With the first quarter of 2013
announced, speculation continues over which stories will be released over the course of the rest of the year in the lead-up to
Doctor Who's Fiftieth Anniversary in November.
The currently confirmed stories include the final two complete adventures
Terror of the Zygons (June) and the as-yet unscheduled
The Mind of Evil. Also confirmed is a special edition release of
Inferno - producer
Dan Hall reported in
September that four special editions were on the way, and with
The Visitation recently revealed this completes those initial commissions (the others being February's
The Ark in Space and March's
The Aztecs). At least one additional (currently unnamed) special edition has now been commissioned, though whether this would be released next year has yet to be confirmed.
With regard to animations, though there have been no formal announcements post January's
The Reign of Terror, Hall had explained that stories with a maximum of two episodes missing were being considered as commercially viable: stories meeting this criteria are
The Crusade,
The Tenth Planet,
The Underwater Menace,
The Moonbase and
The Ice Warriors. Of those, sound designer
Brian Hodgson indicated in
June that he'd recorded a commentary for
The Moonbase (and possibly
The Underwater Menace), and
Frazer Hines told the audience at the
Dimensions convention that he'd recorded a documentary for
The Ice Warriors alongside
Sonny Caldinez - the latter story also had a trailer
passed by the BBFC on 5th December, suggesting this adventure might well be out sometime next year.
The Ark in Space (SE):
The BBFC have classified extras for
The Ark in Space special edition, currently scheduled for the
18th February; as well as a brand new
"Making Of", the release will also include the Omnibus version of the story, originally edited for a repeat broadcast on 20th August 1975.
Movie Version:
01:09:48:01 DOCTOR WHO - THE ARK IN SPACE
DVD Extras:
00:29:51:23 A NEW FRONTIER - MAKING THE ARK IN SPACE
00:07:04:00 THE ARK IN SPACE - PHOTO GALLERY
00:01:03:17 (THE ARK IN SPACE - CGI SEQUENCE A)
00:00:22:22 (THE ARK IN SPACE - CGI SEQUENCE B)
00:00:18:12 (THE ARK IN SPACE - CGI SEQUENCE C)
00:00:16:03 (THE ARK IN SPACE - CGI SEQUENCE D)
00:00:16:21 (THE ARK IN SPACE - CGI SEQUENCE E)
00:00:07:11 (THE ARK IN SPACE - CGI SEQUENCE F)
Audio Commentaries
The Aztecs (SE):
The BBFC have classified extras for
The Aztecs special edition, currently scheduled for the
11th March. As
previously reported, this release contains the recovered
Galaxy 4 episode
Air Lock, and the extras reveal that reconstructions of the missing episodes (originally planned for
The Time Meddler) will also be presented on this release. In addition, a 1969 episode of archaeology series
Chronicle has been included which looks into the history of Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Value Added Material:
00:28:08:06 DOCTOR WHO - GALAXY 4
00:24:19:14 DOCTOR WHO - AIR LOCK
00:12:10:01 THE EXPLODING PLANET
Special Edition - Added Material:
00:49:49:14 CHRONICLE - "THE REALMS OF GOLD"
00:07:20:06 IT'S A SQUARE WORLD
00:04:31:07 (A WHOLE SCENE GOING)
00:22:33:15 DR. FOREVER! - THE CELESTIAL TOYROOM
A fresh set of production information text has been written for the episodes by
Matthew Kilburn.
Terror of the Zygons:
Slated for June next year, extras for the DVD release were classified by the BBFC back in
July; one of the items
passed was a "director's cut" of episode one, of which more detail is now known. Originally filmed but then cut due to grading issues, the opening scene with the Doctor, Sarah and Harry arriving in Scotland by TARDIS was discovered amongst the collection of the story's film editor
Ian McKendrick, consisting of partial colour, partial black and white footage and soundtrack. The clip, lasting around a minute and a half, has had the monochrome sections colourised for the DVD by
Stuart Humphryes (aka Babelcolour), who also worked on
the colourisation of episode one of
The Mind of Evil. The finished scene, which also includes its incidental music as composed by
Geoffrey Burgon (featured on the CD soundtrack of
Terror of the Zygons and
The Seeds of Doom released in 2000), has been incorporated back into episode one and viewers will be able to select which version of the episode they wish to watch.
As Restoration Team member
Steve Roberts puts it:
It's an AWFULLY good scene. And of course one that hasn't been seen before - a couple of minutes of brand-new Tom, Lis and Ian action from one of the most highly regarded stories in the show's history!
Meanwhile, since original classification a couple of new developments have been announced for the two-disc release. Firstly, a contemporary interview conducted by the south coast regional BBC news programme
South Today was recently rediscovered, and fortunately there has been time to
include the three minute item on the DVD.
Steve Roberts also reported that the late inclusion of the above has meant that it should be possible to include a 35 second clip from
Disney Time, presented by
Tom Baker in character as the Doctor, onto the DVD as an Easter Egg (previously to be included on a different release).
The Visitation:
Confirmation of the commissioning of this story came via the latest edition of
Vortex Magazine from audio producers
Big Finish. In an interview with Fifth Doctor
Peter Davison the actor mentioned filming the documentary, joking over titling the story
The Re-Visitation:
That was one of the lines, actually, that we gave poor
Mark [Strickson, Turlough] who wasn’t in
The Visitation, but who was acting as a kind of host and asking us questions. One of the lines they gave him at the end was,
"I hope you enjoyed revisiting The Visitation". We went down to various locations,
Janet [Fielding, Tegan],
Sarah [Sutton, Nyssa] and myself, and the house where we filmed, the manor house, and we went to Black Park, which is where we did the filming for the woods – Black Park being the BBC’s standard location for country filming.
The documentary is produced by a newcomer to the DVD range,
Russell Minton.
Clarifying some of the restoration work on the episodes themselves, Steve Roberts explained that the picture quality of this release had already been greatly improved for the original 2004 release:
Coupled with the fact that a lot of the location filming was underexposed anyway, people aren't going to see anything like the sort of improvement they would have seen from a new neg transfer versus the original eighties print transfer. However, the MPEG noise-pumping problems that plagued the earlier release shouldn't be a problem, especially as the two-disc format will enable us to allocate a much better bitrate to the episodes.
Nicholas Pegg confirmed that there will be a fresh set of production information text to accompany the episodes, too.
(with thanks to jamstubell, Ray Le Otter, Stuart Humphryes, Steve Roberts)
The BBC have announced that The Snowmen will feature a new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme tune, which will accompany a revamped opening title sequence:
Devil in the Smoke 
Doctor Who Magazine have confirmed that the current series of Doctor Who will return to BBC One in April next year, though it is too early for a specific date and time to be revealed.
The Radio Times features the eponymous Snowman by Raymond Briggs on its cover for this year's legendary Christmas double issue; inside, however, it does feature interviews with Doctor Who's stars Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman about their similarly named The Snowmen!
The first trailer for Doctor Who was broadcast on BBC One this evening - of sorts!
The BBC have released a further two interviews with stars of the Christmas Special, 
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