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.
There are some comprehensive torrents that just have everything but it’ll take you ages to download it all. I managed to get the entire collection about ten years ago and just added new releases as they dropped.
Definitely great news that they exist, what would you say my best bet for tracking them down is? Megathread is pretty quiet on this matter
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
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
Have you looked into a Plex Share? Low cost and access to pretty much everything. PM me if you want more info on one.
Absolutely mate, although I’ve not had much luck with them having Doctor Who - most only have the modern show if they have Doctor Who at all. Do you have any recommendations?
Well it looks like a lot of Plex shares got kicked and banned over the weekend so we’ll have to wait till the dust settles. It’ll probably be emby shares if I had to guess.
Usenet is pretty much the only place where you can find truly everything. Many of the original seasons and episodes are lost media. So you can’t actually get everything without a private tracker or Usenet
Bit of a tangent, but it’s the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who, so BBC Sounds has loads of the audioplays available to listen. Those should be available to listen, even in Australia. They invariably star the original actors, I just listened to one which stars David Tennant and Tom Baker.
Indeed! Been buying Big Finish for years as well, so I’ve got a great collection of audios!
i went to 1337x.to, searched “doctor who” and sorted by size. the largest torrent claims to be the complete classic 26 seasons 1963 - 1989 (I assume you know this but based on your question you might not, do not be torrenting unless you have a VPN turned on)
Probably Usenet.
High retention piracy.
Or you become a member of a private tracker and maybe they have a super collection.Everything doesn’t exist. There are 97 episodes currently missing. I started watching from the first ep a while back, there was a fair few more missing at the time, but I pretty soon got lost with big chunks missing.
You can use iplayer through a VPN if that’s useful to you.
FWIW mate, very familiar with the missing episodes - largely have copies of the remaining soundtracks. What I’m looking for is a way to watch everything else. iPlayer could be doable in any case, although I’m aware they have a habit of blocking VPNs, so I’d appreciate a method a little more foolproof
There are fan reconstructions of all the missing episodes, where they used the surviving audio recordings and laid in surviving video clips and John Cura’s telesnaps - various scene, set, and costume photos that were taken for continuity. Some reconstructions also use animations or small home-filmed segments.
