Germany: Silver Nemesis Extended, German-language Big Finish audios and moreBookmark and Share

Monday, 6 November 2017 - Reported by Pascal Salzmann
Siebter Doctor Collector's Edition (Credit: Pandastorm Pictures)Many new products have been announced in Germany  recently.

  • German DVD distributer Pandastorm Pictures announced at the Doctor Who convention TimeLash III on the last weekend of October a limited boxed set featuring all of the 7th Doctor stories, including new bonus features and the never-before-on-DVD released and newly remastered Silver Nemesis Extended edition. This longer cut of the Season 25 story has previously only been released on VHS in the UK.
    The set will be called Siebter Doktor - Special Collector's Edition and presented in a valuable hardcover book in coffee table format. The set is limited to 1,000 copies, each with an impressed number. Script editor Andrew Cartmel has written over 52 pages of production notes on each story, which can be found in the English language as well as in a German translation. The 17 region-free DVD's contain all adventures in English and German audio as well as English and German subtitles and over 24 hours of bonus material. Anther new bonus feature will be the BBC America special Doctor Who Revisited – The Seventh Doctor and an exclusive new interview with Andrew Cartmel. Product shipment is scheduled for the second week of December. This boxed set can only be ordered from Pandastorm's own shop.

  • German books and audio publisher Bastei Luebbe also announced a new project at the convention. In cooperation with Big Finish they are going to release German translations of Doctor Who audio plays, with the German dubbing actors known from TV also speaking the parts on audio. The first batch of releases will be the 10th Doctor adventures featuring Donna Noble as the companion. 27th April 2018 will see the release of Die Zeitdiebe by Jenny Colgan, Technophobie by Matt Fitton and Eiskalte Rache by Matt Fitton. All stories will be released on CD and Download. You can pre-order on the publisher's website.

  • Bastei Luebbe will also release four new novels. Scheduled for next year are:
    • Eleventh Doctor story Totenwinter (Dead of Winter) by James Goss (26th January 2018)
    • Eleventh Doctor story Der weinende Engel (Touched by an Angel) by Jonathan Morris (29th March 2018
    • Eleventh Doctor story Dunkle Gezeiten (The Coming of the Terraphiles) by Michael Moorcock (25th May 2018)
    • Third Doctor story Der Neunte Schlüssel (The Last of the Gadarene) by Mark Gatiss (27th July 2018)
    All novels will also be available in audio book format.





FILTER: - Audio - Big Finish - Blu-ray/DVD - Books - Germany - Pandastorm - Sylvester McCoy

Doctor Who in Germany - A TimelineBookmark and Share

Thursday, 6 July 2017 - Reported by Pascal Salzmann
Doctor Who in Germany (Credit: Pascal Salzmann)
Last weekend over 50,000 people attended the Comic Con Germany in Stuttgart. One of the stars invited was Torchwood’s John Barrowman, so a surprising number of attendees cosplayed characters from Doctor Who or Torchwood. But Germany’s obsession with the Doctor is fairly new and for a long time the show has been struggling to get any recognition even among Science Fiction fans.

Here is a timeline of Doctor Who in Germany:

The 60’s – Missed opportunities

It was in 1965 that the BBC offered a German channel a selection of William Hartnell stories. An offer which was never taken up. In 1968 the German public channel ZDF received an audition print of The Ice Warriors. A jury should decide if the serial was worth airing on German television. The protocol reads (translated to English):

Dr. Who and the Ice Warriors, Utopian series
Result: rejected.
A new ice age has gripped Earth. A motley crew of scientists fights a losing battle to overcome the problems. The now moving glaciers release beings from other planets stranded with their spaceship on Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Scenery and costumes of the films are as naive as the scripts are obscure.
The rejection was unanimous.

If ZDF had picked up this serial and even more stories from the 60’s, many lost episodes would likely still exist, since German TV back then was already archiving most of their shows for repeat purposes.

The 70’s – Doctor Who wasteland


During the 70’s Doctor Who was nowhere to be seen on German television. Although there was one curious sidestep in print. The German erotic magazine Plaisir published the famous “nude Katy Manning and the Dalek” photo on its cover, with a feature inside. This magazine is a rarity now and it is not known if the TV show was explained to the readers of the magazine, who most likely had never heard of Doctor Who.

