive note though… The mind of evil, terror of the zygons, the ice warriors and scream of the shalka!!!

    Reply
    • Gordon

      February 13th, 2013 - 10:03am

      Does not work like that. These revists give the remaining tricky stories more time to complete. Anyway they are getting on with releasing the remaining stories. Only episodes unreleased after shalka are tenth planet eps 1-3 and underwater menace ep2. Thats 4 eps in total left. More People would complain if spearhead blu ray was released with something else as some people that bought the box set would complain they cant play it because they can play the dvd disc but dont have an hdtv to watch the blu ray disc

    • The TARDIS

      February 13th, 2013 - 10:48am

      I meant as a separate release but at the same time as another one to keep those of us without a bluray player happy in July. And I know what you mean by the special editions giving the time and I’m more than happy to buy them for better picture quality and special features, but I’d rather they were more evenly distributed. As it is, we just have a block of them.

    • Gordon

      February 13th, 2013 - 11:19am

      Ice warriors was delayed from april till august so it wasnt originally planned as a block.

  • Gordon

    February 11th, 2013 - 9:44pm

    Inferno Special edition up for preorder at bbc shop Released 27th may in the UK:

    http://www.bbcshop.com/doctor-who/doctor-who-inferno-dvd/invt/bbcdvd3671/

    also Visitation Special edition released 6th may in the uk

    http://www.bbcshop.com/doctor-who/doctor-who-visitation/invt/bbcdvd3690/

    Reply
  • josh smith

    February 11th, 2013 - 5:40pm

    after they finished shey should work on re coulering all episdoes they should start but the rescue i would defanlty buy episdoes in couler

    Reply
    • Gordon

      February 11th, 2013 - 9:40pm

      That would require manual colouring as there are no chroma dots in 1960’s who episodes. Consider they could barely afford babelcolour do 1 ep of mind of evil its something i cant see hapening

  • josh smith

    February 11th, 2013 - 5:33pm

    omg I cant buy many as I have a lot of others to catch up
    but i am defiantly getting the mind of evil and visitation special as i don’t own the original
    mambye inferno special as well
    but why dont they just make a revisionist 4 it would make it a lot cheaper

    Reply
    • Gordon

      February 11th, 2013 - 9:36pm

      When they were doing the revisitation box sets of 1 2 and 3 there was no room on the schedule to release them seperatly which made sense to box them. Now there is only a couple of unreleased stories left to release there there is plenty of room on the schedule which makes sense to release them seperatly

  • Some bloke

    February 11th, 2013 - 2:16pm

    I’ve just realised, there’s nothing coming out in april?

    Reply
    • Gordon

      February 11th, 2013 - 9:25pm

      Going by the trailer on the aztecs se dvd it was supposed to be ice warriors but it has been pushed back 4 months to august for some reason

    • Some bloke

      February 11th, 2013 - 9:31pm

      will anything be released in its place?

    • Gordon

      February 11th, 2013 - 9:36pm

      Nothing else is ready

  • Classic Who Is Cool

    February 8th, 2013 - 5:16pm

    Terror of the zygons YES ! mind of evil YES ! the ice warriors YES ! cant wait for terror of the zygons !

    Reply
  • Mr Zarbi

    February 8th, 2013 - 4:42pm

    SHALKA!

    Reply
  • LG

    February 8th, 2013 - 4:32pm

    I would rather wait to see a full animation on the ice warriors, this just feels like the bbc are copying loose canon

    Reply
    • Gordon

      February 9th, 2013 - 2:02am

      Well the article doesnt say its being animated but it doesnt say its not either. Just says its being released with the missing episodes 2 and 3 reconstructed using soundtrack and images as on the vhs release. Its inclusion has been anounced for some time so its not a suprise. That doesnt mean it will be on the main feature. Steve Roberts described it as simply “just a dvd extra” so that implies to me that something else is being planned for the main feature

  • drjakeyoung

    February 8th, 2013 - 3:54pm

    ha! noticed on the wiki list for dr who dvds it says “25 February 2013 or 8 April 2013” for the ark in space! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_DVD_and_Blu-ray_releases

    Reply
    • drjakeyoung

      February 8th, 2013 - 3:58pm

      even they are confused!

    • Some bloke

      February 8th, 2013 - 6:08pm

      why would it be the 8th of april anyways? It’s been officialy announced hasn’t it?

    • drjakeyoung

      February 8th, 2013 - 6:54pm

      because amazon and a few other retailers have recently announced it has been delayed till 8th April due to something they cant tell

  • McGann is the Doctor

    February 8th, 2013 - 11:43am

    WHAT ?! ❓ The Mind of Evil in FULL colour ?

    I didn’t think it possible ! This can’t be right, as much as I hope it is ❗

    Lucky for me I haven’t got round to watching any more Pertwee episodes since Terror of the Autons, and was planning to watch Claws of Axos next.

    It is a blessing in diguise then, that I will get to see them in order (if this is true)! ❗

    Reply
    • Some bloke

      February 8th, 2013 - 11:52am

      YEAH, they’ve been talking about it for MONTHS, did you not know?

    • Gordon

      February 8th, 2013 - 12:07pm

      It was announced back in 2009 that the eps 2 to 6 had be colourised using the colour recovery and It was announced a year ago that ep1 was getting recoloured by babelcolour. News has been round for some time

    • hobbit dalek

      February 8th, 2013 - 2:25pm

      so looks like tenth planet will be the last

    • Anonymous

      February 8th, 2013 - 6:14pm

      Either The Tenth Planet or The Underwater Menace.

  • Cymon Hodson

    February 8th, 2013 - 10:50am

    It would have been better if Mind of Evil had come out between Aztecs and Visitation as we now have 4 special editions before a new dvd release.

    Reply
    • Some bloke

      February 8th, 2013 - 10:57am

      that’s what I thought

    • Gordon

      February 8th, 2013 - 11:11am

      Ice warriors was originally supposed to be released in april but has been pushed back for some reason plus as mind of evil was only completed about a week ago there isnt enough time for it to be passed by the bbfc quality control authering house etc to be released in time to be released inbetweeen aztecs and visitation

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