THE DASILVA FEATURETTE - what's the deal?

Some people have asked why the DaSIlva featurette on The Ark In Space contains such long episode recaps and scene extensions, here are the reasons:

1. This was the first ever and likely only opportunity to digitally preserve Howard's contributions to the series. Remember these versions were all but destroyed in the American vaults over a decade ago.


2. What made these "commercially formatted" versions unique to America are not just his narrations, but the specific effects and edits that were selected for the syndication package. Very often topics of discussion for us old timers that used to spend hours on the phone and at conventions debating such decisions (like why sometimes on the Tom Baker movies you see the logo and sometimes you don't - and how often you'd get a bad edit frame of "Part One" on many movie versions).


3. As the US DVD releases are likely the only possibility to digitally preserve these uniquely American versions, created by American videotape editors in 1978 for the syndication launch of Tom's first 98 episodes - the decision was made to faithfully recreate each episode's distinctly created formatting, exactly as first screened here in the US.


4. That is beyond the voice overs, are the unique edits to the end credits (logo flying back) followed by preview scenes, and the fades to and from black where the original commercial breaks were placed.


5. The original editors spent hours trying to figure out how best to format these shows for commercial television. So when you this featurette, you're also seeing a faithful recreation of the original syndication reformatting, in addition to the scripts written for Howard that he read in three hours back in 1978.


6. From opening credits to the end of the first commercial break...sometimes these segments are short, sometimes these are longer. That depends on when the original scenes were faded for commercial break insertion.


7. These edits have been matched frame for frame for the DVD featurette. From where the logo flies back during the teaser, to the font size and style used to credit Howard and Time/Life at the end.


8. The Ark In Space for example was one of four episodes where the original editors compensated for late music cues by shortening some of the actual actors credits from 2 seconds - where they were originally 4 seconds, these details are what make the recreations special - beyond Howard's voice - so the whole unique American experience of seeing Dr. Who in the 70's can be relived when taking this personal Tardis timetrip back to America's Who past on commercial television.

If these efforts are appreciated, I also hope to include original stills (such as the image used on Robots Of Death) from the PBS stations that aired these during the :15 second black segments intended for commercial spots.

While it may seem a bit excessive to showcase these details in every episode for the casual interest Who fan, us old-time hard core folks that remember and love revisiting these shows from Saturday morning on Channel 9 really enjoy the attention to detail.

If you don't want to sit through the recaps, the fast forward option is always there - for those of us that remember these little details as part of the "experience" of the original broadcast of the series in the US - these little differences are special and important, not to feature them would be less than respectful.

We don't have to agree on this point, but I hope this reasoning makes some sense.

Yours in Gallifrey (10-0-11-00-by - 0 - 2)

TJ Lubinsky
Howard DaSilva DVD Featurette dude