The BBC has released images from the colourised version of the second Doctor Who story, The Daleks, due to be screened on BBC Four on the 23rd of November 2023.

Originally broadcast as seven 25-minute episodes, the Terry Nation story has now been edited down to 75 minutes by Benjamin Cook and the result colourised. 

With brand new sound and a new score - created by Mark Ayres - The Daleks has been gloriously updated, whilst ensuring the original classic story remains as thrilling as it was when it was first seen back in 1963.

The colorised version will be released on DVD, Blu-ray, and as a Steelbook next February. 

This DVD release also includes the original seven episodes in black & white, as they were first broadcast plus a 15-minute exclusive featurette and all special features from the previous release.

The set can be pre-ordered from Amazon. 

The BBC is to broadcast a colourised version of the second Doctor Who story, The Daleks, to mark the show's 60th Anniversary. 

As part of the celebrations, one of the show’s most renowned tales, the one that introduced the Daleks to the world, is to be screened on the 23rd of November, 60 years after Doctor Who began. 

Originally transmitted from December 1963 to February 1964, The Daleks soon became one of the Doctor’s most formidable and enduring foes. The story follows the very first crew of the TARDIS as they land in a petrified forest on an alien planet. Determined to explore, the Doctor (William Hartnell) leads his companions into the metal city, where they discover danger at every corner and what will become his deadliest enemy, the mutant Daleks.

These seven original 25-minute episodes have now received a makeover, having been colourised and weaved together into a 75-minute blockbuster to appeal to today’s modern audiences.

With brand new sound, a brand new score - created by Mark Ayres - The Daleks has been gloriously updated, whilst ensuring the original classic story remains as thrilling as it was when it began in 1963. And, whilst viewers can enjoy watching the colourised version of The Daleks when it arrives on 23rd November on BBC Four, it will also sit within The Whoniverse where viewers can also watch the seven-part story in its original form.

Phil Collinson, Executive Producer says:

The Daleks colourisation is produced by Bad Wolf with BBC Studios for BBC Four and iPlayer. 

Executive Produced by Russell T Davies, Jane Tranter, Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson, and Joel Collins. Lead Colourisation Artist is Richard Tipple and Edited by Benjamin Cook.

This special episode is one of the many highlights set to commemorate Doctor Who’s outstanding 60-year anniversary,– shortly before David Tennant takes back the reigns of the TARDIS for three highly anticipated specials.

The latest issue of Doctor Who Chronicles has been published by Panini, covering the first season of the show. 

This lavish 116-page publication from the makers of Doctor Who Magazine looks at the stories, people, events, and news of this formative period – a time when William Hartnell played the Doctor, and the world was introduced to the Daleks, the TARDIS, and an incredible adventure in space and time. 

The bookazine covers all the stories from 1963-64: 100,000 BC (aka An Unearthly Child), The Mutants (aka The Daleks), Inside the Spaceship (aka The Edge of Destruction), Marco Polo, The Keys of Marinus, The Aztecs, The Sensorites, The Reign of Terror, Planet of Giants and The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It also includes exclusive articles and rare behind-the-scenes images.

Contents include articles on:

• The year’s most significant events in the Doctor Who universe (both on and off screen)

• Profiles of stars William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford

• Doctor Who in the popular press

• Special effects and production techniques

• The very first items of Doctor Who merchandise

• … and much more!

Doctor Who: Chronicles – 1963-64 is on sale now, RRP £11.99 from panini.co.uk and selected branches of WH Smith while stocks last. 

It’s also available digitally from pocketmags.com priced £10.99.

Season 17, the penultimate season starring Tom Baker as the Doctor, will be the next to be released as part of the Doctor Who Collection series.  

Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 17 was originally shown between September 1979 and January 1980 consists of the following stories
 

In 1979, Tom Baker’s Doctor was in full flight. With Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) as script editor, the series leaned into Baker’s penchant for humour and paired his Doctor with a regenerated Romana (Lalla Ward) as his travelling companion. Together, they would form one of the most popular Doctor/companion duos of all time.

