Doctor Who fans across the land can sit down and enjoy the biggest Doctor Who Classic collection ever streamed in the UK today, as Doctor Who launches on BritBox.
From today, over 500 episodes of Doctor Who will be available on the service, as well as a host of spin-offs, documentaries, telesnaps and more, including many rarely-seen treasures from the archives. Subscribers will be able to access this content via web, mobile, tablet, connected TVs and Chromecast.
129 complete stories, which totals 558 episodes spanning the first eight Doctors from William Hartnell to Paul McGann, form the backbone of the collection.
The collection also includes four incomplete stories: The Tenth Planet (1966), The Moonbase (1967), The Ice Warriors (1967) and The Invasion (1968), whose missing episodes have been reconstructed using animation, totalling 22 episodes. The infamous incomplete story Shada (1980), which was originally presented as six episodes (but has been uploaded as a 130 minute special), brings this total to 28.
A further two complete, solely animated missing stories – The Power Of The Daleks (1966) and The Macra Terror (1967) – are presented in HD and add 10 episodes to the tally.
Five orphaned episodes from 60’s serials The Crusade (1965), Galaxy 4 (1965), The Celestial Toymaker (1966) and The Space Pirates (1969) bring the total up to 600. The 1996 TV Movie, the original unaired pilot episode for An Unearthly Child and the 50th anniversary film An Adventure In Space And Time will also be available on the service, in addition to The Underwater Menace (1966), The Wheel In Space (1968) and The Web Of Fear (1968) which have been completed using existing telesnaps and surviving audio recordings of the missing episodes. Spin-off drama K-9 And Company (1981) and documentaries More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS and Doctor Who: Doctors Revisited complete the collection.
If watched back-to-back without stopping to eat, drink or sleep it would take a committed viewer around 272 hours (over 11 days) to watch everything in one sitting.
BritBox will also be curating special Doctor Who Classic Collections, including ‘New to Who’, which features one key episode from each of the first seven Doctors as an introduction for the uninitiated. Further collections will be devoted to the most memorable monsters, with the Cybermen, the Daleks, the Master and the Sontarans each getting their own collection. The game-changing regeneration episodes have also been collated into one handy collection.
Boxing Day also marks the start of a longer term collaboration with the BBC, with a shared vision of making BritBox the ultimate home of classic Doctor Who content in 2020 and beyond, and ensuring the widest collection available is presented in the best possible format and quality.
Reemah Sakaan, Group Director ITV SVOD, commented: “BritBox becoming the first complete digital home of classic Doctor Who creates a special opportunity for fans and streamers across the UK. We are looking forward to expanding the collection even further by working with the show creators to lovingly restore lost and previously unavailable episodes in the months to come and offering a truly exclusive experience.”
Sally de St Croix, Franchise Director for Doctor Who at BBC Studios added: “It’s thrilling to partner with BritBox and see all this amazing Doctor Who content congregate in one place where subscribers can stream to their hearts’ content – some experiencing the show for the first time whilst others will simply be enjoying it all over again.”
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