I’ve told this story a few times in a few places, but I thought I’d get it down in blog form so that I don’t have to keep typing it over and over and just link people to it instead.  It’s about the Blu-Ray sets that have been released for Doctor Who over the last few years.  They’ve been systematically releasing  all the seasons from the classic era of the show (1963-1989) that way.  There’s 26 seasons produced during that time.  As I write this in Dec 2024, the 7th season (from 1970) was just announced.   That’s the 17th in the range.  That leaves just nine more to be released to complete the range (10 if you believe the rumors of an extra one to cover errata and other materials).  I’ve got them all, because that’s the kind of fan I am.  The index picture for this post shows all of my Doctor Who physical media. I’m as they say a bit of a nutter when it comes to Doctor Who. But what I want to write about today is the packaging for said sets.

Before I get started, I want to address something.  Most of this post is me being pedantic about stuff.  I realize none of this is important in the grand scheme of things, but fans tend to have opinions about stuff.  Given it’s my money I’m spending on these sets, I feel I should be allowed my opinions on what I’m laying out money for.  ;)  Having said that…

The series started back in 2018 with Series 12 – the first season with Tom Baker.  At this time at the start of the series, they were released world wide simultaneously.  In North America and UK/World they’d hav the same date, so I didn’t think much of it as it was th first one and bought the US domestic copy.  I discovered right from the start they were different.  The UK market got these “Limited Edition” packaging sets which were much larger than the version released in the US.  The US was what I personally call a “fat standard Blu-Ray”.  Given they had 6 or 7 discs in there, they needed a wider case, but the base packaging was still similar to a standard Blu-Ray set.  The European thing was much different.   I didn’t care about that a TON because I was just excited to get the set.  But one thing that bugged me was the US version was called “Tom Baker Complete Season One” vs the UK version which said “Doctor Who the Collection – Season 12”.  I never found out  why the US market got a goofy name for what it really was – Season 12 of Doctor Who.   The content on the discs was the same as the UK version, that was un changed which is ultimately why I didn’t just import the UK version, while it bugged me, I cared more about what was ON the discs vs what was on the packaging.

One other fun thing.  To celebrate the release of the Blu-Ray set, they put Genesis of the Daleks in cinemas.  It wasn’t the full story, it was a cut down omnibus version (which is also on the Blu-Ray set), but it was super cool seeing Doctor Who in the big screen like that.  It had a bunch of ads for the upcoming set, which was fine. That’s what the viewing was for anyway.  But I loved seeing that.  They repeated this for the next two releases too, but they US cinema screenings stopped after that.  I was bummed as I enjoyed setting stories that I knew like that on the big screen.

So, some time passed, and two more sets were released.  Seasons 18 & 19.  That’s Tom Baker Complete Season Seven & Peter Davison Complete Season One for us in the United States.  I bought those too.  Was enjoying the sets a lot.  Although there was one thing they did on the first one that was never replicated.  You see in the limited edition (aka UK) version, they had a nice printed booklet which was not in the US version.  The US version had a small printed piece of paper showing you disc contents.  The UK version had a very nice large booklet which also had stories, production notes and a cool art.  For the first season only, they put a PDF of that UK booklet on the US set, so I was quite content with the US sets at that time given the booklet was the only thing I thought I would miss from the UK sets.  But from the second set onwards, that PDF was removed from the on disc content.  That bummed me out and honestly made me feel like the US versions were “second class citizens” because we weren’t getting all the content the UK side got.  That wasn’t going to stop me from buying them, but soured me a bit on the US versions (which I already was bummed out about due to the “Tom Baker Complete Season Seven” stuff.

