It was about a year ago I last wrote on this blog about 60’s The Collection Blu-ray’s, celebrating the news that the animation was in fact continuing, despite BBC America pulling out of funding. With The Celestial Toymaker due to be released next month, it will take us over the 50% mark for number of missing episodes animated. Such an achievement. Also, with Season 15 coming out next month, we will appropriately be 15 seasons sets into The Collection, with another 11 seasons to go.
We are reaching a sort of crunch time. Assuming the next Collection set after Season 15 isn’t a 60’s season, for an even spread of box sets throughout the remainder of the range, ever other set really needs to be a black and white season.
According to The Mirror, The Smugglers was mentioned alongside The Underwater Menace for animation. Seeing as we haven’t had that yet, maybe we can assume it’s the next serial up for the treatment? This would leave 4 of the 5 remaining 60’s sets tantalisingly close to completion, missing only one serial each (Marco Polo, The Highlanders, The Wheel in Space and The Space Pirates).
There are two ways to look at it. Positively, it’s great that those seasons have the vast majority of stories completed, it makes the box set look good value for money and feels like it’s a complete enough product. Negatively, those seasons are 1 story away from being complete, and even if one serial gets animated this year, there would still have to be a gap before that set could be released.
There is no chance of an animation being exclusive to The Collection. That’s already been confirmed. It’s just not financially viable. So how long a gap could there be between a story being animated and coming out in The Collection?
We might now have an answer to this via the Whoniverse on iPlayer. When Classic Who launched on the 1st November, all the animated missing episodes (up to that point) were on there, with the exception of the then most recent serial, The Abominable Snowmen. But now there is a new webpage hidden on the BBC website listing the animated episodes for the story, attached with the date 5th March. It can’t be a co-incidence that it is exactly 18 months to the day since it came out on disc in the UK. And if the animation is on iPlayer, then I see no reason why it couldn’t also be in a Collection set.
This helps us in predicting how the scheduling could work. For example, if an animated The Wheel in Space came out on September 2024, then the earliest that Collection set (Season 5) could be released would be March 2026.
But there are now other factors to consider other than animations that didn’t exist last year. Let’s start off with the concerning one.
An Unearthly Child – rights issues?
When the Whoniverse launched on iPlayer, it was quite clear via the marketing dialogue that it wouldn’t be a complete collection of Classic Who on the platform. Considering all the negotiations the BBC had to do with the author estates, I was expecting quite a few holes in the back catalogue. Thankfully there is only one, but a glaring and important one.
I don’t want to go into depth about the estate of the author of the very first serial An Unearthly Child. It’s complex, personal and deeply sad state of affairs. In summary; the individual who ‘owns’ the estate is totally against the BBC and has decided to prevent all licencing agreements for the serial.
This decision did have quite the impact. Not only was the story missing from iPlayer, the 60th Anniversary broadcast of the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time had to be edited to remove all the An Unearthly Child content, the YouTube channel had to remove all the clips from the story plus ITVX/BritBox also had to remove the serial. Such a shame.
The one bit of good news is that the DVD is continuing to be printed, so it hasn’t stopped being made available entirely.
Can An Unearthly Child be cleared for the Season 1 The Collection Box Set? We don’t know. And I don’t think The Collection team knows yet. I’ve heard all sorts of theories and rumours. One is that the BBC was able to future proof themselves to cover any new physical media formats that may emerge, so they didn’t have to constantly keep renegotiating contracts. As streaming is something new, that wasn’t covered. (I stress this is all rumour and speculation, nothing is known yet)
What is going to happen? These I think are possible outcomes:
- The story can’t go on streaming, but the BBC can still issue it physically.
- The individual relents and agrees to a new licencing deal.
- Some work around is found that can bypass the control the individual has over the estate.
- Season 1 comes with a direct reprint of the An Unearthly Child DVD
- Season 1 comes without An Unearthly Child.
Would the BBC release Season 1 without the first story? I guess if they had to. There’s no way the other stories from the season shouldn’t be released on Blu-ray because of one uppity person who has nothing to do with it. If the story couldn’t be cleared for a new Blu-ray release, then I’d imagine the set would get saved to last to allow maximum time for the situation to change. We just have to remain hopeful.
Colourisations
A new project undertaken by the new Bad Wolf team is to colourise and re-edit 60’s Doctor Who stories to bring them to a new audience. This started with The Daleks and is an ongoing project with The War Games heavily rumoured to be next.
Whether or not The Collection will contain these new versions is unknown. This range could very well outlast the lifespan of The Collection. If they choose a Season 2 story, then that ship has already sailed. Maybe it is easier just to leave them off the box sets? It’s not like they are unavailable physically.
That said, The Collection does aim to be a complete (as possible) collection of Classic Doctor Who and makes a big effort to incorporate alternative versions of episodes. Some of the 60’s set will be lacking extra material compared to later seasons. The Daleks could be very useful for Season 1, especially if An Unearthly Child can’t be cleared as that season will need as much content as possible to try and make up for its absence. If they are available, they would be a welcome addition, but I wouldn’t hold up a season just to wait for a serial to be colourised.
The colour versions do have an additional positive for The Collection. With The Daleks, the episodes were newly restored including a brand-new scan of a recently discovered higher quality print of Episode 7 and even Mark Ayres created a very good Dolby Atmos mix. Assuming the budget for the restoration and mastering came from Bad Wolf, this will help The Collection when the time comes to free up money to spend elsewhere.
Tales of the TARDIS
Also, a part of the Whoniverse on iPlayer, made for the 60th Anniversary were six omnibus edits of Classic Doctor Who stories, linked by new emotionally driven scenes set onboard a memory TARDIS. These include The Time Meddler (with Maureen O’Brien and Peter Purves as Steven and Vicki), The Mind Robber (with Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury as Jamie and Zoe), The Three Doctors (with Katy Manning and Daniel Anthony as Jo and Clyde from The Sarah Jane Adventures), Earthshock (with Peter Davision and Janet Fielding as The Fifth Doctor and Tegan), Vengeance on Varos (with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant as The Sixth Doctor and Peri) plus The Curse of Fenric (with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred as The Seventh Doctor and Ace).
All of these stories with the exception of The Mind Robber have had their The Collection release. Therefore, I would be leaning towards not including The Mind Robber on Season 6 for consistency, although unlike the colourisation, there are no signs of a physical media release coming. It could be that they are waiting for The Mind Robber to be restored so that the whole project can come out in HD or that there are plans to do more (or at least give Tom Baker an episode). We will have to wait and see.
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The new Bad Wolf content is only a positive thing for The Collection and the show regardless of what happens. It does feel like a big hole in my Collection that the Second Doctor has not had a box set yet and that hole is looking bigger and bigger as more seasons are released. But I do have faith that those in-charge will make the right decisions as to when something should be released. And there’s still 6 seasons that can be released where they don’t even have to worry about any of this.
