JM1

For those of you who will be buying the Dr Who new series R2 box set, just a few things you should be aware of.

First the box itself - conversely to the real Tardis, this looks very impressive from the outside, but less so whan you open it up. Unfortunately there is a lot of loose space in side the box, the discs are not housed firmly together as would be the norm. When I opened mine, one of the plastic slats that houses the disc was completely loose, and I had to manually stick it back in place. Then I seemed to be missing disc 2, and after a while realised that the plastic housing of disc 2 had stuck to disc 1, so had to pull it off and reseat it in the box. And I have noticed that in the week or so since I bought it, the flap on the outside of the box that folds over to close the box appears to be coming loose.

Bear in mind I bought this from a shop (in the UK) so it had not come through the post - I dread to think what state the ones being posted (especially overseas) are going to be like. It looks ok when opened up, but far too much loose space means the discs and holders can some loose and that's not good news.

And it gets worse.

In addition to the apalling packaging there now appears to be an authoring problem on disc 2 of the set.

During the episode World War 3, when you play the episodes separately rather than the play all option, on chapter 4 at 14.12 just as the Doctor says "sorry" to the dead guy, it's skips a whole chapter and moves on to a scene in Rose' mothers flat. The missing chapter is about 2 mins 11, and it's where The Doctor, Rose and the MP discuss the Slitheens intentions and motivations.

However...you can see the scene if you select the play all option, it's chapter 19.

And the icing on the cake - the Dr Who confidential episodes on the bonus disc are "cutdowns", edited from the original ones which showed on BBC3 earlier in the year. I believe the original ones ran about 35 mins, these run an average of about 10-12 mins. This is certainly not marked anywhere on the box, and I don't remember reading about this in the press release or pre-publicity.

But there is good news. I was really blown away by the quality pic and audio. The 5.1 sound is mightily impressive, I had to keep turning it down during action sequences and explosions etc. Very good for a TV series.

Despite the loss of the Confidential material, there does seem to be an extensive amount of extras on all of the discs, including interviews, effects pieces, building the Tardis features, Alien makeup, location filming pieces and also commentaries on all episodes. .

Having watched it through, with the exception of the silly Slitheen episodes I thoroughly enjoyed it again, and cannot wait for the next series to start.

DVDude!

Thank you for the comments about the set. I, for one, have been VERY interested in the set, but the price has put me on the fence--especially since I've only seen two episodes. (I generally try not to download stuff that's on DVD, but since it's not available in the US I had no other option except to buy it blind.)

The pre-publicity info that I read did say that the Confidential episodes would be the "cut down" versions. If not for that, I would have bought the set already.

As for the issue with the episode skipping a chapter (unless "Play All" is used), Outpost Gallifrey stated on 22 November, "There is word that the BBC will be replacing the faulty discs; details are forthcoming!"

I've devoted countless hours reading stuff about the new Doctor Who that simply buying the set would probably have made more sense. I could have simply watched the episodes instead of reading about them! However, I'm frugal.

There's always an option of waiting to see what the Canadian box set looks like and at what price it will be offered. Of course, that means that I'll have to wait--until 14 February 2006. I may simply risk having it shipped. I can always glue the panels back on and if scratched discs play I'm okay with the scratches.

Thanks again!

JM1

Actually the cost issue is something else, this is a very expensive set. The full retail price here in the UK is 69.99 pounds, and the the cheapest I have seen it online is about 55 pounds.

That's a lot of money for a 13 episode series - they generally average around 35 - 40 pounds, maybe up to 50 for something like a 10-24 episode series. And I cannot help feeling we are paying more for the somewhat dodgy packaging.

But then this is BBC we are talking about here, and their DVD releasing policies are not the greatest. Some years back when they released Fawlty Towers on DVD they had the bright idea of removing the original soundtrack on the commentary tracks, so that you heard nothing but the commentary. Brainless.

nemein

Amazon UK had it for 45 on preorder, it's 50 now though. Still too rich for my blood.

EDIT: Seems AmazonUK does the same variable pricing that Amazon does... right now it's coming up as 43 for me. Again still too much for me, esp w/the problems given above.

Josh Z

Is that before or after VAT? Amazon UK deducts VAT from the site's listed prices for people ordering from outside the UK.

nemein

Beats me... I guess someone in the UK will have to get a listing on it to check.

DVDude!

The price shown on Amazon includes VAT. It comes to £39.67 with shipping to the US.

If Outpost Gallifrey is correct and the Beeb will be replacing the faulty discs, I wonder if that will also apply to people in the States? Some companies frown on bypassing region restrictions apparently.

DVDude!

As posted on TVShowsonDVD. I'm curious to know the exact specs and whether or not the packaging will be improved. If it's exactly the same, the price is comparable, so I'll go ahead and buy the R2 so I can have it NOW.