Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Lionsgate has come in for a fair amount of ribbing from yours truly over the past many months due to what I’ve personally perceived as a somewhat haphazard and even random 4K UHD release “strategy” (if it can even be called that, so I guess the razzing continues). Maybe making a play for Silver in this particular awards competition is BBC, which has had a similarly kind of odd 4K UHD release slate, often understandably made up of some of their nature offerings like Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II: The Collection 4K. Now comes the kind of patently odd decision to release a standalone 4K UHD of Doctor Who’s 2017 Christmas special. Making this all the odder is the fact that BBC has not included a 1080p Blu-ray with this release, and so those trying to complete their collections who may be on the hunt for that format will have to spring for the separate standalone 1080p Blu-ray as well.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray. Also note that, as stated above, this release does not include a 1080p Blu- ray disc, just the 4K UHD disc.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of BBC with a 2160p transfer in 1.78:1. The Christmas Special receives a marginal upgrade in detail levels with this release, but not anything that I personally would call (to use a British term) gobsmacking. While several extreme close-ups of faces offer noticeable upticks in fine detail levels on elements like pores, overall the digitally captured imagery, and especially the CGI, can look positively soft at times, especially in wider framings. The best parts of this presentation to me were the subtle new highlights introduced by HDR. The special is awash in blues, and there's a cooler, almost (dare I say it?) teal tone to some of the proceedings now. The World War I sequences also offer a clearer delineation between the slightly suffused people in the foreground and the more desaturated, at times almost monochromatic, backgrounds. Some of the yellows, as in the scene depicting the two Doctors using the "alien interface" are also more burnished looking in this presentation. With regard to that same sequence, however, the increased resolution doesn't exactly help the CGI aliens, which almost look cartoon like in this version. The "timeline error" sequence where the World War I soldier gets deposited at the South Pole also has some newly gorgeous and well saturated orange and red tones. The archival video that starts off the special looks a bit more ragged in UHD as well. This is a release that shows subtle but noticeable improvements in detail, and arguably even more noticeable palette changes, but I'm not quite sure it's enough to make this a "must buy" for those who may be double dipping. Perhaps the bonus features not included on the 1080p Blu-ray (discussed below) might make this somewhat more appealing to those who have yet to spring for the special in any format.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This 4K UHD release sports the same fine sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is described in our Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time Blu-ray review.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Doctor Who Extra: Twice Upon a Time (HD; 23:19) is the same fun making of featurette that was included as a supplement on the 1080p Blu-ray disc.


• End of an Era (HD; 21:40) was originally included as a supplement on the multi disc set I covered in our Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray review, and is an homage to Capaldi's years in the role.


• Dr. Who Panel: San Diego Comic Con 2017 (HD; 59:02) was also previously released and described in our Doctor Who: The Complete Peter Capaldi Years Blu-ray review.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Doctor Who completists (and you know who you are) may well want this captivating and often quite fun special in their collections in some format, but I have to question BBC's wisdom in marketing this as a standalone release, especially without even including the 1080p Blu- ray, as many, maybe even most, 4K UHD packages do these days. The special itself is very sweet, if occasionally a little on the mawkish side, but I didn't find the uptick in detail levels more than average. The bigger change to my eyes was the noticeable range of highlights in this version which aren't as apparent in the 1080p Blu-ray release.