The next bunch of Doctor Who titles that'll be released on DVD were announced yesterday. Before I get up a full head of rant-steam, here are the bare facts.
As we already knew, Sylvester McCoy's last story, "Survival" is out on 16 April. Before that, "The Runaway Bride" is getting released on its own on 2 April. Tom Baker's debut, "Robot" is out on 28 May. Finally, Colin Baker story "Timelash" is out on 25 June.
Now, there's one thing about this that pleases me very much: there's an old story every month. Which is great, because the "one story at a time" approach really pisses us fans off sometimes. Nice as it may be to have little featurettes and commentaries and stuff, we'd rather have season-by-season box sets of old stories, like fans of every other TV show do! Particularly since there's so much old Doctor Who that if they release one show a month, well... it'll take about another 20 years (oh alright, I can't be arsed to do the maths, pedants please correct me). Long before which DVD will be obsolete anyway, and we'll all be downloading episode of "The Ribos Operation" straight onto a chip implanted in our cerebellums or something.
Here's what annoys me.
"Timelash"? Freakin' "TIMELASH"?! One of the worst Doctor Who stories ever? Not only is "Timelash" grade A bobbins, it's the fifth story from Colin Baker's first season to come out on DVD. And the consensus is that season 22 was pretty dire. What's that all about?
Okay, okay, we know there are probably mitigating factors. We're assuming that "Timelash" will be one of the Who range's new extras-light "mid-price" releases, so if we've got to buy a crap story, at least there's the consolation that we'll be able to pick it up a bit cheaper. And, arguably, releasing shows from this period makes more sense because there's more archive stuff knocking around that you can stick on the DVD, and more contributors-still-alive who can be interviewed. Think for a bit and it makes sense.
But, turning on my emotion chip again: "Timelash"?!? Not "The Seeds of Doom"? Or "Kinda"? Or "The Silurians"? Or "The Deadly Assassin"? Or even, if they simply must release a Colin Baker story (and god knows why, there can't be much demand...) "Attack of the Cybermen"? It'll be "The Twin Dilemma" and "Time and the Rani" next... If that happens, I'm organising a protest march. Who's with me?
