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Doctor Who on New Zealand TelevisionBy Paul Scoones
May 2000 - June 2001In May 2000, the UHF and satellite channel Prime Television began a screening of every complete story in order from the beginning. The episodes were initially screened five nights a week (Monday to Friday), and after the first three weeks, an extra episode was added to the schedules on Sundays. The start time was 6.25 PM. The screenings commenced on Monday 15 May. The Hartnell transmissions on Prime included six stories that had never before screened in New Zealand: The Keys of Marinus, The Aztecs, The Sensorites, The Web Planet, The Chase and The Gunfighters. The Time Meddler episodes screened on this occasion were the unrestored versions recovered from Nigeria with the cuts made by the New Zealand censor in 1968 still in evidence. Some of the Hartnell episodes screened on Prime were edited to remove 'Next Episode' captions and some had end credits that had been made for US syndication. The Hartnell era screenings ended Sunday 13 August with the last episode of The War Machines, but the series continued the following day with the first episode of The Tomb of the Cybermen. Every complete surviving Troughton story screened on Prime Television in 2000, screened from 14 August to 21 September, beginning with The Tomb of the Cybermen followed by The Dominators - making its New Zealand television debut - The Mind Robber, The Krotons, The Seeds of Death and finally The War Games, also screening on New Zealand television for the very first time, more than thirty years after this story first screened in the UK. From 22 September Prime screened every Jon Pertwee episode in the correct sequence and without a break. This run saw the New Zealand debut of Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part One, and the rest of this story was broadcast with correctly numbered episodes for the first time and, in addition, a slightly longer edit of Part Three. A number of episodes that had previously screened in New Zealand in black and white were broadcast for the first time in colour on Prime, including The Ambassadors of Death Episode 5, and all of Terror of the Autons and The Daemons - all of which had been successfully restored to transmission-quality colour by the BBC in the early 1990s. Although BBC held a colour version of Episode 1 of The Ambassadors of Death and a colour-restored version of all seven episodes of Doctor Who and the Silurians, black and white recordings of these instalments were supplied to Prime. Also broadcast in black and white were Episodes 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 of The Ambassadors of Death, The Mind of Evil, Planet of the Daleks Episode Three and Invasion of the Dinosaurs Part One. From Death to the Daleks onwards, Prime doubled their Doctor Who screenings from six to twelve episodes per week by moving the start time to 6 PM and running two episodes per night back to back. These were presented with the middle closing and opening titles and recap removed. The Pertwee era ended on Prime on 8 February 2001 with the screening of Parts Five and Six of Planet of the Spiders. A further run of Tom Baker era repeats commenced on 9 February 2001 with Robot, following on directly from Planet of the Spiders the previous day. The two episodes per day back-to-back format lasted until The Sun Makers Part One & Two on Friday 30 March 2001. Thereafter the schedule changed to single episodes at 6 PM from The Sun Makers Part Three on Sunday 1 April 2001. The run ended with The Horns of Nimon Part Four on Thursday 7 June 2001. For the first time on New Zealand television, all of the stories from Seasons Twelve to Seventeen were played in the correct sequence. Prime planned to resume the series with The Leisure Hive from Monday 7 January 2002 but around this time the channel changed owners and a major change to the schedules meant that Doctor Who was dropped from Prime's programme line-up. February 2002The second Dalek movie, Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966) was screened on Prime on Wednesday 6 February 2002 at 10.35 AM. As with two previous New Zealand screenings of the Dalek movies, this was scheduled on a public holiday, in this case Waitangi Day. July - September 2005New Zealand was the second country to buy the new Doctor Who series, following Canada but ahead of Australia. Allegedly Prime TV beat out TVNZ in a bidding war and apparently purchased not only the 2005 series but also acquired first refusal rights to purchase and screen repeats of earlier Doctor Who stories. The series was purchased around the beginning of December 2004 and the announcement was made public on Monday 6 December. Prime's Programming Manager indicated in the press release that