Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 4, 2018

Note: Virtually all of the content in this set has been previously released, so links to reviews of titles included in this package are offered below. The bulk of this review will concentrate on this set's Bonus Disc, exclusive to this release. That includes the screenshots accompanying this review. The scores above are for the entire set, however.

Peter Capaldi may be gone, but this handsome new 14 disc set from BBC may help to keep him from being forgotten. While it may seem that Capaldi spent less time in the role than some of his "siblings", in fact his reign was more or less standard, and in fact longer than some of the other actors who have taken on the inimitable role of Doctor Who. The perception of Capaldi as a "short termer" may be due at least in part to the somewhat longer than average runs of relatively recent actors like David Tennant, who lasted around five years in the role. Capaldi's take on the character was initially met with a bit of skepticism by longtime fans, but he grew into the role and brought his own enjoyable combination of goofiness and occasionally tartness to his characterization. Now fans of Doctor Who in general or Peter Capaldi in particular can have all of his Doctor Who work in one nicely packaged set.

This set gathers together all of the previously released Capaldi Doctor Who material, along with a new exclusive Bonus Disc (see the supplements section below for more information on the contents of this particular disc). Because BBC doesn't shy away from repackaging its Doctor Who releases, it can be a bit daunting to try to figure out what exactly this set contains. I'll split the contents into two categories, with the first listing featuring titles that have reviews attached:

Doctor Who: The Complete Eighth Series Blu-ray review

Doctor Who: The Complete Ninth Series Blu-ray review

Doctor Who: Series 10 Part 1 Blu-ray review

Doctor Who: Series 10 Part 2 Blu-ray review

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time Blu-ray review

However, just to make things more confusing, BBC has also released these variant versions of some of the seasons (series) in question:

Doctor Who: Series 9 Part 1

Doctor Who: Series 9 Part 2

Doctor Who: The Complete Tenth Series

The bottom line is, if you haven't yet splurged on getting the Capaldi episodes and specials, there's a significant savings in purchasing this nicely done package. If you have in fact gotten some or perhaps even all of these Capaldi efforts, you may need to do some individual calculating on whether it would be more cost effective to get this set or to pick up whatever you personally don't have in your collection yet. For folks like this, there frankly may not be that much on the Bonus Disc to justify the still fairly hefty price tag if your particular "math" makes it something of a wash to either pick up missing items or get this complete set.

Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For video quality of the various seasons and Christmas specials, along with screenshots from those releases, see the appropriate above linked revews. The two main calling cards for the Bonus Disc are probably the old David Tennant episode that also features Peter Capaldi, as well as the 2017 Comic Con Panel. There are screenshots from both presentations included with this review, but the bottom line is the Tennant episode is an obvious upscale, with a kind of ragged appearance in terms of clarity, but a rather robust looking palette. The HD native Comic Con Panel is about what you would expect, with decent detail levels sometimes kept at literal arm's length due to the camera trying to get as many participants in the frame as possible. While perhaps serving as "also rans" in terms of interest in the supplementary material on the Bonus Disc, both the concert and the reminiscence of Capaldi's time as Doctor Who have probably the best overall video quality on this disc, with excellent sharpness and detail levels, and no hints of compression problems.

Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For audio quality of the various seasons and Christmas specials, see the appropriate above linked reviews.

Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

For supplemental material included with the various seasons and Christmas specials, see the appropriate above linked revews. The Bonus Disc in this set includes the following material:

• The Fires of Pompeii (1080p; 50:20) is a David Tennant episode that features Peter Capaldi in a supporting guest role. This is frankly a kind of middling episode that plays awfully like something from Irwin Allen's old The Time Tunnel series from the 1960s, where the heroes of that show would regularly arrive at some impending historical disaster like the Titanic sinking. In this case, Doctor Who arrives in Pompeii one day before a certain volcano is set to erupt. See screenshots 1 through 11 for some indication of the video quality of this episode, which is one of the upscaled episodes that my colleague Ken Brown discussed in his Doctor Who: Complete Series 1-7 Blu-ray review .


• Series Eight Deleted Scenes (1080p; 18:08)


• 2017 San Diego Comic Con Panel (1080i; 56:37) features Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffatt, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas and Mark Gatiss. Devoted Whovian Chris Hardwick (from Nerdist) is the affable and maybe slightly star struck moderator.


• The Finale Concert (1080p; 38:41) actually bears the title The Finale Countdown, but one way or the other offers an interesting live performance by an orchestra to playback from the series, interspersed with some interviews.


• The End of an Era (1080p; 21:40) is an homage to Capaldi and his time in this iconic role.

Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is a very nicely packaged set, but whether or not any individual consumer is going to want to buy it will probably be determined by what if any of the already released product is in their collection already. Get your spreadsheets and calculators out to figure out the ins and outs of that predicament, but know that this is a handsomely packaged set with the same excellent technical merits for the main series and specials. The Bonus Disc exclusive to this set is frankly a little on the "meh" side, but individual offerings on it may appeal to various fans. Recommended.