Doctor Who - The Specials (Blu-ray SteelBook) [UK]

Nov 5, 2012
1,292
Newark, Nottinghamshire
Release date: September 2, 2019
Purchase links: Amazon UK - Zoom - Zavvi
Price: £24.99 (Amazon) - £28.99 (Zoom) - £27.99 (Zavvi)

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To be honest: the previous logo on the S1-S4 BluRays didn't belong to that era either.

To be fair the BBC have a history of not paying attention. I remember when Revenge of The Cybermen came out in 1986 on VHS, it had the Diamond logo and Tom Baker from season 7 on the front cover. The BBC actually changed it after a few months to the right Logo and the right images from the Story.
 
Now it's more about politics and showing how diverse they are within a story rather then just focusing on Sci-Fi, aliens and weird stuff.

The problem is simple. In a nutshell it's not the show that was created by Verity Lambert back in 1963. She created the format we all love and know and any producer that came along adhered to the format. They did their own thing but still stayed within the format created by her back in the 60's. What Stephen Moffat and Chibnall did was unforgivable. They were arrogant to think they knew better than the creator of the show and shoved the whole format down the toilet just to peddle politics and diversity as you say. The sad thing is that the next season will most certainly be the last and i don't see the show recovering from the damage inflicted on it. The fans have walked away. Shame as it was once one of the most brilliant shows ever made.....
 
Zavvi price currently £27.99 versus £24.99 at both Amazon and Zoom. Unfortunately, Zoom now restricts the signup10 code to first orders only, so have put my order in with Amazon in the hope that they drop the price come release date (as they did with The Macra Terror - I received a £5 credit as they dropped the price - albeit very briefly - upon release).
 
The problem is simple. In a nutshell it's not the show that was created by Verity Lambert back in 1963. She created the format we all love and know and any producer that came along adhered to the format. They did their own thing but still stayed within the format created by her back in the 60's. What Stephen Moffat and Chibnall did was unforgivable. They were arrogant to think they knew better than the creator of the show and shoved the whole format down the toilet just to peddle politics and diversity as you say. The sad thing is that the next season will most certainly be the last and i don't see the show recovering from the damage inflicted on it. The fans have walked away. Shame as it was once one of the most brilliant shows ever made.....
That's it exactly. I read a comment similar to this last year and it used the word "custodian." That really struck a chord with me. These producers are custodians who should be able to make a great show within the confines of what has come before. They shouldn't be so arrogant as to rewrite history. I get the feeling Chibnall has always been someone who likes the concept of Doctor Who but the show itself was never quite good enough for him.

As for this steelbook, I think the animated episodes have convinced me to go for this. I own the DVD of Infinite Quest but never owned Dreamland. Does anyone know whether they are in true HD on the disc? I take it all the other discs will be the same ones that were already released as the specials box set?
 
David Tennent was THE modern DW, period. The only other iteration in the modern era that was o.k was Eccleston - but the writing was a bit wobbly for his series.
(Also, I really would like to have seen a proper set of series with Paul McGann - great actor).
 
Still find it annoying they used a Cyberman on the back when there’s no appearance by them

Why not the Vinvocci who helped the Doctor in the End of Time
 
Still find it annoying they used a Cyberman on the back when there’s no appearance by them

Why not the Vinvocci who helped the Doctor in the End of Time

This includes the Christmas special The Next Doctor and they're the big bad in that episode. So their inclusion on the artwork makes sense.
 
Ordered the same day I got the text alert.

While I don't mind the rear artwork, one thing I will say is I don't understand the inclusion of Donna. Her entire screen time during the specials basically amounted to around 5 minutes.

Surely her spot on the back should have been taken by Jackson Lake or even Miss Hartigan. Both were primary players in their special.
 
I initially passed on the series steelbooks because i remember reading that the first episodes to be shot in HD were the series 4 specials and previously when converting to bluray, the episodes were sped up very slighlty for the first 4 seasons. I assumed these were running the same discs but now i'm gutted I missed out!

Although i grew up with McGann, my Doctor became David Tennant. That era was perfect. Its hard to say it followed the original format of the show because it was originally serialized and RTD updated it to a seasonal story arc with fillers which is a much more modern approach.

When Moffat came along, he utilised the time travel aspect much more than his predecessors and thus made for a very convoluted and complicated show with story arcs spanning multiple seasons that until you can watch them all together, just made little to no sense. Watching them back in a short space of time as a whole now helps that but some of his writing was so repetitive and seemed like an attempt to put a stamp on the whole history of Who.

