If you haven't seen the first season of the new series yet, and you just can't wait 2 whole weeks, there's lots of Doctor Who on DVD already out there to give you that fix.

Here are some upcoming releases (for those of us in the USA):

• March 28, 2006: Doctor Who: The Beginning box set (First Doctor - William Hartnell) -- containing the first 3 stories of the original series ("An Unearthly Child", "The Daleks", "The Edge of Destruction")
• June 6, 2006: Genesis of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker)
• June 6, 2006: Revelation of the Daleks (Sixth Doctor - Colin Baker)
• July 4, 2006: Doctor Who: The Complete First Series (Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston)

I just want to add a note that the 'new' DW DVD set set for release in the states is listed to have a MFRP of $99.99, which is awfully high for a 13 episode TV set.

Actually that's about what I payed for it to import it from Canada (it came to about $107 US with shipping). I'm not sure why it's so high but there are a lot of extras including commentary for every episode.

UK DVDs cost a lot more than the US ones (hence us being known as rip-off Britain). I'm guessing the BBC asks for the same high price when it comes to selling them abroad.

I was more annoyed with the enormous boxset that I couldn't fit on my shelf. Considering there were only 13 episodes, it was a bit much

The Canadian/US dvd release doesn't have the same packaging as the UK set, cos the cardboard TARDIS apparently warps and falls apart. I'm guessing this means the 2nd series boxset next Nov. will have the same packaging as the NorthAm set.

Also, the 2nd series R2 PAL vanilla dvds will be released throughout airing, and the first release will also include "The Christmas Invasion" special.

Yes, it is true that BBC Worldwide Americas are under orders to keep their prices high so as to protect the UK market from people importing cheap discs from the US or Canada. Multi-standard and multi-region DVD players are very plentiful in the UK, so there's no physical reason why consumers there can't just import.
This is true of pretty much all of their products... not just Doctor Who.

The Region 1 Canadian set is in a much more sensible box than the Region 2 was, and the U.S. edition will be exactly the same as the Canada one. The only reason it hasn't been released in the U.S. yet is because the SciFi Channel bought the rights to air the series and asked that the DVD release wait until after they'd had a chance to show the whole season.

Here's a link to a good Doctor Who DVD FAQ by Steve Manfred (who posted directly above me).

Sadly, only the Doctor owns one, a vintage type 60 model.

So, what dodgy bits of merchandise do we all own? Me, I have one of those annuals from the 60's. I'll have to dig that out for a little compare and contrast with the new series. Plus, a whole bunch of the Dapol stuff from the early 90's, including a two handed Davros! Did anyone have trouble with the Dapol Daleks? Their heads either seems to be on too loose or too tight.

Being honest, I wasn't impressed by the Tardis set. The extras could have been better. They could have put the full Confidentials on them.

I heard they were cut so drastically because they didn't have the rights to the music, or to the clips from past Doctor Who. A shame because I would have thought it would help with gaining a new audience for the older DVDs.

They had fairly decent extas, especially if you're into commentaries. But I would have loved a gag reel, or deleted scenes

I remember reading somewhere that there were deleted scenes that were mistakenly left off the dvd set that might be included on the season 2 set. Which I really hope they do. I would also love to see outtakes. The commentaries are pretty good, the best ones were either with RTD or John Barrowman (he's obviously a Who fan so he analyzes the plot sometimes instead of just talking about his acting).

The "cut down" Confidentials were annoying if you've seen the full versions, but they still work as a bit of a behind the scenes look at each episode. (Luckily I have all full length Confidentials saved.) One of my favorite extras is actually a video diary Mark Gatiss did that covers his progress on writing "The Unquiet Dead", mostly because it shows what a huge Who geek he is and how excited he is to be doing it.

I've the new series annual, the sticker album (which was a gift, actually), and I got a new sonic screwdriver toy prop for a friend of mine at Gallifrey One, but I keep thinking "I could order him one off the 'net and then I could open the one I have and play with it!"