The 80’s – Doctor Who makes its debut in print and on German TV

In 1980 the German young adult books publisher Schneider released two Target novelisations, “Der Planet der Daleks” (Planet of the Daleks) and “Kampf um die Erde” (translates to “Fight for Earth”, better known as The Dalek Invasion of Earth). Both novels were heavily edited.


It was not a German TV channel that debuted Doctor Who in (West-)Germany. Instead the English language European Super Channel showed a few Tom Baker stories in the mid-80’s. Not many Germans would have watched them, though.

The Seventh Doctor, as played by Sylvester McCoy
Finally in 1989 the commercial TV channel RTL Plus made a deal with BBC Enterprises to broadcast the Sylvester McCoy episodes of Doctor Who. The show was dubbed into German, with the actor Michael Schwarzmaier providing the voice for the Doctor and Carin Tietze the voice for Ace.

The series started on Wednesday, 22nd November 1989 at 1.05pm with the first episode of “Terror auf Lakertia” (Time and the Rani). Before that there was a short introduction to the program with producer John Nathan-Turner and Sylvester McCoy summarising the history of the show for German audiences. Episode 2 aired on Sunday afternoon, with each subsequent episode airing on the same day.

Interestingly RTL Plus broadcasted the serials in production order, not in the same order as it had been transmitted in the UK. The last serial therefore was “Das Hause der Tausend Schrecken” (translates to “The house of a thousand horrors”, better known as Ghost Light), instead of “Der Tod auf leisen Sohlen” (“Death on silent feet” or Survival).

Doctor Who Magazine reported in September 1990 that the Sylvester McCoy run attracted around 2 million viewers and that RTL Plus was looking into buying Jon Pertwee serials in colour, although this never seemed to have gone any further than negotiations.

With no new episodes after Series 26 it appeared Doctor Who’s broadcast in Germany ended just a little while after it began.

The 90’s – Certainly no years of wilderness in Germany

Shortly after the RTL Plus broadcast, German books publisher Goldmann released six Target novels translated to German.

1 Die Invasion the Daleks (Doctor Who and the Daleks)
2 Das Komplott der Daleks (The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
3 Der Planet der Daleks (Planet of the Daleks)
4 Tod den Daleks (Death to the Daleks)
5 Der Schöpfer der Daleks (Destiny of the Daleks)
6 Das Kind von den Sternen (An Unearthly Child)

The first book included a chapter on the history of Doctor Who on TV and print. Bizarrely the book cover of The Daleks featured Tom Baker and the cover of Destiny of the Daleks featured William Hartnell. The novelizations of Daleks Invasion of Earth and Planet of the Daleks featured a different translation than the one in the Schneider books from the 80’s and were also unedited this time.


In 1991 comics publisher Condor released the popular DWM comic strips featuring the sixth Doctor and Frobisher in three parts.

RTL Plus repeated Seasons 24 to 26 in 1993, on Fridays and Saturdays shortly after midnight. This time the serials were edited together as long omnibus editions.


Viewers then had to wait until 1995 for new material. Commercial TV channel VOX bought all Colin Baker stories and dubbed them into German. The Doctor was again voiced by Michael Schwarzmaier. VOX also bought the anniversary special “Die Fünf Doktoren” (The Five Doctors) which was the first story to be transmitted. The 90 minute feature was edited into a three-parter with many scenes missing. Again Michael Schwarzmaier dubbed every incarnation of the Doctor, giving each one a unique voice.

After “Die Fünf Doktoren” aired, VOX transmitted every available Colin Baker episode Monday to Friday in the early morning. Strangely, they started with the last serial “Das Urteil” (Trial of a Time Lord) and worked their way backwards until “Zweimal Einstein” (The Twin Dilemma). VOX repeated the run immediately after (again backwards), but after that it would take more than a decade until Doctor Who returned to TV screens in Germany.

More and more genre magazines started to appear in the mid 90’s, so it was only a matter of time until they would run articles on that “curious british cult TV show”. Space View, a magazine comparable to the UK's SFX, ran a two part article about Doctor Who. Other magazines started to feature more and more news on the show, especially in the wake of the new TV movie featuring Paul McGann.

