Online Doctor Who Documentary

mikey writes "There's an online documentary called Planet of the Doctor about the influence of Doctor Who. It's put out by the CBC and it's got some decent interviews with original producers, writers, and cast as well as fans and others. So far, it's been very entertaining and informative. They've got four episodes out with another couple to come. If you're a Doctor Who fan (or even a generic Sci-Fi fan) it's worth checking out."

Comments

Another Doctor Who documentary to check out

[Black Art]

Another documentary to check out is Doctor Who Confidential broadcast by BBC 3. It is a 13 part half-hour documentary series on the Doctor, past and present. It can be viewed on the BBC web site in Real Movie format or can be found on various file sharing networks in a larger and more viewable format.

So far I have seen nothing from the BBC on releasing the series on DVD. I hope they will. It has been quite good so far. (At this date, 11 of the 13 episodes have aired.)

Re:Another Doctor Who documentary to check out

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, they are all being released immediately. In fact, the first half of the season has already been released.

In the US, no luck so far besides BitTorrent.

I don't like violating the copyright on most TV series, but I feel that Doctor Who is special - the BBC deliberately destroyed most of the older episodes to make room in their archives, and most of that content only exists now because people violated their copyright or otherwise illegitimately acquired the film. The BBC actually had to go out and hunt illegitimate copies down in order to make the DVDs that they're now selling.

Kinda ironic, doncha think?

Re:Another Doctor Who documentary to check out

[stx23]

I do believe the original poster was talking about the Dr Who Confidential series, which isn't out on DVD so far, and doesn't seem scheduled for release at any time soon.

Re:Another Doctor Who documentary to check out

[Black Art]

The new season of Doctor Who is starting to come out on DVD in the UK. Doctor Who Confidential is not.

Amazon.co.uk will ship to the US. Due to the crashing value of the dollar, it is pretty expensive. (I have spend a lot of money buying region 2 dvds from them.)

You need to have a player that can disable region codes, as well as play PAL format. The Coby DVD-224 is my current favorite. It will play RCE discs on the region free setting without intervention. Some versions can also disable Macrovision. All available through a "secret" menu. Plays everything I have tried on it. Costs about $40 on sale. Lacks video passthru, but has pretty much everything else.

Re:Another Doctor Who documentary to check out

[nagora]

The dollar may be "crashing", but it hasn't shifted much that I've noticed against the pound in the last 12 months.

You've not been paying attention, then. I've spent (and saved) a lot of money on buying things from the US that I would not have been able to afford except the dollar was down to about 60p; even with postage, it's been worth it. The dollar has pulled back a bit now, but we were very close to £1=$2 for a while.

TWW

Re:Anyone got a torrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Demonoid, it has several metric tonnes of Doctor Who, old and new.

Check out the TV Tome Episode Guide for the First 26 seasons and the movie and the 27th season to know what you're getting... recent episodes will probably be easier to stomach, older ones (back to 1963!) are very poor duplications of black and white episodes.

Starting with the newest season, the 27th, is a good idea since the show has been on hiatus for about 15 years and the new ones don't assume any background knowledge.

Re:This documentary brought to you by Volkswagen

[zakezuke]

It has shown us that special effects ought to be well done instead of looking like a 2nd grade art contest.

Keep in mind it was slated to be a kid's show and was part of the kids department till 1989. In fact, I know I watched a documentary where in the 60s they had a contest who could create the most scarry monster. Strangely enough the results of turning over the design department to a bunch of 2nd grade students worked rather well and I, a Doctor Who fan, wouldn't have noticed the difference.

Download links

[wormeyman]

http://www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/videos/planeto fthedoctor_partone.mov http://www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/videos/planeto fthedoctor_parttwo.mov http://www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/videos/planeto fthedoctor_9doctors.mov http://www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/videos/planeto fthedoctor_partthree.mov http://www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/videos/planeto fthedoctor_partfour.mov Enjoy i'm sure a torrent would be a good idea.

IGNORE PARENT

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctor Who Confidential cannot be released on DVD: too much unclearable music in the montages. THIS IS IN THEIR FAQ.

The BBC never deliberately trashed the archives in 1974: they thought there were copies at another site.

None of the DVDs in release (old or classic series) are from off-air broadcasts (except some easter eggs).

Re:IGNORE PARENT

[koogydelbbog]

> The BBC never deliberately trashed the archives in 1974: they thought there were copies at another site.

i think he's talking about the fact that they used to re-use the (expensive at the time) tapes for other, "more important" things like football matches and horse races. the first series of Quatermass went the same way.

ah, would appear that you're both right:
http://www.answers.com/topic/dr-who#wp-Missing_epi sodes

it's a shame either way.

Re:IGNORE PARENT

[jd]

The person who did the trashing (forget her name - she wasn't a memorable person anyway) didn't have permission to do the trashing, trashed episodes without checking to see what was being trashed (only B/W stories were on the list, but color stories were destroyed by "mistake" as well), and there is no evidence that they believed the stories kept elsewhere. The evidence to date suggests that they were clearing space because their main site had been declared a fire hazard, and B/W stories were deemed of no value.

