List of BBC VHS releases

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Revision as of 06:03, 3 March 2007 by Gallicus (talk | contribs) (→‎1988)

BBC Video, a division of BBC Enterprises (rebranded BBC Worldwide in 1997), was tasked with releasing Doctor Who onto home video cassette. Fans attending the 1983 Longleat convention were polled to determine the first title to be released. The Tomb of the Cybermen topped the poll but, as that story would not be recovered till 1992 and was thus missing at that point, BBC Video elected to release another Cybermen adventure instead. The choice was Revenge of the Cybermen and was released towards the end of the same year.

While The Five Doctors had an artwork cover, the releases up to and including 1989 were primarily photographic in nature. During the eighties the stories released were also edited into a movie-length format (with other occasional cuts), something that prompted complaints from fans. Until the late nineties the early William Hartnell stories would also be edited to remove the 'Next Episode' captions that led into the next story, and Carnival of Monsters was accidentally released with the 1981 edit instead of the unedited 1973 version and the episodic version of Death to the Daleks released in 1995 contained edits.

While the releases would come to an eventual end twenty years later in 2003, the series was already being released on DVD, by BBC DVD, from 1999 onwards.

Timeline of releases

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

Shada was released in a double cassette box, a script book for the story filling the the space for a second tape, with linking narration from Tom Baker.

1993

The Dæmons, Terror of the Autons, and Doctor Who and the Silurians were all releases making use of new technology to combine off-air NTSC home recorded copies of the stories with the black & white 16mm film recordings held by the BBC. Silver Nemesis was packaged slightly differently from the rest of the usual range and reatured and American documentary on the making of that story. The Invasion featured linking material from Nicholas Courtney to cover the missing episodes 1 and 4.

1994

More than 30 Years in the TARDIS was a new 90 minute edit of the documentary 30 Years in the TARDIS which had aired on the BBC in November 1993.

1995

The Key to Time releases of April, May, and June featured artwork on the spine of the video cases (by Andrew Skilleter). Starting Carnival of Monsters, the releases each came with a postcard with the video cover art on the front that could be put into the album that came with the combined [[The King's Demons]]/The Five Doctors Special Edition set. These would end with The Hand of Fear in 1996.

1996

The video range was suspended in February due to the imminent release of the Fox telemovie. This resulted in many back titles being deleted, including the release of The Hand of Fear which made this particular title most sought after. When the range returned in October it had adopted the new logo from the telemovie, although a consistent template would not be established till 1997.

1997

The March release of The Awakening/Frontios marked the end of painted artwork covers for the range.

1998

The Ice Warriors release came with a CD for the soundtrack of the missing episodes 2 and 3.

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

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