Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Dazzler]

It looks as if it will take them years just to do season boxsets, so I'm wondering how many people prefer the individual volumes they're releasing at the moment. I don't mind so much, but as I want to collect all the Dr Who DVDs eventually, the single cases will take up so much space on my DVD shelf. I think the volumes are great for getting a single story arc you liked. I prefer season boxsets for all my DVDs, but I don't want to wait forever for them to release them all. There are just too many good stories I want to see on DVD!

[Beatly]

If they were just starting to release the series now, I'd prefer it to be season box-sets, as that's what every other TV series gets, and also because 26 years' worth of series is a lot of series. But then, of course, they'd have to release them chronologically, starting with William Hartnell's first. Even if they were to do a few volumes a year, it would still take quite a while to get all the way up to season 26. And then, of course, huge swathes of Hartnell and Troughton are missing, and some Pertwee episodes are in a poor way - black and white, poor quality. Restoring a whole season so that they're all of the same quality would take a lot of money and even more time added to the release schedule. The forthcoming release of The Invasion shows us what they'd be able to do for the missing episodes, but some seasons would end up being rather scattershot: half (or more) of it animated. And then to top that, after a few years of steady season box-set releases, they squeeze out the 26th (much smaller than the 1st) - and then where are we? No more classic Doctor Who releases, ever! Unless, of course, they were to do what the Star Trek people have done: Picard box-set, Borg box-set, etc.

But as it is, we already have thirty-something stories out on individual DVDs from right across the board, including the first and the penultimate, with the final often rumoured to be "soon", and also a lot of the classics and favourites from all eras. Much better, methinks, to continue as it is. The annual themed box-set is good, too, though, although the possibilities for such themed sets are rather limited - that's a fan-favourite dream list that has been tackled far too often for me to start here again, but after the Key to Time and Trial of a Time Lord seasons, there's not a great deal left.

2|entertain and the BBC recently announced an increase in the release rate, anyway - from six stories a year up to five stories PLUS an annual box-set containing at least three stories PLUS a few (at least one, maybe more) slim-line releases peppered through the year. Just a few more years to go then we'll have run out of the new releases and they'll probably start offering us themed releases: "best of the goodbyes", "favourite Dalek moments", "fan-favourite low-cut tops" and so on. Hurrah!

[charlie]

I don't care either way. Really all I want are all the stories I want to be released quickly. But I guess that could be quite costly to the people who want them all. So I guess the individuals would be best for me so I didn't haveto buy all the ones I'm not interested in.

[Seamus]

I prefer to get a boxed set for each season as they become available.

[SharazJek]

No definately not season boxsets.

Although I don't mind the themed sets that have been released thus far.