The TV Movie arrived in Germany in 1997 as a VHS, at first to rent, later on the shelves to buy. It was dubbed to German but hasn’t been transmitted on TV to this day.

The 90’s also saw the first kind of “fandom” appear in Germany. In 1995 the fan club Worshippers of Xoanon was formed which later published a quarterly fanzine called Time Scoop. The club started out with only a handful of people, meeting up regularly to watch the latest imported VHS or sharing their New Adventures novels collection and talking about convention appearances in the UK they were lucky to attend. For the first few years the club had around 10 to 20 members, but since then grew immensely.

2000 – today: Doctor Who takes a while but finally arrives

Some members of the fan club started the first podcast called Whocast in 2006, discussing Big Finish releases, reviewing stories and bringing news about the new TV show. The Whocast became pretty popular after a while and still runs to this day. It was the second podcast about Doctor Who worldwide.

When Doctor Who returned to British TV screens in 2005 the few German fans existing had to wait a while longer for its return. Commercial channel Pro7 finally bought Series 1 and 2 in 2008, dubbed them and aired the episodes every Saturday afternoon. The ratings were disappointing though, so they cancelled the show after the transmission of “Der Dritte Weltkrieg” (World War Three), only to continue with Dalek a few weeks later at a different timeslot. After the Series 2 finale, Pro7 announced they were not interested in purchasing further episodes of Doctor Who. Would German viewers now never get to know who the mysterious bride in the TARDIS would be?

One year later, in 2009, another channel picked up a show belonging to the Doctor Who universe. RTL 2 aired the first episode of Torchwood on 11th March 2009. Although most viewers will have never heard of Doctor Who, its spin-off quickly developed into a success for the channel, leading them later into buying Series 3 and 4. Doctor Who fans were hopeful that RTL 2 might give Doctor Who another chance but that scenario never happened.

Fans still had to wait until 2012 to see new episodes of Doctor Who. FOX Germany, a subscription channel, bought the license for Doctor Who and started to broadcast from Series 5 onwards. Although fans were a bit disappointed Series 3 and 4, as well as the Specials, were never shown, the Series 5 broadcast was a huge success for FOX. Quickly they started to transmit Series 6 and after that dubbed the “missing stories” of the David Tennant era. Fans finally got to know about the mysterious bride.

German Mediabook DVD cover to "Caves of Androzani" (Credit: Pandastorm Pictures)
In 2013, around the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, the show seemed to be everywhere in the media. The German press didn’t ignore it anymore, the cinema showings of the anniversary special sold out in many cities and the internet, facebook, tumblR and co helped to build the fandom.

Around 2013 Panini Comics started to release the Titan comic books in Germany and books publisher Cross Cult began releasing Doctor Who novels. The relatively young DVD production company Pandastorm Pictures released boxed sets with Classic Who stories that were already dubbed to German. To this day they released all Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy stories, The Five Doctors and the TV Movie. As these DVD’s sold extremely well, they are now starting to dub stories that were never seen before on German television. The first release will be “Die Höhlen von Androzani” (The Caves of Androzani) and they just announced a second release, “Die Auferstehung der Daleks” (Resurrection of the Daleks). The fifth Doctor played by Peter Davison will once again be voiced by Michael Schwarzmaier.

In 2015 three fans founded the company TimeLash Event. They started a crowdfunding that ultimately made nearly twice as much money as they needed in order to do a Doctor Who convention, the first one ever in Germany. The con was held in October 2015 in Kassel and featured guests such as Paul McGann, Nicola Bryant, Nicholas Briggs, Terry Molloy, Terrance Dicks, Catrin Stewart, Andrew Cartmel and many more. Since then TimeLash has become a well-established annual Doctor Who convention, which usually sells out months before the date.

Not long after TimeLash the BBC sent Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman for a visit to Berlin, finally acknowledging the fandom in Germany.
 
Now

After the success on the subscription-only channel FOX, Doctor Who could also be streamed at iTunes, Netflix, Amazon Prime, among others.

Recently the public channel ONE, belonging to the ARD-group, picked up the show and repeated all available episodes, most of them for the first time ever on a free-to-air channel. Reports recently came in that the viewing figures for the target audiences are better than anything else that channels broadcasts.

