TME > Video > Commercial Releases

The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond

A celebration of the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who, Adrian Rigglesford's similarly-named hardback book, published by Boxtree, later spun-off this hour-long video release, which took 10 days to film.

Interviewed are: Brian Blessed, Sid Sutton, Don Henderson, David Maloney, Wendy Padbury, Sally Faulkner, Colin Baker, Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, Caroline John, Philip Hinchcliffe, Louise Jameson, John Nathan-Turner, Peter Davison, Mark Strickson, Pip & Jane Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Gary Gillatt, Gary Russell, Kevin Davies and David Jackson. Visits are made to locations from The Invasion, Mawdryn Undead, The Mark Of The Rani and Survival, and the final four interviewees talk primarily about the abortive The Dark Dimension (and show speculative Cybermen and Ice Warrior designs). Also included are clips of the silent 8mm films taken during the filming of The Smugglers, The Abominable Snowmen (two exists: only Gerald Blake's was used), The Daemons and Shada.

Releases

??/??/1995: UK VHS - Mastervision - MV1004
??/??/1996: US VHS - S&J Productions - cat# unknown (not pictured)
??/??/1996: Aus/NZ VHS - BMG Video - Unconfirmed
??/??/2000: UK VHS - Reeltime Pictures - RTP0209/10 (in two parts)
??/??/2002: UK VHS - Waterfall Home Entertainment - WHE1557
??/??/2002: UK DVD - Waterfall Home Entertainment - WHE1066
23/11/2002: UK DVD - BBV - 1
??/??/2002: US DVD - Eclectic DVD - WHES3004DVD

Original video release featured cover art to tie in with the Boxtree book, with photos of the Doctors heads surrounding the TARDIS. The 2002 releases used the same head images but a new TARDIS image. Steve Johnson created artwork for the late-2002 BBV DVD, based around artwork by Carolyn Edwards.

In 1995, DWM made available a special edition of The Doctors exclusively to its readers. This included not only the documentary, but also a presentation at the end of the 3 of the silent film reels that had been used throughout the tape - The Smugglers, The Daemons and Gerald Blake's footage of The Abominable Snowmen.

The DVD and VHS releases in 2002 by Waterfall Home Entertainment were produced without the consent of Bill Baggs (or any of the other contributors) and were unremastered - judging by the sound and picture quality it is generally assumed that they were taken from the DWM special edition from 1995, since there is VHS hiss in the background of the "silent" 8mm/12mm clips. As with the BBV DVDs, this was Region 0 PAL - a Region 0 NTSC version was also produced later in 2002 and distributed in America by Eclectic DVD (WHES3004DVD). It had an identical cover and, presumably, bonuses.

The BBV DVD release suffered a number of delays, and was eventually announced in the November issue (released October 17th) of DWM on a half-page feature in the news section. Included in this feature was an exclusive offer to get the disc for Ł13.99 (including p&p) provided cheques were sent in advance. Cheques were cashed on the anniversary week and discs finally sent out November 23rd. The feature warned that the disc would be in NTSC - Baggs' reasoning being that most of the world was NTSC compatible, whereas a PAL release would be limited to certain countries, such as the UK - a decision overturned later following a flurry of negative response on the BBV message board and fortunately the final discs were indeed PAL.

For some reason the 8mm Shada footage (from 20:55 to 21:15) was removed from the BBV DVD, although it was present on the WHE edition. The voice-over that Hinchcliffe provided was still there, but he accompanies it visually, and as soon as he finishes speaking it cuts straight into the next clip of his interview (instead of a brief music cue that was used over the Shada footage originally).

Cast & Crew

Special thanks to:
Steve Roberts
Mrs** Sally Blake
Donald Trewern
Guy Wainer
Steven Groves
Russell C Knight
Andrew Chuter
Kevin Davies*
C. E. Banks*
Caroline Batten*
Derek Webster*
Gareth Watson*
Steve Cambden*

Lyric Hammersmith*
Riverside Studios
Marvel Comics
Guinness
BAFTA*
Dominitemporal Services**

Consultant
Adrian Rigglesford
Make-up
Zoe Randall

Cameraman
Andy Bell

Music
Nicholas Briggs

Executive Producer*
Gary Schoefield*

Directed & Produced by
Bill Baggs
(C) BBV 1995

Note that the credits were re-created for the DVD release.
*Only listed in the original version, later omitted.
**Added in 2002 for the DVD version.
Note also that Baggs' credit was changed to read "Produced & Directed by" and the "BBV" under his name became italicized. Also the credits for Riverside Studios and Guinness were swapped.

Bonus Features

The Waterfall DVDs featured no bonuses except for a 12'34" presentation of the 8mm/12mm footag (missing Shada).

The remastered version did not include this bonus, but did include the following:

Philip Hinchcliffe Interview (29'26")
Although a small amount of this interview made it to the final cut, presented here was a much longer version.

Ian Hogg Interview (24'14")
A completely unused interview. Hogg first chats with Mike Tucker, then is interviewed himself.

Sylvester McCoy On Location (4'11")
McCoy talks us through the the locations used in Remembrance Of The Daleks.

More extended interview material from this documentary would appear on the first two and fifth Stranger DVDs.

Classifications

27/02/1996: Passed as 'G' by the OFLC for Aus/NZ
Never passed for the UK