The Keys of Marinus DVD - and it's got blood on it!

[shada pavlova]

If only they'd cut the fluffs, Doctor Who would still be on TV today. It's so sad.

Um...

Er...

[Dave Tudor]

Oh do stop buggering me, young man!

[Wayne]

Not watched this in ages, but i quite like it, & will be buying.

[Larry]

Galaxy 4 has this on pre order for Released 21 September

[Wayne]

Yay!
(Not that i'll be buying it from Galaxy 4)

[Pip Madeley]

Looking forward to this release, good to hear it's not too far away.

[Pip Madeley]

Now available to pre-order for £12.99 at Play.com (affiliated!).

By the way:

Dr. Who (Doctor Who): The Keys Of Marinus (2 Disc)

Is an error according to Steve Roberts.

[Si Hunt]

Could be a mistake? God knows what they've got to put on it, unless Verity Lambert left the raw unedited videotape to us in her will and there's an extended movie edition with CGI Voord capsules and multiple angle views of Altos' legs.

Si.

[Perry Vale]

From the BBFC....

00:09:23:20 THE SETS OF MARINUS (FEATURETTE)
00:01:08:02 (EASTER EGG)
00:07:24:14 THE KEYS OF MARINUS - PHOTO GALLERY

[SiHart]

And according to Steve Roberts, that's it, aside from a commentary.

Si xx

[Antony Cox]

I suppose as time goes on it's more and more difficult to create meaningful extras for these early stories...

...but that's not to say it won't be a good release. Anyway, for me the most beneficial aspect of the B & W releases is the restoration process, so I'll be happy enough!

[shada pavlova]

That's it?

I'm sorry, but that's it?!

What about all this stuff?

• vidFIREd picture
• Commentary with William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, Donald Pickering and anyone else that is left
• A documentary about Terry Nation's non-Dalek contributions
• Richard Bignell could go on a tour of Soho's rubber stores
• a featurette about William Hartnell's most famous line fluffs
• a debate between telehistorians as to what is the correct plural of "Voord"
• a tribute to Stephen Dartnell who (I've just discovered) played both Yartek and the man John
• "Doctor Who Confidential" broadcast straight after the second of next year's specials which features the return of the Voord
• anything they forgot to include on previous Hartnell DVDs
• the recently discovered episode three of "The Savages"
• a text commentary

I'm thinking it'll need at least two and a half discs to do it justice.

Does nobody at 2|Entertain read this stuff?!

[Si Hunt]

Is this another one they don't like that much? If they can spin "The War Games" out to three discs, whither some more stuff for "Marinus"? I'm sure they must have made a Voord Submarine out of loo rolls on Blue Peter or something.

Si.

[Perry Vale]

Is this another one they don't like that much?

More likely is that they simply weren't given the budget to make anything else for it.

[Si Hunt]

It's the extras-lite DVD. The loss-leader. The budget-balancer.

Poor old "Keys".

Si.

[Perry Vale]

Well at least the story is longer than before.

[shada pavlova]

I'm sure they must have made a Voord Submarine out of loo rolls on Blue Peter or something.

That's probably the easter egg.

[Si Hunt]

Or how about the "Galaxy Four" recon that's already finished and sitting unreleased in the vaults?

Si.

[SiHart]

No-one wants to see that.

Or rather Dan Hall doesn't.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I Rilly want to see it.

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

Hall is Drahvin me mad.

[shada pavlova]

Um...

Er...

I can't think of an excruciatingly bad pun involving the word "Chumblie".

[Si Hunt]

What do you think I was doing last night til 1am?

Si.

[shada pavlova]

Okaaay...

Back on topic,

It's the extras-lite DVD. The loss-leader. The budget-balancer.

What, so The Rescue wasn't cheap enough?

[Pip Madeley]

Steve Roberts has added more info to the RT article:

All six episodes of this serial from Doctor Who's first season have always been retained as 16mm film recording negatives and there was no reason to believe that they differed in any way from the version broadcast by the BBC in 1964. However, during his research for the production information subtitles feature, Richard Molesworth noted a point in episode two which differed from the script and was accompanied by uncomfortable on-screen cut. He raised this with Peter Crocker, who discovered a difference of a few seconds between the running time of the negative and the duration logged on the BBC's PasC transmission forms from 1964. Looking through the episodes in detail, he discovered signs of four physical splices in episode two and a further three in episode four. He compared these against a recording made from an ABC transmission in Australia and found splices at the same point... which might be expected if the ABC print had been made from the BBC negative, but it was immediately apparent that this was not the case. The ABC print was from a suppressed-field film recording (generally we find these were made close to the original transmissions), whilst the BBC negative was from a quick-pulldown recorder and was probably made when BBC Enterprises did a second film recording run to improve their product quality around 1967. However, the cuts were identical - to the frame - on both versions, suggesting that a list had been made during the first editing session and the same list had been applied to the second film recording run years later.

Mark Ayres pulled out copies of David Holman's off-air audio recordings and found missing material at all the points that Peter Crocker had noted, plus one other located in a fade to black in episode two, which Peter wouldn't have been able to see as it would have been crushed down to true black in the grade. The cuts in episode two were 70, 55, 24, 35 and 20 frames respectively and in episode four were 37, 79 and 133 frames respectively. This translates to seven seconds of cuts to episode two and ten seconds of cuts to episode four. The most likely reason for these cuts is either physical damage to the transmission videotape or physical splice edits in the tapes, both of which might be expected to produce disturbing picture off-locks in the film recording.

It was decided to reinstate all the audio material back into the episode, leaving Peter Crocker with the problem of how to fill seven black holes in the picture! Using various combinations of cutaways, composite images and retiming, he was able to cover all the holes. Although this will obviously differ from what what would have been seen originally, it does at least allow the story to be enjoyed uncut for the first time since its transmission in 1964.

Of course, we're used to seeing censor cuts made in prints returned by overseas broadcasters, but this is the first time we have come across cuts made in film recording master negatives that had previously gone completely unreported. Of course, this raises an interesting question... How many other 'complete' episodes of Doctor Who may not be quite as complete as we had thought?

Otherwise, picture and sound restoration was as usual for a story of this age and all episodes were VidFIRE processed to return the original studio video look.

DVD extras for this release include:

• Commentary with actors William Russell and Carole Ann Ford, director John Gorrie and designer Raymond Cusick. Moderated by Clayton Hickman.

• The Sets of Marinus (dur. 9' 25") - designer Raymond Cusick recalls his work on this story.

• Photo Gallery (dur. 7' 25") - production and publicity photos from the story.

• PDF Material - Radio Times listings plus the entire set of Cadet Sweets 'Doctor Who and the Daleks' sweet cigarette cards in Adobe pdf format for viewing on PC or Mac.

Plus of course the usual Subtitle Production Notes and Coming Soon trailer.