It was the end, but the moment had been prepared for. The well had run dry, and 2003 quietly trickled out the final Doctor Who stories yet to be released on VHS. VHS had become an outdated and inferior home viewing platform. DVD allowed higher picture quality, interactive menus, scene selection, special features, commentaries, special music, photo galleries, and took up far less space on the shelf. To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the program, each of the VHS releases of the year featured a special 40th Anniversary badge as the DVDs would (the exception being The Reign Of Terror). The VHS releases were spread out across the 40th year. The BBFC ratings now adopted the 2002 style logos, and the internal advertisement for more Doctor Who products were all the same.
A section designed as the TARDIS roundels (a darker version to that of the one seen on the DVD range) promoted the DVDs for Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Red Dwarf. Another section advertised the 40th Anniversary logo along with DVDs (The Tomb Of The Cybermen, The Ark In Space, Carnival Of Monsters, Resurrection Of The Daleks and The Seeds Of Death), and VHSs (The First Doctor Collection, The Ambassadors Of Death, The Invisible Enemy, Underworld, and The Creature From The Pit).
The first release was The Mutants (17th February), retailing at £12.99 and labelled as BBCV7331. The tape ran for 2:27:14, and was rated as a PG. Black Sheep's covered showed the 3rd Doctor, Jo, Ky, Professor Sondergaard, the planet Solos, and the inscription. The internal notes discussed the Mutts, Christopher Barry, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, Geoffrey Palmer, costume designer James Acheson, and the variable quality of the episodes that only survived in NTSC format.
Meglos (£12.99) was released on 10th March. The story was labelled as BBCV7332 and ran for 1:28:30. The rating was a U and the cover showed Meglos as the 4th Doctor, Romana, and Lexa in the setting of Tigella. Meglos' internal notes discussed Bidmead's approach to Doctor Who, K9's treatment in the story, the title of the story, Terence Dudley as director, Jacqueline Hill's return to the series, the Scene-Sync employed during the story, and the various reuse of props seen in the story from older episodes.
The Horns Of Nimon was also charged for £12.99 when it was released on 2nd June. The tape was labelled as BBCV7334 and ran for 1:42:34. This PG rated tape featured the artwork of the 4th Doctor, Romana, a Nimon, and a green background showing a swirling black hole. The interior of the tape talked about Anthony Read's inspiration about the story regarding Theseus and the Minotaur, Graham Crowden, the Nimon, the story abruptly ending Season 17, and how The Horns Of Nimon brought about the end of an era for 1970s Doctor Who. This was the final VHS release for a Tom Baker story.
Invasion Of The Dinosaurs brought about not only the final VHS for the Jon Pertwee era, but also the last complete story to be released. The February 2004 release in Australia was the final VHS release of any Doctor Who VHS in the world. The UK release came about on 20th October, and ran for 2:31:58 as a PG for £12.99. BBCV7333 was left so late in the range because the attempt to recolourise Episode 1 was put back and back because the possibility to recolourise it was prohibitively expensive, as no other colour source could be used to return colour to the episode. The back of the tape pointed out that Episode 1 existed only in black and white. The cover showed the 3rd Doctor, Sarah Jane, a t-rex, and dinosaurs menacing the city of London in the background with an orange background.
An alternate cover (perhaps a promo cover) showed a verdant colour background with the 3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane being menaced by two pterodactyls. The internal notes described the use of CSO in the story, Malcom Hulke's ideas, the dinosaurs that appeared in the story, Jon Pertwee's new car, the announcement of Jon Pertwee's departure as Invasion Of The Dinosaurs went out, the beginning the end of the 3rd Doctor's era, various cast notes, and the condition that Episode 1 survived in. The notes also described how much the VHS had grown in over twenty years - as this was the last regular release of the VHS range. The tape opened with an epic trailer to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Doctor Who by Orbital recorded in 2001 along with clips from various stories. This trailer also appeared on the DVDs of Earthshock, The Two Doctors, The Curse Of Fenric, and The Three Doctors.
Invasion Of The Dinosaurs and The Reign Of Terror were released ahead of their UK releases in the US, which comprised newly commissioned artwork and was available in a special "The End Of The Universe box set". The Reign Of Terror box set completed the Doctor Who VHS range by releasing the remaining episodes from the Hartnell and Troughton era - the surviving episodes of The Reign Of Terror, and the orphan episodes of The Faceless Ones (1&3) and The Web Of Fear (1). This release came out on 24th November - the same day as The Three Doctors DVD, and was a WH Smith exclusive box set which ran for 8,000 units for £19.99. A sticker was included on the box advertising for an exclusive 40th Anniversary pin. The 40th Anniversary logo was on the box itself, and featured the art of the 1st and 2nd Doctors with a background with the TARDIS and the time vortex. The top of the box promoted the episodes inside and the covers of the VHSs. BBCV7335 was rated as a PG, and Tape 1 (The Reign Of Terror) ran for 1:46:24, and Tape 2 (The Faceless Ones/The Web Of Fear) ran for 1:14:11.