Prime intended to place it in a primetime slot. Prime heavily promoted the new series before it began screening in press advertising, in trailers on Prime and also advertised it with a large publicity photo of the Doctor, Rose and the TARDIS featured on the backs of buses, with the tagline 'If you're not on the edge of your seat, you'll be hiding behind it.' The series was scheduled on Thursdays at 7.30 PM. The first episode screened 7 July 2005 - just a few weeks after the new series ended its initial run in the UK. Prime gave Rose a scheduled 'Encore' repeat screening at 7.30 PM on Sunday 10 July, three days after the first screening. This 'Encore' repeat was only for the first episode. Unlike the original UK transmissions, the episodes were presented in a full screen, not widescreen format, and consequently the edges of the picture were cropped and sometimes the picture appeared slightly 'scrunched', most noticeably in The Long Game, to get the whole picture in frame. The episodes were screened in an hour-long slot with four commercial breaks. Generally the episodes were screened uncut although a few seconds were sometimes lost in the edit for the commercial breaks. The new series episodes screened once a week, in the correct order, without any schedule changes. The series ended with the last episode, The Parting of the Ways, screened 29 September 2005. View the Prime Press Pack for Series 1 July - October 2006New Zealand was the first country outside the UK to screen Series 2, just two days ahead of Australia. The series was launched on Prime TV on Thursday 6 July 2006 with The Christmas Invasion, screened more than seven months after its UK broadcast. This hour-long episode was accorded a 75-minute timeslot to accommodate commercials, from 7.30 to 8.45 PM. The final episode of Series 2, Doomsday, screened in the UK two days after the NZ broadcast of The Christmas Invasion. Series 2 began on Prime the following Thursday, 13 July, in the regular timeslot of 7.30 - 8.30 PM with New Earth. All 13 episodes were screened in their correct order and the run concluded with Doomsday on 5 October 2006. As with Series 1, the episodes were presented in a full screen ratio, cropping the edges of the picture, and several commercial breaks were inserted throughout each episode. The 2006 series was heavily promoted by Prime with various eye-catching adverts on buses, large billboards, radio adverts and television trailers. Once the series was underway, individual episodes were promoted with teaser trailers on Prime that sometimes presented an unexpected angle on the story; for example School Reunion focused on the threat of school teachers masquerading as aliens, with no mention of Sarah Jane and K9. December 2006 - March 2007After a two-and-a-half month break, Doctor Who returned to Prime in December 2006 for a repeat screening of the complete Series One from Rose through to The Parting of the Ways. The episodes were repeated 18 months after their initial New Zealand screening. The End of the World was erroneously promoted by Prime with the title Death of the World. This episode screened without commercial breaks on Christmas Day 2006. The series screened on Mondays at 7.30 PM from 18 December 2006 to 12 March 2007. August - November 2007Five months later, Doctor Who was back on Prime, this time with previously unscreened episodes. The series was moved to Sundays, still at 7.30 PM, and commenced on 19 August 2007 with the second Christmas special, The Runaway Bride. To accommodate this longer episode Prime allocated an extra half hour to the timeslot. The complete Series Three followed, from Smith and Jones through to Last of the Time Lords. This last episode screened 18 November 2007 was the so-called ‘international version’ with an approximately 45-minute duration, rather than the extended 52-minute version that had screened on UK television. December 2007Christmas 2007 saw Prime devote over 12 hours to a Doctor Who marathon over a 24-hour period. All 15 episodes screened were repeats, beginning with The Runaway Bride at 7 PM on Christmas Eve, Monday 24 December, and followed on Christmas Day by a continuous, commercial-free screening of the complete Series One from Rose through to The Parting of the Ways, and then concluding with The Christmas Invasion. The End of the World was again erroneously promoted by Prime with the title Death of the World. This episode has the distinction of having screened on Christmas Day two years in a row. This was the third transmission of Series One on Prime (and the fourth for Rose). Prime initially claimed that The Runaway Bride would be screened twice: on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day, however the latter screening was quickly amended in the schedules to The Christmas Invasion. |