The new action figures, alas, sold out in the dealer's room before I could get a Doctor and Rose to live out plastic adventures (and probably some of them naughty) on my desk.

I also have all of the BBC novels, and I'm missing some of the DWM issues from the last year because they're hard to find where I live, unless you get them via mail-order.

I desperately want a remote-control talking dalek. It would be like having a wee ickle Nick Briggs made out of plastic living in my house.

John Barrowman's commentaries amused me because a) he kept going into his Scottish accent and b) he kept being very careful not to promote anything (eg when they're talking about an Indian restaurant) because it's the BBC - I like to think this is a hangover from his Children's BBC days when presenters were probably heavily warned about this.

I had a disappearing TARDIS mug from my PBS pledge drive days, but sadly it vanished someplace along the way.

Other than that, I have a few books (the Episode Guide, the 6th Doctor book, and a scholarly study that reads like somebody's doctoral - heh - thesis).

A remote-control Dalek would rule. I'd run it through the cube farm I work at.

Yes, that's right about the reason the full-length Confidentails couldn't be used... it was all the rights clearances for the music and the clips from the original series.
Rumor has it the upcoming season of Confidential (to go along with the new season) will be only this length (12-15 minutes) to start with and not have any classic series interviews or clips to speak of. Certainly they didn't have any camera crews at this year's Gallifrey convention in L.A., unlike last year.

I've got a lovely TARDIS bank on my desk, even lights up and makes little TARDIS-y noises.

Also have a Tenth Doctor costume I assembled, complete with Chucks.

A wonderful friend bought me the book of shooting scripts.

My equally wonderful roommate bought me a Dalek coaster and T-shirt for Christmas, as well as a cool picture of the TARDIS in a crop-circle.

I ordered the Tenth Doctor mini action figures ages ago. They were supposed to be in stock and shipped at the end of February/early March, but I've heard no word yet.

(Not that I'm horribly impatient.)

Add to these items several home-made things, magnets, T-shirts, et cetera. Because I'm rather obsessive about my Who-love.

Here's a page that's good for having everything listed in one place:

http://www.whoblackpool.com/acatalog/Dr_Who.html

Personally, I've got the TARDIS Moneybox (which, handily, is in the same scale as the figures!) and the sonic screwdriver - so good, in fact, that they're using the toy in the second season as a 'stunt prop'. Also, got the 2006 Calender, the 2006 Annual and the Complete First Series Boxset.

Oh, and the Dalek LCD Game. Although that's almost impossible to make head or tail of.

I wrote a piece for a fanzine on the toys once (he plugged)

http://www.shockeye.org.uk/OnlineSpecials/SonicToys/

I have a remote control (talking) Dalek. It was my Christmas present to myself and every single person who's been in my house since then has pounced on it with cries of glee and spent the following ten minutes guiding it around the sitting room floor, exterminating things. I especially love that it's little eye stalk moves around and has the blue light on it.

I also expect to briefly own a Tardis easter egg come Easter Sunday.

OMG! There are TARDIS easter eggs? Where? Where!

I've given up chocolate for the time being, but I think that would be just about the coolest reintroduction possible!

Tardis and Dalek easter eggs are available at Marks & Spencer (the Tardis one is much better though).

This is hilarious! I can't stop laughing!

Indeed there is. In fact, Amazon is offering a special Mega Collection set of everything currently available, and at a fairly reasonable price too.

Actually, as an update to that article I should say that later batches of the toys seem to have resolved all the issues mentioned in it. The 5" Daleks seem to work much better now, a longer ariel has been fitted inside the 12" Dalek to give it a much improved range and the new wave of sonic screwdrivers have a better paintjob and come with batteries included (at no extra cost).

The new Ninth Doctor and Rose figures have been repainted too, and are now much better than the first editions of them. Meanwhile, there've been no problems at all reported AFAIK with the Series Two wave of toys.


