Unfortunately the BBC has decided Australia doesn’t get to watch any Doctor Who that was released before 2005 or is a spin-off. So uh, anyone got a plex share or torrent with the lot? Immediate preference is getting the same versions as what is available on iPlayer in the UK, but would settle for DVD rips if that’s what’s available.
Short answer: I’d probably start with TVC for video stuff and MAM for audio stuff. They definitely won’t get you all the way there, but they’d be a decent enough start for a collection and ratio isn’t hard on either one.
Longer answer: The main series itself and the theatrical movies shouldn’t be too hard, and even the main spinoffs (K9 and Company, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, even Class) shouldn’t be too bad. I think where you’re going to run into issues are things like the fan reconstructions of lost episodes, the various animated stories, short stuff like the Tardisodes, there’s the behind the scenes programmes (Doctor Who Confidential, Totally Doctor Who, Doctor Who Extra, etc), the Red Nose specials, etc.
Then you get into the other stuff - official BBC stuff but not-on-video, all the fan stuff made during the lost years that had official / semi-official / unofficial-but-winked-at licensing, etc: There have been official BBC audio plays and radio dramas. I think most of Big Finish audios have leaked, though collecting and keeping up with them would be a chore - it’s a pretty big collection, and they still make multiple stories every month. The ReelTime and BBV videos can probably be tracked down with a bit of effort (I do like the Myth Makers series). I don’t know if any of the theatrical productions have been professionally filmed, though there’s likely amateur video (but watching an audience video is often tedious and I’m not sure how much you want to get into this). Etc, etc.
If you want to get even further into things, there are novels and comics and annuals and all sorts of other stuff. I guess the question is, where do you want to start, and how far do you want to go?
Again, personally, I would start with TVC and MAM and see how far I wanted to go. I mean, the show has changed a lot over the years, some of it’s missing, it’s in various formats, stuff in different formats us considered canonical or non-canonical depending on the person. Even if you’re willing to sit through black-and-white video recordings from the William Hartnell years, do you want to sit through fan reconstructions of ten of the twelve episodes of “The Daleks’ Master Plan”? Do you want to read Lungbarrow in preparation for the TV movie? It’s a long, complex, and time-consuming continuity.
Funny thing mate, I’m hoping to create a master collection precisely because I’m the kind of nerd who enjoys the reconstructions - huge fan of the audios and novels, so I absolutely think I’m goimg to follow your suggestions around starting points and go from there. Largely it’s not strictly for a “complete rewatch”, moreso it’s about wanting to be able to read/watch/listen to pretty much everything on my own terms
There’s actually quite a lot of the supplemental stuff (Tardisodes etc.) just hanging around on YouTube, many of them sorted into helpful playlists, which I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link to.
Also for the newer show, I recommend grabbing the torrents from a user called QxR. They’re good quality and most have a folder of featurettes that includes Confidential and various behind the scenes stuff that I was having a hard time finding. I definitely can’t link directly to that but they should be easy enough to track down.
For the older show, there used to be a BIG torrent (like ~250Gb IIRC) with all the existing old episodes in it, but I don’t remember where that came from right now. However, a lot of the old episodes are on the Internet Archive so that might be a good place to start.
Will do mate honestly, thanks so much!
Nah, both posts came through in public. I’ve applied for an aussie.zone account. It’s getting late here anyway, so I’ll head to bed soon and come back tomorrow to see if it’s approved.
If not (maybe your admin takes weekends off to enjoy the weather!) - I see that your account is five months old, maybe we could PM on reddit? We’ll sort it out tomorrow, anyway :)
Nah that makes sense mate. I’m afraid I no longer have reddit - nuked it went I moved here on principle, so we’ll just have to have a bit of patience. Have a good one in any case, I’ll chat with you when you can :)
Can you try DMing me? (Not sure if you can, kbin had some issues with it earlier.)
Chucked it through mate, hopefully it’s working. My instance is Aussie.zone, so should’ve dodged the problem
I’ll see if I can’t put together a small collection of things for you to grab.