The things I hate most about Moffat was everybodys infatuation with the Doctor: "because he's the Doctor and he will save us all"... like every character had a line that would say something like this in more episodes than I can remember.
And the repetitive death and back to life. It just takes the stakes away completely, Rory died how many times, Amy died a few times, Clara a few times and by season 9, he literally pissed in fans faces when he killed the doctor over 4 billion times in one episode (although the episode itself was actually very good).
Also Moffats obsession with the lack of spoilers for an upcoming series killed all the hype about Doctor Who being on TV and to this day, its not recovered. RTD had trailers in Cinemas prior to an upcoming series months before. One series during Moffats era didn't have a trailer until about 2 weeks before airing!

One thing that kept me coming back though was Murray Gold's beautiful soundtracks and they just seemed to get better as time went on. That guy is a genius and its a travesty that they replaced him for the 13th Doctor.
I can listen to certain themes from the show and the make my hair stand up and bring out emotion in me in seconds.
 
I initially passed on the series steelbooks because i remember reading that the first episodes to be shot in HD were the series 4 specials and previously when converting to bluray, the episodes were sped up very slighlty for the first 4 seasons. I assumed these were running the same discs but now i'm gutted I missed out!

Although i grew up with McGann, my Doctor became David Tennant. That era was perfect. Its hard to say it followed the original format of the show because it was originally serialized and RTD updated it to a seasonal story arc with fillers which is a much more modern approach.

When Moffat came along, he utilised the time travel aspect much more than his predecessors and thus made for a very convoluted and complicated show with story arcs spanning multiple seasons that until you can watch them all together, just made little to no sense. Watching them back in a short space of time as a whole now helps that but some of his writing was so repetitive and seemed like an attempt to put a stamp on the whole history of Who.

The things I hate most about Moffat was everybodys infatuation with the Doctor: "because he's the Doctor and he will save us all"... like every character had a line that would say something like this in more episodes than I can remember.
And the repetitive death and back to life. It just takes the stakes away completely, Rory died how many times, Amy died a few times, Clara a few times and by season 9, he literally pissed in fans faces when he killed the doctor over 4 billion times in one episode (although the episode itself was actually very good).
Also Moffats obsession with the lack of spoilers for an upcoming series killed all the hype about Doctor Who being on TV and to this day, its not recovered. RTD had trailers in Cinemas prior to an upcoming series months before. One series during Moffats era didn't have a trailer until about 2 weeks before airing!

One thing that kept me coming back though was Murray Gold's beautiful soundtracks and they just seemed to get better as time went on. That guy is a genius and its a travesty that they replaced him for the 13th Doctor.
I can listen to certain themes from the show and the make my hair stand up and bring out emotion in me in seconds.
I'm confused by your statement- "Although i grew up with McGann, my Doctor became David Tennant."
McGann was the Doctor in only one American TV movie.
 
I'm confused by your statement- "Although i grew up with McGann, my Doctor became David Tennant."
McGann was the Doctor in only one American TV movie.
Purely because i was born in '86. I was too young to watch the last of the OG series so when the '96 movie came out, I was 9 going on 10 and loved it. I remember the radio times coming with a magazine documenting OG Who and researching it. I recorded the movie and watched it over and over and loved the lore and idea of Doctor Who. I was almost 20 when new Who came on. So, in that respect, i grew up with McGann as Doctor.
But as I said, Tennant is my Doctor.
 
Purely because i was born in '86. I was too young to watch the last of the OG series so when the '96 movie came out, I was 9 going on 10 and loved it. I remember the radio times coming with a magazine documenting OG Who and researching it. I recorded the movie and watched it over and over and loved the lore and idea of Doctor Who. I was almost 20 when new Who came on. So, in that respect, i grew up with McGann as Doctor.
But as I said, Tennant is my Doctor.
Tennent is the best of the modern doctors.
I thought it was a shame that they did not give McGann a shot at series 1....nothing against Eccleston- I like him as well- but as a die hard Withnail and I fan - I was rooting for McGann to get a shot.
 
Tennent is the best of the modern doctors.
I thought it was a shame that they did not give McGann a shot at series 1....nothing against Eccleston- I like him as well- but as a die hard Withnail and I fan - I was rooting for McGann to get a shot.
I can understand why they wanted a semi clean break, but always hoped they would do a miniseries with McGann once the show started getting popular. Like during the year they did these specials, if Tennant didn't want to commit to so much filming they could have done a few McGann specials.
 
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Yea - I've received that too. Bit disappointing really, and quite a delay (not like a week or two). I wonder why?
I expected it to be honest. It's not the first time they've delayed the DW steels. Assume they've just pushed production back. They've made enough now to know how long it takes so doubt it's due to underestimating the process
 
Nothing to stop them doing a Capaldi regenerating into Bradley Walsh and pretending Whitaker was all a bad dream..... Maybe even have the new Doctor wake up in a shower and then give the new companion tales of his youth once in a while and have McGann