The announcement trailers for new entries in Doctor Who’s classic-era remasters just keep getting more and more involved. At first, it was just a cute way to bring back a classic companion for a fun moment or a short skit, but now they’ve gotten so big the latest gives us a whole new look at the final days of The Last Great Time War.
Made to announce that season 15 of classic Who is the latest to get the Collection treatment, “The Final Battle” brings back Louise Jameson’s Leela, the former warrior of the Sevateem who travelled with the fourth Doctor before eventually deciding to settle down on Gallifrey and start a life together with the Time Lord guardsman Andred. A life Leela sees torn apart as the Daleks lay waste to the Time Lords at the climax of their long, bloody conflict.
It’s a brilliant spotlight for Jameson, who gets to play Leela’s grief at her adopted home being laid to waste, her warrior fury standing up to the Daleks, and, of course, the elation of being reunited with the Doctor as she escapes Gallifrey’s fate. But it’s also absolutely wild that this is a trailer for a home release box set at this point!
Now that Doctor Who is more willing to do short form material as the BBC tries to make the “Whoniverse”—its dedicated streaming platform for Doctor Who in the UK and Ireland—a thing, it honestly feels like we’re not too far away from these announcement trailers becoming some kind of companion-focused short anthology series. Imagine if we got something akin to Tales of the TARDIS again, but it was these moments looking at companions lives after their time with the Doctor, new adventures and touching reminisces?
And that’s even before you get to what it’s actually advertising! The Doctor Who: The Collection version of season 15 collects all six stories from the 1977 season—“The Horror of Fang Rock,” “The Invisible Enemy,” “Image of the Fendahl,” “The Sun Makers,” “Underworld,” and “The Invasion of Time”—fully remastered for release on blu-ray, as well as a host of new behind-the-scenes features, including audio commentary for each serial, rare footage from Doctor Who conventions, new documentaries, and more, on top of the included features already made for these stories’ prior DVD releases.
Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 15 doesn’t have a set release date just yet, but like Leela, we’ll keep waiting.
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