Although Season 17 was halted behind-the-scenes by strike action (resulting in the season finale being abandoned part-way through production), it remains a beloved slice of Doctor Who history, featuring the return of Davros and the Daleks, and one of the all-time classic stories, Douglas Adams’ own City Of Death.

With all episodes newly remastered from the best available sources, this Blu-ray box set also includes extensive and exclusive Special Features including:

• BRAND NEW DOCUMENTARIES
• Including a Making-Of documentary for Destiny Of The Daleks, and new featurette for The Creature From The Pit.
• TOM TALKS
• A candid interview with Tom Baker as he gives us his unique take on life, the universe and everything.
• DOUGLAS ADAMS TRIBUTE
• Friends and colleagues remember the Doctor Who writer/script editor and creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
• IN CONVERSATION
• Matthew Sweet chats to Bob Baker, writer of Nightmare Of Eden, co-creator of K9 and one of the creative forces behind Wallace & Gromit.
•  BEHIND THE SOFA
• New episodes with actors Colin Baker, Katy Manning, Matthew Waterhouse, Nicola Bryant, June Hudson, Graeme Harper & Mat Irvine
•  LALLA WARD INTERVIEW
• An extensive interview discussing her first year on the programme.
• UPDATED SPECIAL EFFECTS
• View Nightmare Of Eden with optional new effects
• SHADA
• An updated version of the ‘lost’ story, completed with enhanced animation and presented in six episodes for the very first time, alongside the original 1992 VHS and 2017 versions
• EXCLUSIVE NEW AUDIO COMMENTARIES
• With Tom Baker on episodes of Destiny Of The Daleks and City Of Death, and Lalla Ward & Catherine Schell on City Of Death
• EXTENDED EPISODE
• An early cut of The Creature From The Pit Part Three
• BLU-RAY TRAILER
• A familiar face returns in a brand new mini-episode of classic Doctor Who
• IMMERSIVE 5.1 SURROUND SOUND
• On Destiny Of The Daleks and Shada
• RARE GEMS FROM THE ARCHIVES
• BBC archive material covering the promotion of this season
• CONVENTION FOOTAGE
• A triumphant 1997 appearance from Tom Baker
• HD PHOTO GALLERIES
• Including many previously unseen images
•  PRODUCTION SUBTITLES
• Behind-the-scenes information and trivia on every episode
•  SCRIPTS, COSTUME DESIGNS, RARE BBC PRODUCTION FILES AND OTHER RARITIES FROM OUR PDF ARCHIVE

The Collection will be released on 13th December 2021 and is available to pre-order on Amazon

The TV Director Frank Cox has died at the age of 80.

Frank Cox worked on two early stories of Doctor Who.

In 1964 at the age of 23, he became Doctor Who's fourth Director, taking charge for the episode The Brink of Disaster, the second part of The Edge of Destruction, and an episode that involved just the four main cast members. 

He returned to the series later that year looking after the final two episodes of The Sensorites, Kidnap and A Desperate Venture. 

Doctor Who was one of the first programmes Cox worked on following completion of the BBC Directors training course. He went on to direct programmes such as The Revenue Men,  Mogul, Warship, Sutherland's Law, Softly Softly: Task Force, EastEnders and High Road. 

He also worked as a producer on many series throughout the 1980s and 90s

The last programme he directed was Taggart for STV

Frank Cox was married to the actress Bridget Turner, who played Alice Cassini in the 2007 story Gridlock. She died in 2014

BBC Studios has announced a new standard packaging range to Doctor Who: The Collection  

The first titles to join this standard packaging range will be Season 12 and Season 19, which are available to pre-order now.  

Doctor Who: The Collection offers fans the opportunity to build their own home archive of classic content, and has proved hugely popular with collectors and fans of the TV series. The new standard packaging range is being introduced in response to this success, offering fans a second opportunity to fill gaps in their collection, and enjoy the classic era of Doctor Who.  

New releases within the Collection range will be marketed as Doctor Who: The Collection Limited  Edition Packaging, with the standard edition range marketed as Doctor Who: The Collection.  

