When season seven (Spearhead in Space - Inferno) is released this year, that will leave four complete seasons to release (one Third, two Fourth, and one Fifth/ Sixth Doctor).
One First Doctor season (two: Planet of the Giants - The Time Meddler), which had two missing episodes has been released.
From a ‘The Collection’ perspective, the planned release of ‘The Savages’ makes no sense, as this season has the most missing episodes.
If they release based on minimal screen caps episodes, the current release order would be:
Season five - four screen cap episodes (Tomb of the Cybermen - The Wheel in Space)
Season six - five screen cap episodes (The Dominators - The War Games)
Season one - seven screen cap episodes (An Unearthly Child - The Reign of Terror)
Season four - eight screen cap episodes (The Smugglers - The Evil of the Daleks)
Season three - eighteen screen cap episodes (Galaxy 4 - The War Machines)
? Do you think the number of screen cap episodes will be the deciding factor?
? If not, what rationale do you think they will use?
? Do you think there will be enough demand for the black and white stories to make them profitable?
? What other thoughts do you have about future First and Second Doctor Collection boxsets?
I think we’re more likely to get Season 4 or 5 sooner rather than later because of the number of stories from those seasons which have already had the animation treatment. I think Season 3 with the lengthy Masterplan and The Massacre not actually having very much visual material will be left till later.
Season 6 only missing The Space Pirates may well be first, actually, but dint on not being that dissimilar to the situation with Season 2.
Season 1, of course, is the sticky wicket because of the issues surrounding An Unearthly Child. Marco Polo by itself is not an insurmountable problem - a decent telesnap recon would probably satisfy most fans but a lack of the first story is going to probably put that one on the back burner till the last possible moment.
I think another factor to consider is which stories have actual tele-snaps. Some they were never commissioned, some are lost. So considering only the ones that have not been animated: For season 1, the fourth episode of Marco Polo is missing its tele-snaps. For most of season 3, they weren’t commissioned, so Mission to the Unknown, Myth Makers, Master Plan, and Massacre do not have tele-snaps. Seasons 4 and 5 are all there, but John Cura died before he could do them for Space Pirates, so that does not have tele-snaps. For all these stories lacking tele-snaps they will have to invent images, taking stuff from existing episodes where possible, maybe working with Loose Cannon to do similar things to what they did, etc. but all will contribute to a lot more work for those episodes.
So, the most obvious thing to do would be to go in order of the greatest proportion of existing episodes, resulting in the order of 6, 1, 5, 3, 4
However, while they’ve said the animation release schedule won’t dictate their release schedule, I’m sure animations will be included where available, and Season 5 might as well be more complete than Season 1 once you factor in the animated stories. And every episode that isn’t animated has proper tele-snaps.
I think the fact that it has the second smallest proportion of existing episodes, the least amount of animated, and the fact that the majority don’t have tele-snaps, is going to push 3 to last to give it as much time as possible for all the work that will be needed for it.
EDIT: I realize I have orange for Savages, but that’s because the animation isn’t out yet.
Less SC episodes, no potential legal issues with Unearthly Child, big iconic stories (Tomb and War Games)
I think we’re more likely to get Series Five before Series Six though, not because of Screen Cap Episodes, but because of the recent War Games in Colour release. The Collection will presumably include that version of the story, so to make more money, they’re likely to wait for Series Five so that anyone who wants to get The War Games in Colour will get the standalone release and then later get The Collection, rather than not getting the standalone and just waiting a bit
Just how profitable are these sets really? Of course us fans love them, but I’m sure the vast majority of the people who buy them are people who are already fans, already have seen them, and just want them as a collectable, which is not that huge of a market overall. I’m sure they break even at least, otherwise they wouldn’t still be doing it, but I don’t imagine it’s a huge profit margin, and they do it more out of a love for Doctor Who and the restoration of classic media than how much money they make.
It’s a good question but they must have sold well enough for them to think the Standard Editions were a plausible idea. Anyone who has the LE isn’t going to buy exactly the same thing as an SE (although I have heard of people selling their LE once the SE becomes available to save on space). But there are definitely those, like me, who wait for the SE because of the lower price.
I think it’s less about how profitable these sets are, and more about how profitable the In Colour DVDs are (or at least how profitable the BBC hopes they could be)
If nothing else, them releasing Series Six shortly after The War Games In Colour will lose them money that can be gotten just by doing Series Five first
That’s a fair point. Though it’s also possible they aren’t getting as much as they’d like from the limited alone, so adding a lower price option that more people can buy, that is also cheaper to produce might be to cover some of the cost of making the limited editions. Probably just a lot of factors coming into play in the business side of things, which is admittedly not my biggest area of expertise.
I think the only one I’d buy a duplicate copy of is a UK S2 standard edition, and only for the reason of 1 story I don’t even like all that much. Damn Region A Beatles rights.
I think my prediction is after S7 they’ll continue spreading out Doctors like they have been and complete Doctors in reverse order (mostly just because 7 was complete first).
S5, S1, S13, S21 (6th and 5th Doctors complete), S6, S16 (4th Doctor complete), S11 (3rd Doctor complete), S4 (2nd Doctor complete), S3 (1st Doctor complete)
If the Stef Coburn in the room does in fact make Season 1 a problem, it will be pushed to until that is resolved, and they can make the set complete.