Oooh... and personally? I can't wait for the Cyberman voice changer helmet that's coming in the Summer!

My coolest item is a TARDIS bookcase which is about 4 feet high and has doors. Very lifelike, except for the size.

Unfortunately, it's not any bigger on the inside, and my Doctor Who books don't all fit. I wish I'd bought another one, but it was a limited edition back in the early 90's.

I was just at Tower Records and noticed that they were having a sale on some Warner Brothers DVDs, including a bunch of Doctor Who titles. Most of them are $14.99, though some (like "City of Death") were $19.99, which are pretty good prices for a B&M store. I'll probably head back there after class to pick some up.

thanks for the info, i'd like to get 1 or 2 to prep myself for the sci fi premiere.

Ditto. That's one of my favourite things about special features and it sucks that the new DW set doesn't have more. The Tardis box it comes in sure is shiny though.

I haven't gotten around to buying any of the DVD's, but I've taken to hijacking all of the library's stock. Bless my local libraries! But I'll definitely see to buying the new season if there's John Barrowman commentary (in a Scottish accent, no less. rowr!). Which episode is he commentating on? Empty Child/The Doctor Dances?

Barrowman commentates on 4 episodes - Empty Child, Doctor Dances, Boomtown, and Parting of the Ways. But all in his default American accent. He's great fun on the commentaries, BTW.

But then, with the exception of The Long Game, every episode of Series One gets a fun and interesting commentary on the DVD set. Though my favorite extra is the bonus 'Confidential' disc. The 13 cutdowns amount to a 2 1/2 hour making-of documentary that both pacy and thorough. And then there's the behind-the scenes preview of 'The Christmas Invasion' to top it off. Wonderful stuff.

Would Sci-fi get any money from the US DVD sales? I'm just wondering, because I can see everyone in the US who likes the show (or at least a big percentage) downloading the whole of season 1 and not bothering to watch the Sci-Fi channel.

In which case, only decent DVD sales could convince Sci-Fi to keep airing it...

Word on the The Long Game commentary being awful. I wanted to shove the Jagrafess in the director's mouth. Thankfully he only does the one! RTD's commentaries are great - he seems to be so cheerful and happy, whilst I am all bitter and stuff...how does he do it?

Wow! I didn't even know there WAS a remote controlled Dalek. My stepdad has one with wheels underneath that you can move around, and when you press a button on the front its lights light up and it says Exterminate and other Dalekish things, but it would be so much cooler if you could make it go on its own!

I bought him a Dalek mug from Asda (quite literally the British Wal-Mart) for Father's Day, with a button underneath so that every time you pick it up and the button is released, it spouts one of three Dalek phrases or plays the Doctor Who theme music. Needless to say, it doesn't get much use as a mug (it's much shallower than a normal mug too, because of the room needed in the bottom for the battery) but he still has a lot of fun with it. The cat hates it.

I have discovered something quite surprising. I'm in Australia, but it's cheaper for me to buy a bunch of DVD from sendit.com, which is a British site, rather than buy them in the shops. That includes postage.

So a few days ago, I bought some Dr Who stuff from there. Their warehouse is in Belfast, which is important to the story. I don't have a credit card, so I used my dad's. His name was on the package when it came. I got home today, and the package had arrived. Dad asked me, "Is that yours?" "Yes." "Good, because when I got an unexpected package from Belfast, I got a bit nervous."

You should tell your dad that Irish terrorism is out of fashion. These days Muslims are the persecuted minority of choice.

I wouldn't be surprised. As for downloading vs. sales - the DVD sets have more extras then were ever downloadable.

Yeah, I'll do that.

He does switch into the Scottish accent a few times though. Once when he explains that he is, in fact, Scottish, and only lived in the US for a while as a kid. And then once or twice more later on. I don't remember which episodes it was on though. And he is great fun, indeed.

I've got picture of the remote control Dalek here.

And if you want a laugh, there is this as well.