Releases within the Doctor Who: The Collection Limited Edition Packaging range will continue to offer fans bespoke, premium packaging featuring a beautifully presented box containing the discs and a  full-length, premium-printed booklet that includes illustrations and in-depth, behind the scenes insight.

Releases within the new, standard packaging Doctor Who: The Collection range will feature a  standard, plastic Blu-ray case inside a slipcase, with a condensed, standard-printed 12-page booklet featuring disc-breakdowns and selected illustrations. The new range will include all of the watchable content and special features included in the Limited Edition Packaging release and will be available ongoing.  

Season 12 sees Tom Baker’s first outing as the Doctor and features five stories over 20 episodes,  including The Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks. The Doctor is accompanied by Sarah Jane  Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) and was first broadcast on the BBC between  December 1974 and May 1975.  

Season 19 introduces fans to Peter Davison’s first series as the Fifth Doctor, and sees the Doctor and his companions Tegan (Janet Fielding), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) and Adric (Matthew Waterhouse) face off against The Master, the terrifying Mara, the Terileptils, the Plasmatons, Monarch and the revamped Cybermen, in seven stories across 26 episodes. 

Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 12 (£51.05 RRP) and Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 19  (£51.05 RRP) can be pre-ordered now from Amazon and will be available from Monday 31 May  2021.  

• TOM BAKER IN CONVERSATION A candid new one-hour interview with the Fourth Doctor.
• BEHIND THE SOFA Classic clips from Season 12, viewed by Tom Baker, Philip Hinchcliffe, Louise Jameson, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton and Sadie Miller
• NEW MAKING-OF DOCUMENTARIES For The Sontaran Experiment and Revenge of the Cybermen
• IMMERSIVE 5.1 SURROUND SOUND MIXES For The Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks
• OPTIONAL BRAND NEW UPDATED SPECIAL EFFECTS For Revenge of the Cybermen
• GENESIS OF THE DALEKS - OMNIBUS MOVIE VERSION Unseen since broadcast in 1975
• THE TOM BAKER YEARS The 1991 VHS release, on disc for the first time
• PRODUCTION ARCHIVE MATERIAL
• PDF files from the BBC Archives

• A brand new feature-length documentary examining the Third Doctor’s Era, with archival contributions from Jon Pertwee, Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks plus all-new interviews with Katy Manning, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, presented by Matthew Sweet.
• Updated special effects and surround sound mix for Planet of the Daleks.
• Five new instalments of Behind the Sofa, featuring Katy Manning, Richard Franklin (Captain Yates) and John Levene (Sergeant Benton), along with 21st century Doctor Who panel Phil Collinson (Producer/Executive Producer), Pete McTighe (Writer) and Joy Wilkinson (Writer).
• Looking for Lennie, a documentary investigating the life of director Lennie Mayne.
• Keeping up with the Jones’, which sees Katy Manning with Stewart Bevan (Cliff Jones) pay a return visit to the Welsh locations from The Green Death.
• Plus: a repeat omnibus of The Green Death unseen since Christmas 1973, rare Panopticon convention footage, Blu-ray trailer, HD photo galleries plus scripts, production files and rare documentation provided as PDFs.

• revealing new 2019 commentaries moderated by Matthew Sweet (Tom Baker on The Leisure Hive, Lalla Ward and Rachel Davies on State Of Decay)
• rare behind-the-scenes footage from The Leisure Hive, Full Circle and Logopolis
• surround sound mix for Warriors’ Gate
• new special effects for Logopolis, including new especially shot footage at the originally planned but ultimately unused University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory for the Pharos Project location
• a new Making-Of documentary for Logopolis
• eight more editions of Behind The Sofa
• brand new documentaries The Writers Room and Weekend With Waterhouse
• a new interview with K9 & Company’s Ian Sears
• another dip into the Panopticon convention archives with Tom Baker
• HD photo galleries plus scripts, production files and rare documentation provided as PDFs
• plus extensive features previously released on DVD