Well, the good Doc is back for Season Thirty (or Four if you want to pretend the show started in 2005) and so far it’s been pretty good. I am going to limit my comments on specific episodes here, but for anyone who hasn’t seen them you can consider as a rule of thumb that these will not be spoiler free.
But actually that isn’t what I want to talk about. Since Christmas 2005, the BBC have done downloadable commentaries for each and every episode that has come our way. There will be either actors, or producers, or crew, or a combination – and often they are a really good way to look at the production of the episode, often in fact of more interest than the Confidential episode that follows the main episode on BBC3.
The commentaries are designed to be listened to as you watch a rerun or recoding of the episode, and often there will be a direct reference to what is happening on the screen on the commentary. The commentaries are the same length as the episodes.
Except for this year. The (much undervalued and appreciated) digital radio station BBC7 is playing an edited form of these commentaries as part of their 7th Dimension slot on a Sunday. They have cut them down to 29 or so minutes. A bit odd, but works okay if you don’t want to watch them along with the episode.
But what has really annoyed me is that the downloadable version is also this cut down 30 minute version, you cannot get the full version at all as a podcast. The only way you can see the commentary in full now is to watch one of the BBC3 reruns in that first week and select the commentary track as you watch it live! WHY!!! Come on BBC, you have made unedited versions of these excellent commentaries available for the last three years, why muck us about now? The DVD commentaries have always been different to these ones, so these podcasts were a unique look into the show.
Unless that’s is. Perhaps they have realised that there is some unnecessary duplication here, perhaps these will be available in full when they release the boxed set of the season later in the year.
Oh well. Anyhow, just wanted to say that Planet of the Ood last night was awesome, but I will let Paul air his views before I throw mine out there!
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