Doctor Who on the iPlayer

archivetvmusings Doctor Who

At the beginning of November, nearly all of the Whoniverse (a word that causes me to grind my teeth ever so slightly) came to the iPlayer. Apart from the first story (An Unearthly Child) the whole sprawling back catalogue of Doctor Who is now available at the click of a button. Plus every episode is subtitled and signed as well.

Had you told the younger me, back in the mid 1980’s, that this would one day happen (at the time I was just beginning to acquire the series on VHS at a glacial pace) then it would have seemed like pure science fiction.

It’s a nice coincidence that this launch occurred during the same week that The Five Faces of Doctor Who debuted on BBC2 back in 1981. For an earlier generation, that was a considerable archival treat (indeed, even more so than the iPlayer splurge – as back in 1981 some of these stories had been unseen for decades).

Having everything (well apart from the recently released cartoons) on DVD, I can’t confess to working up the same sort of excitement expressed in certain areas of social media about the series’ new iPlayer home, but it’s undeniably convenient not to have to reach up and pluck a shiny disc off the shelf every time I want to watch a story. Hmm, I’ve a nasty feeling I’m turning into a couch potato.

I’ve had a quick look at the animations of Galaxy 4 and The Faceless Ones but couldn’t get very far through either. I find it impossible to watch them with a straight face ….

The news that the first Dalek story will receive a radical re-edit (cut down to 75 minutes, colourised and treated to a new score) caused me to raise an eyebrow. I’m not terribly fond about the concept of daubing black and white material with colour (my thoughts about how it benefitted/or not Tony Hancock can be found here) and I tend to find it baffling that so much time and money is expended on such projects.

Still, I’m sure that one day all the Hartnell and Troughton stories will be coloured in and resold to many of the same punters who’ve already bought them on VHS, DVD and BD. Good luck to them, but I’ll be saving my pennies.

I’ll keep an open mind on The Daleks though, and will report back later in the month.

6 thoughts on “Doctor Who on the iPlayer”

  1. I am enjoying watching a few stories that I never got round to in the past – because all the Who reference books said they were awful ! I was pleasantly surprised by “The Mutants” and “Underworld” – very far from awful. But am I right in thinking that some of these on the iPlayer have “improved” visual effects? The laser gun pulses in “Underworld” looked distinctly 21st Century to me. If so, that’s a bit of a cheat, isn’t it?

    Also, it seems shame not to include some of the orphan episodes, such as that from “The Faceless Ones”. If it exists, why not let people see it?

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    • I don’t think the DVD release of Underworld had replacement effects, so presumably they’re original. I’ve skimmed through a number of stories which I know had replacement FX and the originals are on iPlayer (so, for example, the paper plate spaceship is still there on Dalek Invasion of Earth, rather than the CGI replacement).

      I agree it’s a pity that a handful of episodes are only represented by their animated versions (which I find pretty much unwatchable) but it’s possible they might turn up eventually. Given the amount of material that’s suddenly appeared, you might expect a bit of fine-tuning will be done at a later date.

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      • Thanks for replying. If those laser blasts in “Underworld” are the originals, then they are extremely impressive for 1977 ! Compare and contrast with K9’s crappy laser beam in “The Invisible Enemy”, made just a few months before.

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  4. One of things that amazes me about modern telly is that the sets themselves are like something out of sci-fi with their huge size, fantastic resolution, and great sound. The sad thing is I mostly seem to watch stuff from the era when sets were tiny, low resolution, and with adequate sound as modern content is dia!

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