Oh right fair enough, yeah if they’re going I’ll happily take them!
Do you want me to pay you some of them back?
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I get the impression that McTighe’s involvement with “The War Between…” may also have something to do with this. Besides, I didn’t think it was a definitive “never again” but a suggestion that they can’t happen every time and may need to be scaled back. I got the impression that it was workload as much as cost.
Much as I’ve lived the “Minisode” trailers, I understand this and am OK with it. Who knows what the future holds?
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You know sometimes you find yourself checking the dates, looking at your watch, getting slightly fractious? Now is one of those times. There are four days until this is released and I’m hoping madly that it’ll be posted out early. I feel like a kid on a never-ending Christmas Eve.
I’m 57 years old!
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I’m still waiting for the next standard edition to be announced! What one should it be next?
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I’m glad I’m not the only one. It’s very much on my mind and I’m already planning out which evenings I have free to site down, pop on the headphones for a full stereo aural experience and just luxuriate in season 25 all over again (this time, brand new and with added shiny bits!). 
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I’m delighted to see there are three “In Conversation” extras this time.
They’re the things I tend to put off because they are so long, but then enjoy the most.
Matthew Sweet is excellent in his research and conversational style. He seems to make the interviewee feel relaxed and open to share.
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Season 2 out 2 December. Amazon.co.uk
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I’ve watched a number of bits and pieces from this Pandora’s boxset and the first thing to note is, of course, that it is absolutely beyond-words gorgeous. However, I do have a couple of entirely personal little issues.
My favourite feature is always Behind the Sofa, which I often find laugh-out-loud entertaining. If Janet Fielding was allowed to bring more of her humour to Tegan all those years ago, she’d have been even better. She’s phenomenal, but I think she’s a bit too critical of these particular stories - berating the repeated use of guns, for example. Has she forgotten being in Earthshock, Warriors of the Deep and Resurrection of the Daleks?
Also, in the Remembrance Special Edition (which is fantastic) they cut the scene where Ace turns on the television and impatiently leaves the room as the announcer appears to be about to introduce an early episode of Doctor Who! It’s one of my favourite bits!
But truth be told, this set is full of favourite bits, and I’m about to dive right back in!
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Wait they CUT that scene!!! Nooooo that’s a great bit!
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The Special Weapons Dalek has his own cliffhanger! I cheered at that.
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Loving Janet’s glasses!
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Gladly making my way through The Happiness Patrol Special Edition and I must say, this is a treat worthy of the KandyMan his very self. I love the scene where Helen A phones the KandyMan on an old-fashioned phone and enquires what speciality he’s conjuring up tonight - but she’s not enquiring as to any adornment to her evening meal, but what flavour fondant he’s going to use to execute (by drowning) a local miscreant who has blatantly shown signs of public grief! I’d forgotten that. How deliciously perverse!
I love this story to pieces, and the embellishments the team have made, with newly-restored moments and computer-generated scene-scapes really do sell the world of Terra Alpha far beyond the confines of the studio.
Detractors of this tale- of which there are many - don’t ‘get it’, in my view. Of course the streets look artificial - they are meant to be grim and crumbling buildings jazzed up with tawdry sticking-laster paint jobs and garish decorations. That’s the whole point of the tale, which people who complain about ‘cheap studio sets’ miss spectacularly.
And the KandyMan: should he have been such a bizarre creature, or just a man with a lab coat, as the script suggests? I would say that I like the Allsorts look - with so many visually curious characters, we need something even more curious to top them all, and The KandyMan is a magnificent creation - straight out of a child’s nightmare (as is the notion of sweets tasting so good that they kill people). A dangerously petulant powerhouse!
Not only is this story a surreal fairy-tale horror show in its own right, but placing it in a series directly after the crowd-pleasing Remembrance of the Daleks is a stroke of genius (even if it wasn’t the original intent), showcasing the wide variety of story styles Doctor Who could still embrace, even in its 25th year!
“I can feel one of my moods coming on!”
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Still no word on Region A release date. A little odd, we usually have at least a date by now.
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It really is incredible!!!
Watching the BFI screening of it was a treat
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Got mine a day late (thanks Amazon!)
Bit pricy but feels like a nice package rather than a blu ray with all the extras, audio options, artwork etc
Gonna watch the Hapienss Patrol this weekend - this episode looks like proper classic who fun
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My my my. I just have to gush - yes, gush - one final time about The Happiness Patrol Special Edition. The new effects are, I think, the most effective updates for an original episode (and yes, I’ve seen Day of the Daleks) yet. They beautifully expand the world of Terra Alpha, but are still delightfully garish and tacky, in-keeping with the story.
The cast is wonderful, and Sylvester is ‘ice hot’ throughout. His performance is 100% The Doctor - but is never allowed to be bigger than the story, just as it should be.
The final scenes are among the best. Helen A’s belated breakdown and subsequent spilling of true emotion is strangely affecting. A woman bedecked in the most outrageous make-up and wig and an animatronic rubber dog manage somehow to break your heart. Only on Doctor Who.
Also, her downfall, just as was her performance, is very reminiscent of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s. Betrayed by all those her around her.
The enhanced final moments of the story, where Earl and Susan Q appear to get together, and the camera closes in on a neon sign saying ‘Keep Smiling’ - that suddenly switches off into darkness - has vibes similar to the ending of Vengeance on Varos about it, and is a wonderful, wonderful moment.
So far - and it’s a tough call - I’d say the Season 25 Collection might just be (whisper it) the best of the releases so far! Happiness will prevail.
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Enjoying the Season 25 boxset.
However, I’m surprised that one of the special features, “Girls, Girls, Girls” (about sexism in entertainment during 80s), has an introduction by a male? Also the title itself is sexist. Is it supposed to be ironic? Or were they just oblivious?
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“Introduced by Peter Purves” 
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“This is a nightmare. Or I am mad!”
“This is no madness. This is England.”
So to the Silver Nemesis Special Edition episode one. This slightly longer, enhanced version is so much better than the original – and I quite liked the televised version. I’m pleased to say we have more of this tale’s two main stars, Fiona Walker and Gerard Murphy as Lady Peinforte and her ward Richard. I loved these two, they are such good actors and do such a good job with the dialogue which, in lesser hands, could have been really clunky. And what a double-act. Genuinely funny, well-rounded characters.
Sylvester and Sophie are terrific too, and it’s good to see their sometimes silly, believable relationship given more time to breathe here. Even the Doctor’s escape from the palace guards is an amusing moment, the kind of thing only the Seventh Doctor could do.
What a surprise to see The Cybermats here! What a shame they were cut. They’re used well, if briefly, and the spaceship at the end is hugely improved. My favourite ‘tweak’ though, involves Peinforte and Richard as they turn up, surrounded by swirling special effects in a tea-room, screaming in terror at the magic that has brought them there. That the original featured the customers inside the tea-room not reacting in any way to the two strange arrivals has always struck me as a curious production blunder. Here, via the magic of CGI, the tea-rooms are empty. Much better.
One thing the updates can’t improve, though, is the tinny incidental music. It’s still pretty bad. Keff McCulloch was having an off-day with this.
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