German fans still don’t know yet when they are going to see last year’s Christmas special and Series 10. It seems like both FOX and ONE try to get the license for airing the episodes first and these negotiations are still ongoing.

Nevertheless,
Doctor Who has truly arrived in Germany and made its impression. German pop culture is filled with references to the show and more and more actors appear on German conventions. Here's to a bright future.

Sources: http://gallifreybase.com/w/index.php/Germany
 http://www.serienjunkies.de/news/doctor-who-deutschland-kein-ort-31751-4.html




FILTER: - Cross Cult - FOX - Germany - Pandastorm

Caves of Androzani to get a German DVD releaseBookmark and Share

Thursday, 11 May 2017 - Reported by Pascal Salzmann
German Mediabook DVD cover to "Caves of Androzani" (Credit: Pandastorm Pictures)Die Höhlen von Androzani DVD (Credit: Pandastorm Pictures) German DVD distributer Pandastorm Pictures announced on their Facebook page the release of The Caves of Androzani ("Die Höhlen von Androzani") for the German market. The serial will be dubbed to German specifically for this release, as no German dub exists for any story before The Twin Dilemma, with the exception of The Five Doctors.

The Caves of Androzani has never been broadcasted on German television. In the late 80's and early 90's German TV channel RTL Plus transmitted all serials featuring the seventh Doctor. In 1995 the channel VOX aired The Five Doctors and all serials featuring the sixth Doctor. All those stories have been released by Pandastorm Pictures on DVD boxed sets in the past few years.

There will be two different versions of Die Höhlen von Androzani:

  • Collectors Edition Mediabook: Limited and numbered to 1,500 copies. This edition looks like a book and will feature an extensive booklet and the English- and German-language soundtracks and subtitles. Also includes all special features that can be found on the UK Special Edition DVD. Release date: 25th August 2017
  • Regular Edition: Will be the same as the Mediabook, only in a standart DVD slip case. Release date: 13th October 2017
All Doctor Who DVD's by Pandastorm Pictures are usually code-free. The DVD is not available for pre-order yet.




FILTER: - Blu-ray/DVD - Fifth Doctor - Germany - Pandastorm - Peter Davison

Germany NewsBookmark and Share

Wednesday, 21 December 2016 - Reported by Pascal Salzmann
TV Movie German Blu-Ray Collector's Edition (Credit: http://wvg.com/ceemes/article/show/214836) There have been a few recent developments on the German market that are of interest.

  • Pandastorm Pictures are going to release the TV Movie on DVD and Blu-Ray early 2017. There will be three different editions. First of all on 17th February there will be a limited "Collecter's Edition Mediabook", which will contain two DVD's and one Blu-Ray. The regular editions of the DVD (2 discs) and Blu-Ray (one disc) will be released on 31st March 2017 and feature a different cover. All three editions will contain the German and English language soundtracks, as well as all bonus features of the UK releases. Also included will be exclusive material for the German market. Details to follow.
  • German books publisher Cross Cult are going to release the novelisation of The Pirate Planet ("Der Piratenplanet") by James Goss on 27th February 2017. This will be Cross Cult's last confirmed Doctor Who novel.
    One of Germany's biggest publishers, Bastei Lübbe, will take up the reign and release the novelisation of Remembrance of the Daleks ("Die Hand des Omega") on 21st July 2017. It will also be available in the audio book format.
  • Adding to their German editions of the popular Titan Doctor Who comic books, Panini Comics Germany just released the first volume of the IDW story Prisoners of Time ("Gefangene der Zeit"). There was also a limited to 200 copies variant cover, drawn by popular 80's/90's comic book artist John Ridgway, only available on the German Doctor Who convention TimeLash II last October. Volume 2 will be released on 28th February 2017.
  • Germany's only Doctor Who convention TimeLash will take place for a third time on 28th to 29th October 2017 in Kassel. Guests announced so far are Daphne Ashbrook (Grace Holloway) , Philip Hinchliffe (70's producer and writer) and Annette Badland (Margaret Slitheen). More guest announcements to follow on the official TimeLash Facebook page in the coming weeks. Tickets will be available in early January on the TimeLash Homepage.