The Reign Of Terror covered showed the 1st Doctor, the shopkeeper, and the background of the French army descending over a hill. The interior notes discussed Dennis Spooner's involvement with Doctor Who, filming the story, director Henric Hirsch, this story being the finale of Season 1 of Doctor Who, and the BBC's recordings of the story. Carol Ann Ford's linking narration for the missing Episodes 4 and 5 from the JNT produced aborted 1993 video release was also used, along with the surviving 8mm shots from both missing episodes. The credits for this was played at the end of the tape after Episode 6. It was considered to do a linking narration in the style that had been done for The Crusade release. Ed Stradling from the Restoration Team mixed in Ford's narration to parts of the soundtrack and the recreations of the episode. The tape opened with the 40th Anniversary trailer and then revealed a title card for the story.
"Two episodes exist in private hands as quick-pulldown film recordings, which are technically of a higher quality but the prints are in much worse condition. To complicate matters further, one of these film prints is no longer accessible to us, although we have D3 copies of wetgate telecine transfers of both original prints". There was little physical damage to the episodes, and the usual process of deblobbing was used. Offlocks were repaired and Scratchbox was also employed. A black line down the left hand side of two episodes was made due to the prints having been damaged due to faulty equipment. Distortion from Episode 1 was fixed, and the opening and end titles were remade. For the end of Episode 1 and Episode 6, no VidFIRE was applied to the end titles due to this being shot on film. Episode 1 also had a nasty scratch to it, and the best was done to repair it.
The Faceless Ones/The Web Of Fear's artwork showed the 2nd Doctor, Professor Travers and his daughter Ann, and a Yeti. Both these stories had their audio narration soundtracks released by the early 2000s, so they were available in some form of media before the VHS releases. These stories had also rare screenings on TV before their VHS releases. The notes for The Faceless Ones told of the submission for the story, and the departure of Ben and Polly at the end of the story. The Web Of Fear's notes discussed the return of the Yeti, the setting of the London Underground, the first appearance of the Brigadier (as Colonel in this story), and director Douglas Camfield. The tape also discussed the poor condition that these episodes survived in and the restoration needed to drastically improve the quality of these stories.
The end of the tape included the New Zealand censor clips of The Web Of Fear rediscovered in early 2002, which first appeared on the DVD release of The Seeds Of Death. The restoration also proved a difficult challenge for the Restoration Team. The soundtracks for all the episodes on this release were only put through minor filtering, and the usual processes of the Spirit and DVNR were employed. Episode 1 of The Faceless Ones had always been a BBC print, and was in pretty good condition, minus a few bits of dirt, scratches, and one off-lock that was repaired when the Doctor and Jamie were at the immigration desk. The credits were remade. A few film inserts looked rather dark, and these were graded on Pogle, and any film breaks were stabilised.
Episode 3 was a far greater problem. Episode 3 had long been assumed to be unreleasable due to the various missing frames in the episode. With a lot of work put in by Jonathan Wood and Peter Finklestone, however, a releasable edit was created. With the audio providing a guide (and thus ensuring the episode was as complete as possible), Wood and Finklestone used a combination of two methods (clips made up using motion estimation software and cutaway clips from other moments) to create as complete a version as possible.
"The collector's prints of The Faceless Ones episode 3 and The Evil of the Daleks episode 2 were borrowed once again from Gordon Hendry in order to make new one-light telecine transfers on the Spirit datacine - the latter episode being for archive purposes only as it isn't included on this release. The Faceless Ones episode was badly damaged at some point (probably on a projector) with these sections being removed, consequently there is now a considerable amount of missing material ranging from single frames to several seconds at a time with some important lines of dialogue curtailed. While the print was available some sections were also telecined with a variable amount of zoom in the hope that new cut-away shots could be created to help the editing of the pictures to a complete off-air soundtrack at a later stage".
"Originally it was thought that some use of telesnaps might be employed to bridge the gaps on occasions, but then it was realised this would definitely put the "brakes" on the viewing experience and so running film is used throughout. Although some shots had been transferred zoomed-in on the Spirit (to create cut-aways) more were required and these were generated via the ARC. As it turned out there was very little difference in the resulting quality between these methods because of the limited quality and line structure of the original film. Several seconds of material are missing near the start of the episode when the Doctor enters the inner room of the Chameleon Tours hanger just as a vent panel closes. The actual action of it closing is missing from the print (it simply jumps from open to closed), so the vision mixer's frame store and keying capabilities were used to construct a sliding panel that shuts just before the Doctor comes in".
The team worked around the missing frames by adding in various shots where they could to help cover up the missing frames. Extensive deblobbing and paintboxing was required to cover up the many scratches and pieces of dirt, and the end credits were remade. The Web Of Fear episode 1 had lots of black tramlines on which was believed to originally comes from the negative. More dirt and damage was painted out, and the end credits were also remade, using the raw footage of the Yeti's web to recreate the titles to look even better as they would have done back in 1968! The restoration of these three orphan episodes was used in 2004 for the Lost In Time set.
By now, every single Doctor Who story that existed in the BBC Archives had been released on VHS. The range was complete. The first release of Revenge Of The Cybermen was in October 1983, and just over twenty years the Doctor Who VHS range was one of the largest VHS ranges in the world. Much like the program, the range evolved and adapted with the times. Now, DVD was taking over, and would provide a new medium for fans to enjoy their favourite program, and with the future of Doctor Who looking optimistic for 2005, the VHS range had released 17 Hartnell stories, 6 Troughton stories, 24 Pertwee stories, 41 Tom Baker stories, 20 Davison stories, 8 Colin Baker stories, 12 McCoy releases, and 1 McGann release - combined with all the other special VHS releases over the years as well!