North American Doctor Who fans got a mondo-enormo-sized bit of news on Wednesday regarding an upcoming DVD release. Â In an exclusive interview with David and Marty Hooie of the spectacular Hoo On Who podcast, Daniel Hall of 2 Entertain, the folks behind many BBC DVDs, among them the fantastic line of classic Who, broke the news that the distributor finally reached an agreement to allow the 1996 TV Movie to be available on Region 1 for the first time ever!
The 1996 TV movie is the lone screen outing by 8th Doctor, Paul McGann. Â The movie was co-produced by the BBC, Universal Television, and Fox with Universal retaining the North American home video rights. Â It was long believed that Universal didn’t care enough about the property, or didn’t think it would yield much money, and as such we’d never get to see the movie in the U.S. or Canada anywhere but on bootleg or YouTube, which I suppose is also a bootleg. Â But Mr. Hall’s announcement yesterday means sometime in the next year, R1 fans will get not only the movie, but the super deluxe special edition that will be released in the UK later this year.
The DVD will feature a number of excellent documentaries about the making of the movie and the adventures the 8th Doctor took in comic strip and audio form in the interim until the new series began. Â I’m most excited for an all new commentary recorded by McGann and 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy, whose regeneration is depicted within. Â The DVD should be out sometime in the next 12 months and I’m as excited as a little girl.
You’re welcome.
-Kanderson
Image:Â BBC, Universal Television, and Fox
Thank you oh great ones. as a doctor who fan, it’s been a sad note that my home video collection might never be complete, Region free players and Region 2 copies aside it’s more meaning to have a Native region copy I take around to share with friends with out having to lug around a player.
I remember watching this when it first aired on tv and being extremely disappointed. Sometimes I wonder why a show wasn’t given a second chance to find it’s audience, but I can see why the movie failed . Everything Mark said is true.
Mixed feelings on this news. I’m happy for the those that do want this one on dvd, but at the same time disappointed, because I figure it will delay another classic Who story on dvd (which is slow enough already)
@ Mark Hewitt
Not saying that all the things you mentioned aren’t true. I watched the TV movie a few months ago in pieces on YouTube and I didn’t like it terribly much, but it’s a huge piece of Doctor Who history that I’m glad to have the option to own. I’ll probably only watch the film on its own once, but there are hours and hours of extras and a sweet commentary to keep me entertained time and time again.
Well, hope you guys enjoy it and I don’t wanna spoil the anticipation but there’s a REASON the damn thing’s forgotten – they broke the entire Dr Who setting, erased decades of backstory, rewrote at will (including doing things like putting the legendary power source of the Doctor’s home planet *in the TARDIS* for no apparent reason) and ended up with a chaotic, hollywoodized piece of crap that most Who fans try to pretend never happened.
Okay yeah, that was a bit negative. ^_^
I wasn’t old enough to see it the first time around, but as a huge Who fan it obviously has quite a reputation. But seeing as it’s been available in the UK for several years it would be possible for die-hards to get the Region 2 DVD and use a region free DVD player (But most if not all region coded DVD players can become region free by inputing a DVD player specific code easily found on the glorious internet).
Wow; I had long since given up on seeing this–short of moving to Great Britain!
Those of us who still did not have access to uninterrupted FOX Network signals even in the late ’90’s missed something even more special than Futurama, The Lone Gunmen, etc.! I had never even heard that this Dr. Who had been shown to the lucky masses living in major broadcast markets here in the U. S….
Now, all I have to do is find a better-paying job so I can buy DVD’s!
Yay!!!! *does a happy dance* been looking for this for a couple of years.
Thanks for the mention! Needless to say we are all thrilled at the news!
Damn that took long enough. For something that aired on American TV (not cable) I’m surprised the US market was the last to get it on DVD.
this is such fantastic news. i’m very excited for the commentary as well.
Good. I can finally get rid of the VHS copy I have when I taped it off FOX back in 1996.
I’d love to see McGann show up on the current series somehow.