A post by @shauny had me thinking about the history of Doctor Who as a home media product.
I’m ~10 years older than the children in the post, and I remember VHSes from my childhood, (as during this period, it was easy to get used films on VHS from thrift shops, in addition to people having the ones they had bought a few years ago). However, my family did not have any Doctor Who on VHS. But what was it like for those that did? Was it exciting to get to see serials on your schedule for the first time? Did you have a serial on VHS that you particularly loved? When was the last time you watched Doctor Who on VHS? Did you have a coveted Betamax or LaserDisc release? I’m curious about any and all aspects of the DW on VHS experience.
Personally, any Doctor Who episodes I had on VHS were on tapes that I recorded them on off the air, so I might, say, record a Doctor Who marathon with pledge breaks in between where they were asking for money.
(One of the guys for that particular PBS station would basically cosplay as Anthony Ainley’s Master during the pledge breaks, too, IIRC…)
I had all the run from Spearhead recorded on VHS. A channel called UKTVgold, now called Dave, played a full serial each morning of the weekend. They would go all the way to Survival and then start again. My favourite stuff was Pertwee. I would record two serials on a single VHS in LP mode, and during the week I would go to sleep with them playing. I did the same with Red Dwarf as Gold would show a full series on a Friday night. I had hundreds of videos with stuff recorded from there.
I did end up getting all the VHS releases in the late 90s, but these were eventually replaced by the DVDs when they were released. A few years ago, I ended up getting rid of my entire collection of media. In the past few months I’ve started buying the VHS, DVD and Blu-ray releases again. VHS is mostly for nostalgia reasons, but I can actually play them on my tube TV that I have for retro gaming.
An aspect of ‘analog’ media that I do miss is that it was easier just to sit and watch something. Before you could skip around, you were forced to live in a scene. Certain parts are boring? Tough. I may be yelling at clouds, but the innocence of consuming media this way is something I miss.
My family got our first video recorder in late 1988 and I was allowed to pick out one video to buy. Of course I went for Doctor Who and I picked out the Robots of Death. I’d never heard of the story before but I really wanted. Tom Baker story. Turns out I picked well as it’s become one of all-time favourite stories.
Like all of the early releases this was in compilation form with the cliffhangers and credits between episodes removed. I used to quite enjoy trying to work out where the cliffhangers would have been.
One of my main memories of those early releases is the old BBC Videos ident which topped and tailed each release. I really like that ident for some reason and was quite disappointed when it eventually got replaced by something far less exciting.
My VHS collection did grow slowly over the years but, like others, I did record a lot off the TV. I recorded Seasons 25 and 26 on broadcast and the recorded a lot of other stories either from UK Gold or from repeat seasons on the BBC.
It was quite exciting watching a lot of these stories for the first time, especially the Sixties stories. I’d read a lot of the novelisations and never thought I’d get to see them. I remember renting Tomb of the Cybermen from Blockbuster shortly after it had been returned to the archives. I’m not sure the story was worth all the hype but just to see something that, until a few weeks earlier, was presumed missing, was incredibly exciting.
Oh my word - VHS was my fandom for my teen years. I taped Season 26 off the telly and watched and rewatched them so much I now miss the glitchy jump in the tape when Ace shouts ‘this is Perivale’ when I watch it on DVD. I taped all the repeat seasons in the 90s and every hint of Doctor Who on TV. Resistance is Useless was another oft-rewatched item I’d taped off the TV.
The official releases happened each month (or was it bi-monthly?) and we got two stories at a time. I distinctly remember going into the video shop in town and buying stories like Shada (with the script book included), Carnival of Monsters and The Android Invasion. I remember being on holiday and buying Silver Nemesis and Terror of the Autons but not being able to watch them until we got back from holiday.
I remember seeing The Dalek Invasion of Earth - on two separate tapes - for sale at my local library and deciding I didn’t want it!!
I remember the very first VHS I bought in Our Price (one for the oldies like me). It was The Talons of Weng-Chiang. I had a few to choose from (not sure which ones) but I know why I chose Talons - it had the longest run time!
I remember the novelty of unedited stories being released after years of edited Morbius, Talons, Pyramids and Day of and Death to the Daleks.
I had every single VHS release - including edited and unedited versions of stories.
When the modern series started I was taped it off the telly, along with the Confidentials - all of which I still have upstairs.
All my VHSes are in the loft (without their covers which are in a folder - most of them are signed by someone from the show - a lot of the VHS artwork was superb (and some of it was downright awful)).
As much as I love the DVDs and all their special features, and the BluRays - I’ll always have a special place in my heart for Doctor Who on VHS.
And it will forever have given me and my friend one of our favourite jokes about Doctor Who. The back of the Attack of the Cybermen VHS -or it might have been Revelation f the Daleks - was one of those which had a little description of what lead to it getting a PG certificate.
I had a similar glitchy jump on my Season 25 recording. It was right at the start, during the pre-credit sequence for Remembrance of the Daleks. I still expect my DVD to jump at the same point.