(Which is why "select" stories were kept. If they had truly believed they were only eliminating redundancy, they would have eliminated it all. The evidence is that they kept stories of "special significance", indicating damn well that they knew no such archives existed elsewhere.)

direct download links

[bani]

direct download links for convenience.

windows media:
part one
part two
part three
part four

apple quicktime:
part one
part two
part three
part four

and a pig pile of doggie poo on /.'s lameness filters.

Re:BBC Dr Who

[jd]

A very rough guide to the different generations of Doctor Who, and the sorts of people who might find them appealing:

• William Hartnell - The "Original" Doctor!
  • His era was primarily intended to be educational. Someone else on Slashdot noted the lack of humor - well, this is humorless and intended to be that way. It'd deadly serious stuff, and usually on deadly serious subjects. Stories include:
  • Massacres in Revolutionary France
  • Stone-age tribes on the edge of starvation
  • An Aztec coup
  • The destruction of Rome at the hands of Nero
  • Dalek attempt to nuke the Thaals
  • Dalek attempt to hollow out Earth as a spaceship
  • Dalek attempt to use time disruptor to conquer galaxy
  • Dalek attempt to conquer time as well as space
  • Cybermen attempt to conquer Earth
  • Human colonists nearly get wiped out by disease they'd lost immunity to
  • Murderer wipes out alien civilization to cover tracks
  • Major civil war on planet controlled by insects
  • The destruction of Troy and the massacre of nearly everyone inside
• In general, this is great for fans who like "historical fantasy" (what would have happened, if...) and was actually used to teach history and scientific methods to younger students.

Patrick Troughton - the First Regeneration

• After William Hartnell became too ill to continue, they needed to either replace him or scrap the series. It was too popular to scrap, but he was too dominant and too unique to simply replace. So began the most creative plot device of all history... He injected humor into the series, was generally much lighter than Hartnell, and that had an appeal that made a big difference. It still had a lot of history and science, but was much more edutainment than either education OR entertainment, in the classic sense.
  • The Highlanders - Classic historical story, sadly lost (apart from the script and the soundtrack) but included gems such as Troughton pretending to be a medical doctor, bashing one guy's head on a table repeatedly and "diagnosing" the headache as a serious illness, the cure to which was to be locked in a closet.
  • Evil of The Daleks (at least one episode still exists, along with the soundtrack) - almost half was set in Victorian England and was extremely well-done period drama. With the addition of psychotic pepperpots. Mostly a story of greed, on the part of a Victorian alchemist who wanted the secret of transmutation, and on the part of the Daleks, who wanted the secret of how to eliminate fallibility. Ends up with a civil war on Skaro, between super-evil Daleks and "humanized" Daleks.
  • A race of super-pacifists is enslaved by mass-murdering Dominators...
  • Krutons - oops, Krotons - subjugate another planet by means of Weapons of Mass Destruction, periodic butchering of the more intelligent residents, and the prohibition of science. Now we know what President Bush has been watching...
  • One group decides to create a super-army, by creating a gigantic battlefield of easily brainwashed primitives from Earth...
  • The Mind Robber - Probably the very best of the lighter stories. A superb blend of folk stories, psychology and futuristic virtual reality, long before Star Trek's "Holodeck"...
  • The Invasion - Brilliant, but only partially complete and some of the recordings are in poor shape. A tale of high treason, an International spy ring, Cybermen and a female mathematician faster than Britain's (real-life) Carol Vordeman.
  • The Ice Warrior stories are darkly political, but have their light moments and plenty of unexpected twists.
  • Dystopia meets humor can also be found in The Macra Terror (only audio and a little video exists, sadly)
• Great for those who like humor, but also want some fairly meaty

Re:BBC Dr Who

[fartymenams]

Actually, if you want to hear what a good Doctor Colin Baker could have been (given better scripts and none of the "Trial of a Time Lord" BS), listen to pretty much any of the audio plays that Big Finish has done. His performances are really good.

I've only listened to a couple of the Peter Davison ones, but "Spare Parts" is amazing.

Re:I've never seen Dr. Who

[zakezuke]

Given that the UK tax payer funds the program I'm reasonably sure it isn't as commercialised as whatever you have in America.

Sigh...

Doctor Who as well as other material from the BBC is typicaly carried on PBS (public broadcast system). A "private, non-profit media enterprise owned noncommercial television network". It is publicly and privatly funded, and is reasonably commercial free. In the past a corporate sponcership might result in a brief little blip noting their contribution. "This program is brought to you in part by The Acme Corporation makers of widgets. And by viewers like you." These days watching the Yankee Workshop you get a slightly longer commercial spot preceeding the show followed by the commercial free program. I can forgive them for showing an advert for power tools before a wood working program, but they couldn't forgive Bob Vila for promoting Sears Craftsmen tools. It's mostly educational, but a good deal of time is dedicated to arts and entertainment including drama and foreign programing.

PBS operates via donations rather than a mandatory tax. Further you can pledge genericaly, money for specific shows any time, or wait for pledge drive and get a spiffy gift which might be a copy of the program on VHS/DVD/CD.

In other words, for material on PBS, we not only pay for the program just like you, we choose to pay for the program. And we see the program from beginning to end without breaks.

http://www.pbs.org/aboutpbs/

Currently Doctor Who in N. America is carried only by CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. CBC is commercial television and isn't seen by most of America. It is common for those living near the border to be able to receive it, and some American cable networks carry it. But for the most part, America is currently Wholess commercial or otherwise.