The New ‘Doctor Who’ Specials Are Coming to Blu-ray Sooner Than You Think

If you’re a fan of physical media (like me) and you like Doctor Who (also like me), then today is your lucky day. The BBC has announced that all the upcoming specials featuring David Tennant and Catherine Tate—the first one airs on November 25, so they’re tantalizingly close—will be available to buy in DVD, Blu-ray, and steelbook formats starting December 11, two days after the final special airs.

The highly anticipated special episodes star Tennant as the 14th Doctor, Tate as Donna Noble, Neil Patrick Harris as The Toymaker, Yasmin Finney as Donna’s daughter Rose, Ruth Madeley as Shirley Bingham, and—as seen in both the first trailer and the newest one—Ncuti Gatwa as some form of the upcoming 15th Doctor.

Behind the scenes and special features

There will be three discs in all, presumably one for each episode—The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder, and The Giggle—and a whole host of exciting special features. Doctor Who has always excelled in giving fans the behind-the-scenes content they deserve, and these upcoming releases are no exception. According to the Radio Times, the set contains:

• In-Vision commentaries for all three episodes
• “Behind the Scenes” for all three episodes
• Trailers for all three episodes
• Behind the Scenes trailers for all three episodes
• “David and Catherine’s Flashbacks,” which I’m assuming will be a retrospective of their time on the show?
• “Yasmin Finney Introduces Rose Noble” – Interestingly, this seems to confirm that Finney’s Rose will be using her mother’s surname, not her father’s, her father being Shaun Temple from the two-part 2009-2010 special “The End of Time.”
• “Ruth Madeley Introduces Shirley Bingham”
• “Neil Patrick Harris Introduces the Toymaker”
• “Becoming the Toymaker”
• “The Cast Introduce the Villains in Wild Blue Yonder“
• “The Fourteenth Doctor Reveal”
• “Designing the Fourteenth Doctor”
• “Set Tour with Yasmin Finney”
• “TARDIS Set Tour with David Tennant and Phil Sims” (Sims being the production designer for the upcoming episodes.)
• “Video Diary with David Tennant’s Stand-in”
• “60th Specials Recap with David Tennant”
• “Behind The Scenes Fun with David and Catherine” – Now this is one I’m really looking forward to, as these two have amazing chemistry.

One curious omission seems to be Doctor Who: Unleashed, the backstage show that’s going to cover every new episode—unless that’s what the “Behind the Scenes” part refers to?

Doctor Who comes to Disney+

If you prefer to watch your Doctor Who on streaming services, you’re good to go there as well.

The new Tennant & Tate 60th anniversary episodes will be on Disney+, unless you’re in the UK, in which case they’ll be on the BBC iPlayer, which will also house all the classic episodes of Doctor Who—apart from the very first episode, which has unfortunately been blocked because of a malicious copyright claim from the late writer’s son. The same day that archive drops, November 1, we’ll also be getting a Classic Who documentary with David Tennant introducing us to the lesser-known eras of the show. This is going to be an absolutely wonderful holiday season for Who fans.

(featured image: BBC)