TV

Doctor Who
20x23 The Five Doctors [40th Anniversary Edition; 3rd or so watch]

+ the new audio commentary (there are four different ones across all the cuts now) with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, and Mark Strickson, moderated by Matthew Sweet

The Fifth Doctor enters my 60th anniversary celebration by way of the 20th anniversary special, here in a new-and-improved version created to mark its 40th anniversary. Anniversary-tastic!

Of course, the media I chose to consume for my Doctor Who 60th celebrations was all supposed to be new to me — the original idea was serials I hadn’t seen before, which was immediately a problem because I’ve seen every episode from the Seventh Doctor onwards, and so that’s what led to the “mixed media” concept. There are multiple Fifth Doctor texts that could’ve fit either version, but I’ve gone back to one I’ve actually seen several times before (though my most recent viewing was in 2008, i.e. 15 years ago).

So it's just a cheat? Yes and no. As I mentioned above, this is the “40th anniversary version”, which was freshly released just last month as part of the Season 20 Blu-ray set. It was my desire to watch this new version that meant it nabbed the Fifth Doctor’s spot in my celebration marathon. So, although I have seen The Five Doctors before, I’ve never seen this edit, with these special effects*, in HD. Not to mention that, as the big 20th anniversary celebratory story, it fits very nicely as part of a 60th celebration anyway.

* There's a lot more to the new version that just some light polishing on the old effects: there are 117 new effects shots throughout the story, including things like digital set/location extensions. There's a neat comparison video of the different versions here that shows at least a few of them.