FILTER: - Blu-ray/DVD - Comics - Conventions - Cross Cult - Germany - Pandastorm

Germany: Pandastorm Pictures changes DVD release scheduleBookmark and Share

Monday, 24 August 2015 - Reported by Pascal Salzmann
Pandastorm Pictures (Credit: Pandastorm Pictures)German DVD distributor Pandastorm Pictures sent out a newsletter today announcing changes to the DVD format and to the release schedule.

Instead of the previously reported two volumes of Sixth Doctor adventures (containing Season 22 plus The Twin Dilemma and Season 23), Pandastorm is going to release three sets now, splitting Season 22 in two parts.

Here is the complete newsletter, translated from German:

Dear Doctor Who fans,
while many of you are still waiting in excitement for the release of The Five Doctors this week, we are currently working on the releases of the sixth Doctor. The first volume will be out on 27th November 2015.

We originally planned to release the dubbed episodes of the sixth Doctor in two volumes. At the time we didn't know that the included bonus features of Volume 1 would make it 10 DVD's instead of the planned 7 DVD's. Because of very expensive authoring, post-production and production of this set, we would have to increase the price - which would lead to lower sales in the retail stores.

That is why we decided to produce a 5-disc-set for Volume 1, making it three volumes instead of two. We hope you understand.

This is the new release schedule:


Release
Discs
Content
Release date
Sechster Doktor  – Volume 1
5 DVD's
Zweimal Einstein (The Twin Dilemma)
Angriff der Kybermänner (Attack of the Cybermen)
Revolte auf Varos (Vengeance on Varos)
Die Rache des Meisters (The Mark of the Rani)
27th Nov 2015
Sechster Doktor  – Volume 2
5 DVD's
Androiden in Sevilla (The Two Doctors)
Das Amulett (Timelash)
Planet der Toten (Revelation of the Daleks)
26th Feb 2016
Sechster Doktor  – Volume 3
tba

27th May 2016
Pandastorm's current release Fünf Doktoren (The Five Doctors) will be out this week on 28th August 2015 and can be pre-ordered via Amazon Germany.




FILTER: - Blu-ray/DVD - Germany - Pandastorm - Sixth Doctor

German DVD release of The Five Doctors delayedBookmark and Share

Friday, 15 May 2015 - Reported by Pascal Salzmann
Pandastorm Pictures (Credit: Pandastorm Pictures) In a statement to fans on their Facebook page as well as in a newsletter, German DVD distributer Pandastorm Pictures announced that their release of The Five Doctors, originally planned for 26th June 2015, will now be released two months later, on 28th August 2015.

The reasons for the delay are, according to the Facebook message, "problems with the material". The newsletter adds that Pandastorm believed the german dub to exist but realised too late that it had been deleted. Thankfully a fan helped out with his recording of the german dub.

Here is the original newsletter announcement, translated from German:


Dear Doctor Who-fans,
we received a lot of positive feedback from you for the last few months. There were photos with you and the boxed sets, a self-made action figure of the Candyman and even Sophie Aldred (Ace) who can be seen on a picture, posing with our second 7th Doctor boxed set. WOW! We would like to send you all a big THANK YOU. Without you the making of these boxed sets would not have been possible.

Some of you might already know that we will also release "The Five Doctors" in Germany. We planned to release it on 26th June 2015 but we sadly have to delay the release to 28th August 2015. After some misunderstandings we now know for sure that the German TV-version had been destroyed. The good news is that our appeal to fans last summer payed off after all and a Doctor Who-fan made his recording available to us. All this took us a lot of time, so that the DVD's won't be ready in time, if we want to deliver a high quality product.

Pandastorm then continued listing all the versions of the 20th Anniversary Special that will be on the 2-Disc-Set:

  • TV version in English
  •  TV version in German (including German subtitles for the scenes edited out in Germany)
  •  Three-part TV version in German (heavily edited, some scenes arranged in a different order)
  •  Special Edition in English
  •  Special Edition in German (including German subtitles for the scenes that were not shown in Germany)
So far Pandastorm Pictures released all three seasons of the seventh Doctor in season boxed sets in Germany. After The Five Doctors they are going to release two boxed sets for the complete sixth Doctor run and a 2-disc DVD release of The TV Movie.





FILTER: - Blu-ray/DVD - Fifth Doctor - Germany - Pandastorm - Second Doctor - Third Doctor