"If we fight like animals, we die like animals!"

TV Details have been announced for the fourth quarter Doctor Who blu-ray release and it's to be season 26, Sylvester McCoy's finale and the franchise's last television gasp before it headed into a television coma for a while.

Here's the all important pre-order page on Amazon, the link to which I've remembered to add an affiliate code to for once.  Here it is again.

Here's a tablet friendly picture of the box which you can also click on:



Isn't modern technology great?  Yesterday I sent a copy of our phone bill to the printer from a Kindle Fire while I was sat on the toilet.  Cuh.

The gubbins:

Rare Restored Extended Cuts
• The Curse Of Fenric VHS Extended Version
• The Curse Of Fenric DVD Special Edition
• Battlefield VHS Extended Version
• Battlefield DVD Special Edition

5.1 surround sound & isolated scores
• On all 14 broadcast episodes, plus 5.1 sound on all extended versions of The Curse Of Fenric and Battlefield.

Behind the Sofa
• New episodes with Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, plus companions Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Anneke Wills and Jodie-Whittaker-era writers Pete McTighe & Joy Wilkinson.

Showman - the Life of John Nathan-Turner
• A feature-length look at the life and career of Doctor Who’s longest-serving producer, who fought to keep the programme on-air during the 1980s. Contributors include Peter Davison and Colin Baker.

Making ‘The Curse of Fenric’
• A brand new documentary featuring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Tomek Bork, Nicholas Parsons, Cory Pulman, Marek Anton, Ian Briggs, Andrew Cartmel, Mark Ayres and Ian Collins featuring unseen behind-the-scenes footage and photographs.

In Conversation
• Matthew Sweet chats to companion Sophie Aldred.

The Writers’ Room
• Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt, Ian Briggs, Rona Munro and Andrew Cartmel discuss their work on Season 26.

Becoming The Destroyer
• Actor Marek Anton and prosthetics designer Stephen Mansfield recall the creation of one of Doctor Who’s best ever monsters.

Blu-Ray trailer
• Sophie Aldred back in character as Ace.

Brand new Ghost Light extended workprint
Unseen studio footage
Rare archive treats
Convention footage
HD photo galleries
Scripts, costume designs, rare BBC production files
and other gems from our PDF archive

And lots more!

It's curious that the "brand new" Ghost Light extended workprint isn't listed with the other extended cuts. Perhaps it's due to it being unrestored? Has a timestamp on it like the original deleted scenes on the dvd release?

 Either way, we now know how the producers of these treasure troves will be bulking out four story seasons so that they boxes match the others on the shelves and justify people buying these stories over again. This thing is across seven discs.

Curiously, half the boxsets released so far have been the final seasons for Doctors.  It would make sense if that was also the case for Troughton.  It's the most complete of his seasons, with the missing episodes of The Invasion adequately animated.

Lawk knows what they'll do about The Space Pirates; John Cura left us before the story went out so there aren't any telesnaps and precious few production stills to work from (which makes animating them difficult too due to the paucity of reference images).

My guess is that they'll have a go with what they have.  The narrated audio soundtrack with production stills and the fragments or screenshots from fragments when necessary.  The film trims of the spaceships shots should look spectacular on bluray.

Anyway, Season 26 is due for release on Christmas Eve Eve which given that every boxset has been pushed back from its original release date so far seems incredibly ambitious.  So I won't be expecting it for Christmas.  January probably.  All together now ...