That loud whoop of “Hallelujah!” you heard was our news director finding out that at long last, a commercial release of the 1996 “Doctor Who” telemovie is coming to DVD in North America.
Originally aired on FOX as a potential back-door pilot to an American continuation of the show, the movie only aired once on the FOX network but has been rebroadcast for years on SyFy. However, due to the restrictions, the movie has not been commercially released in the United States. (It came down to FOX’s right to rebroadcast the film before it was commercially released…something that has yet to happen).
Distributor 2|Entertain has negotiated for the rights to release the movie in North America. The telemovie was one of the first DVDs in the “Doctor Who” range released in the UK. The movie is being re-released as a deluxe, two-disc edition in the “Revisitations” box set that hits UK retailers later this year. (Also included in the set are re-releases and upgrades of “Caves of Androzani” and “Talons of Weng-Chiang.”) No word yet on if the U.S. edition will be this set or the original, fairly bare-bones release from the UK.
2|Entertain says the film will be released stateside sometime in the next 12 months, meaning that our news director may finally get to retire his off-air VHS copy.
Finally, I’ll have seen all 11 Doctors in actions. McGann is the only one left.
I’ve had the UK version of this tele movie on DVD (I have a multi-region/multi-format player) so it will be interesting to see how it compares to the upcoming US version.
About time
I love McGann as the eighth Doctor, and his TARDIS interior is gorgeous. In keeping with the classic series feel, much of the supporting cast is laughable (see: the street gang, Roberts), but I still find myself rewatching it every so often.
You know, having seen the original broadcast, I don’t know how to feel about this.
Glad that they are finally going to release it for the US market. I know that a DVD existed for region 2 and was hoping that they would release a version for region 1. I remember watching it when it was broadcast on Fox and hopefully the DVD will have some nice extras.
I’m glad for the DVD release, but I’m glad Fox didn’t get a real chance to screw up Doctor Who forever. I say this even as an American that loves the show…it needs to stay in the UK as does Torchwood. American commercialized television would kill either show.