Scanning through my embarrassingly large number of shelves this week, my brother asked me, “How many times have you actually bought Spearhead from Space?” He’d spotted a Blu Ray version and the Zavvi Steelbook within a few cases of one another. I had to count: the original VHS, the unedited VHS, the DVD, the second DVD in the Mannequin Mania box set, the original Blu Ray, the Steelbook Blu Ray, three editions of the Target book, one with the Russell T Davies introduction, and I’d most definitely buy the Season 7 Blu Ray set on its eventual release. That’s a few too many times buying a story that, hand on heart, I can’t say is a particular favourite. So why the hell have I done it?
Well, each new version does offer
something better, a fresh perspective on a familiar story. From the original
VHS to the Blu Ray edition, each illustrates the progressively stronger
restoration techniques across the decades. The first edition was a dirty scan
of a grotty, old film. The newest is in true HD. The special features for each
subsequent DVD edition got better and better: from a 1999 advert and a 1993
UNIT recruitment film on the version released in 2000 to a terrific, HD-shot
Jon Pertwee biopic. Truth be told, however, I bought all these versions simply
because I wanted them. I wanted that Zavvi Steelbook because it is bloody
gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve ever watched it but I’m a happier man with it sat
there on the shelf and I’d be irritated if I’d missed it.
These days, I hear lots of
internet talk of “The Legacy Brand.” Broadly speaking, it’s the idea that the
modern iteration of Doctor Who has alienated the old-school fans (and
admittedly, I know for a fact it certainly has one or two) so the emphasis in
terms of merchandise has become not on the latest action figures or Doctor Who
Adventures Magazine because the show isn’t down with the kids any longer. No,
the great push is now to sell the old programme to the old fans again.
This is partly given credence by sales figures of DVDs and Blu Rays last year
which pointed to Classic Who selling more than New Who. Whether this is true or
not, it has given rise to a very specialist kind of product, the kind of
product fans of other shows would die for. In fact, they’re the sort of
products that six weeks after their release are fetching £300 on eBay.
Take the beautifully-boxed Blu
Ray Season sets. Lee Binding’s artwork is masterful, the layout and booklet
design are attractive and upmarket. The extra filmed content and picture and
sound restoration are frankly undeservingly wonderful. No other vintage show
has had this sort of attention given to its curation, aside from possibly Red
Dwarf. The overall packages are high-end, deluxe collectors’ products and after
30 years of Doctor Who merchandise accumulation, they are rapidly becoming the
very pride of the collection and the only way to watch the Classic show.
Closely behind them are the Demon
Record editions of lost 60s stories. Heavy and neatly stylised, the vinyls look
gorgeous on Amazon but to hold them in your hands is a pure delight. Placed
strategically, the covers form a jigsaw of digital paintings such as the Yeti
reflected in a sphere like a snow-globe, or a Dalek edging its way through a
fiery Kembel jungle. The LPs themselves are beautifully and individually
patterned. I don’t need these - I have the CDs released at the turn of the
millennium – but they are so distinctly different to other Who merchandise and
so remarkably, efficiently exquisite that they easily earn their places on the
shelves.
Next comes the epic Complete
History, the ultimate collection of Andrew Pixley’s Archives, updated from
their original publication in DWM and brought together to form the written
encyclopaedia of the making of Doctor Who. My wife bought me this for my thirtieth
birthday present before we were married. In recompense, I married her. I jest
of course, but this is such a magnificent gamut of literature, chronicling the
show since before its inception to the end of the Capaldi years that it
represents nothing more than the definitive guide, each story illustrated with
a new, gorgeous-looking poster design by Lee Johnson. Shelved alongside the
ongoing Blu Ray collection, it is soon to be all a collector could even need.
But of course that’s never enough
for the OCD Whovian collector. There are the aforementioned Steelbooks. I am
beyond excited at the prospect of adding a Faceless Ones and a Fury
from the Deep to The Power of the Daleks, Shada and The Macra
Terror, as well as feeling incredibly lucky to have snapped up the Series 9
Capaldi set with the painted cover by Alice X Zhang. I’m hoping Series 5-8
finally arrive but the recent Specials Steelbook is a lovely purchase, Tom
Webster’s artwork a match for his Spare Parts and Chimes of Midnight
vinyls which also reside lovingly beside the Demon Records.
Big Finish have got in on the act
too as a matter of course. Their lavish Tenth Doctor CD-books, most recently
complete with June Hudson costume designs and Mike Tucker storyboards, are as
gorgeous as anything produced by the BBC and their Novel Adaptations sets are
to die for. The Sixth Doctor’s Last Adventure is a very special purchase
and the 20-year anniversary story The Legacy of Time is a huge, robust
treasure chest of adventure (and the first three stories contained therein are
as magnificent as Doctor Who has ever been).
Character Options and B & M
aren’t averse to the specific collectors’ market either: Harry Sullivan just
appeared on the shelves with a couple of Classic Sontarans but perhaps the most
special of their summer range were the Big Finish crossover Doctor-Dalek sets:
a War Doctor and a Bronze and Silver Dalek, a Dark Eyes-coated Eighth
Doctor and an Interrogator Prime. Yeah, these sit beautifully alongside the
mud-spattered Androzani TARDIS set and the Shada, ambulance
lamp-topped Tom variety. If these releases continue to be handled with such
particular care and attention, I can see my bank balance being yet more reduced
and worrying.
Whatever the reasons for this
bent towards very specific and high-quality Classic Series merchandise, it’s
difficult to deny that we are living in something of a renaissance when it
comes to our Who collecting. I thought the days of being excited for the next
ultimate DVD edition of a favourite story were over. Now, we have a Blu Ray box
set every few months, an animation to look forward to at least twice a year, a
Complete History to browse through, a growing vinyl collection to immerse
ourselves in and above all else and like it or not, a new series on the
television which, in years to come, can find itself being released and
re-released in a cavalcade of similarly new, inventive and beautiful ways.
JH