So that brings us to the fourth overall set – Season 10 (or as the US was calling it, “Jon Pertwee Complete Season Four”.  This was the big turning point for me, because starting with this set and every subsequent set since then, they were not a concurrent release anymore.  The US version was something like four or five months behind the UK version.  There was NO WAY I was going to put up with that, so for the first time I imported the limited edition from the UK because I would not want to wait months to get the US domestic version while everywhere else already had it.  That’s Capt impatient for you there.  So I did.  The packaging for the UK Limited editions is quite nice, but it’s also quite large.  It looked kind of odd to have one like that and three of the other ones, but I more cared about getting the content faster than the US domestic side would at this point, so I imported the LE’s from this point forward (and still do to this day).  While it’s a pedantic move, I really loved the fact it said “Season 10” vs “Jon Pertwee Season Four”.  I would have preferred the smaller footprint of the US version on my shelf, but getting the content faster was paramount here, so I put up with it.  Having said that, there is some super nice artwork in the LE version as well as the really nice booklet which I hadn’t seen before (just a PDF of for Season 12).

A couple more seasons came out (23 & 26), and nothing changed, so it appeared this was going to be the way forward.  It was around this point that I found out that the LE sets only had limited print runs, because I did look into buying the three US sets as UK LE’s so everything would match, but that wasn’t a possibility unless I wanted to spend HIDEOUSLY large amounts of money because of them being out of print.  So I figured I was stuck.  However after Seasons 23 & 26 came out I read somewhere that they were reprinting Season 12’s limited edition, so I jumped on that as it was regular pricing, not third party aftermarket pricing.  I later found out that was done because Season 12’s original print run was half of what every other season has been, so it was more a “makeup” thing to bring it in line with the others.  This has held up as none of the other LE sets have ever been reprinted since this one. So at this point I’m now committed to the LE set importing from England and have ever since.  That’s because they never reverted the delay between US and UK release dates.  If anything it’s gotten worse.  Season 25 has been out since Oct 2024, and it’s not coming out in US domestic until sometime in 2025, so that’s not going anywhere.

However, in May of 2021 I found out about a new concept they were doing in the UK – “Standard Editions”.  Cosmetically they looked a lot like the US versions, except…  They had the booklet from the UK LE’s and they had “Season 18, 19, etc” vs the US “Tom Baker Complete Season..” stuff.  This was what I wanted from the start, and is the entire reason I’m writing.   I really wish they had started with what exists now as “Standard Editions”.   I would have bought them all this way.  The only thing you really miss from the LE’s here is some of the artwork in the larger LE box, but in terms of content (what’s ON the discs and the booklet) – that’s all here.  They did end up releasing Season 18 & 19 in this format, so I replaced my US copies of those with the UK Standard Editions.  Given I had already replaced the original US Season 12 with a LE package, this means that all of the original three US purchases have been replaced.  This finally purged all the “Tom Baker Complete Season Seven” nonsense from my collection.  I sold off those three US sets on Ebay and used the money to fund whatever was the next LE was (I’ve forgotten which one that was now).

So going forward I kept on doing the limited editions, mostly out of habit at this point.  I really REALLY wish they would have done the UK Standard Editions from the start.  That’s my preferred format for all this.  Despite the nice art in the LE’s, I prefer the SE’s due to their reduced size and the fact that the disc content is identical and the booklet is there too (albeit slightly smaller due to the physical differences of the sets).   As I said earlier, the newly announced Season 7 set due for release in early 2025 will be the 17th overall.  I have all the 16 releases to this point.  14 of them are limited edition sets, and two are standard editions.  I’m not changing that pattern with just 9 more to go.

I just wish the standard editions were the ONLY edition, and they were available world wide with no regional delays with release dates.

Thus ends my rant on Doctor Who physical media formats.

P.S. Three years ago I watched a discussion video on Youtube about the differences between standard edition vs limited edition Doctor Who Blu-Ray releases.  It was the first time I considered really that the standard editions might be preferable over the limited editions. Most of what I said above about all this subject derived from watching this specific YouTube video and have what it says permeate my thoughts on the matter over the last few years.  Thought I should include it on the off chance y’all would like to watch it.