I bought one each of the Tardis and dalek easter eggs. The lady at the shop said the dalek ones were selling a bit more.

i agree cutecouple...i'd definitely be inclined to go after more box sets than download if I could get the extras, etc. with a dvd. it seems like releasing these sets before seasons 2 and 3 of the newest "Who" would be perfect. In the meantime, I'm pretty happy with season one on sci fi.

Amazon has CE's first season listed for $69.99

The cover for Series 2 Volume 1 is out now:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/news/cult/n.../16/30392.shtml

I'm not sure how much further they can go with the "Austin Powers Photo Session" covers... "And now... You're AFRAID! It's a Tiger! A big tiger! And it's coming to get you! But wait! It only wants to play! You're HAPPY! Happy to play with the tiger!"

Oh, poop. Nuallain, you might want to mention that your article may contain spoilers. I saw the phrase Bad Wolf Rose and stopped reading. I'll come back and read the rest of it in a few months.

Hi.
On Tuesday, March 28, BBC Worldwide Americas will officially release a new DVD box set from the original "Doctor Who" series called "The Beginning." It contains lovingly restored and remastered versions of the series' first three serials from 1963/64: "An Unearthly Child," "The Daleks," and "The Edge of Destruction."

The warning I bring is for anyone who's going to buy and watch this who is now watching the 2005 season on the SciFi Channel for the first time. If you are such a person, be careful not to watch a documentary on the 3rd disc in this set that's called "Over the Edge," because it contains clips and massive spoilers for the final episodes of the 2005 season.

Thanks for the tip. I would have hated to be spoiled.

Just to bump this up - The Beginning DVD boxed set has its official release today (Tuesday, March 28th). If you want to see how the series began all those years ago, and don't mind 1963 B&W television, then you might want to look into this set!

I found this spoiler t-shirt at Hot Topic and I just had to buy it. It's not DW merchandise but it reminded me of episodes 8 and 9. It might be considered a spoiler for those episodes.

And does anyone know why this set is so expensive? I mean, I'm becoming slightly obsessed so I want it but I don't know if I can afford that kind of loyalty. Although I do have until 7/4 to save...

It's pretty complicated, but it basically comes down to the different markets for DVDs in the US and the UK. The market supports much higher DVD prices in the UK than here in the US. But, if they lowered the price for the US release, the result would be UK buyers simply importing the cheaper US version and watching them on multi-region DVD players, thus undercutting the British market. As more Doctor Who DVDs are sold in the UK, they obviously don't want to ruin their bottom line by doing that. As a result, the DVD is more expensive here than most other season boxed sets.

(And the differering markets are the reason why the classic series is sold by individual serial instead of full seasons as well. Granted though, the restoration work and extras on the classic series DVDs are much better and numerous than what we would get if they were released by season, which is pretty decent compensation)

I can vouch for Demetrios point about the DVD price. When the Buffy sets were first released in the UK they were priced at the equivalent of $125 a season. The Doctor Who set is priced at $105 in the UK.

The $69 price tag is actually a discounted price, it seems, as the recommended R1 price is $99. I've seen a lot of comments that this is expensive but, like I said, it's cheap by UK standards and even in the US you've got boxsets like Band of Brothers ($120) and Six Feet Under ($99) which are priced the same as Who.

And Kallisti, sorry to accidentally spoil you. I wrote that months and months ago and completely forgot about that ref. Sorry.



There was actually a guy a while back who was selling t-shirts with a generic gasmask picture and the text Are you my mummy? but he got litigious letters from the BBC telling him to stop. This even though episode writer Steven Moffat went to bat for him saying "I invented neither gasmasks nor [/spoiler]mummies[spoiler]". Apparantly it was because he was using the words "Doctor Who" in his description on his site. I tried to refer him to glarkware as an example of how to maintain plausible deniability but he just gave up in the end.

<happy dance happy dance>
I've just got an email to say the DVD box set is on its way.
</happy dance happy dance>