• Home
• >DVD

Browse:

BBC America Shop
Email Newsletter

BBC Canada Shop
Email Newsletter

Sign-up to receive emails about new products, upcoming releases and special offers!

Your e-mail Address: Re-type e-mail Address:

(you can always unsubscribe to this newsletter if you choose not to receive it later.)

If you'd like, you can complete the full registration which will allow you to rate products and leave reviews on this site. You can also request a catalog from this form.

No thanks, just put me on the newsletter list.

Okay, take me to the complete registration form

Sign Up nevermind

DVDs in the Works

DVDs in the Works is a sneak peek at highlights in BBC Video's future schedule as well as relevant entertainment news. However, as the Scottish poet once said, "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley." That's our (and Robbie Burns') way of saying that the titles discussed here may or may not eventually see the light of day, due to circumstances beyond our control.

Last Updated: Friday March 5, 2010

The Drama buzz from BBC Showcase

We've just returned from BBC Showcase, an annual event in which TV buyers from all over the world congregate on the wintry seafront of Brighton, England to see what the BBC has in store for the year. The rain tends to sweep horizontally across the promenade, which makes ideal weather for catching up on BBC programs. Kicking off with an "Out of this World" banquet devoted to an unprecedented array of sci-fi and fantasy offerings, we were thrilled to get a glimpse of the next Doctor (Matt Smith) and companion Amy (Karen Gillan) before they dashed back to Cardiff, Wales, to resume filming this spring's season of Doctor Who. The series executive producer Steven Moffatt was also there, and he remained in town the next day to promote Sherlock, a series that updates the Conan Doyle stories to the 21st century. He and co-creator Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen) developed the idea on a long train ride between London and Cardiff. Sherlock will star Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement) as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman (The Office) as Doctor Watson. Both actors were on hand for an impromptu interview at the second banquet night. Other promising dramas are a light-hearted adaptation of H.G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon from Mark Gatiss and The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, based on the real life diaries of a 19th century lesbian. All of these are firmly on our watch list for potential DVD release.

Posted: Friday March 5, 2010

Aurelio Zen – The BBC's Next Hot Detective

We've known for some time (but negotiations being but they were had to keep it under our hat) that Rufus Sewell (shown here as a rather fetching Charles II in The Last King) will bring to life the passionate Roman detective Aurelio Zen. The late Michael Dibdin's eleven mysteries are loved as much for their insights into Roman life as for their intricate puzzles. The new series of three 90-minute films will be much in the tradition of Wallander - faithful adaptations shot on location with a compelling star and fantastic cinematography. Could this be the dawning of a new golden age of BBC detectives?

Posted: Friday February 26, 2010

Seven Wonders of the Solar System

Brian Cox is one of BBC's rising stars, mostly for his knack for demonstrating complex concepts like time and gravity in unique and interesting ways. It also doesn't hurt that he is, as my mother would say, "easy on the eyes." Some of that charisma was earned in his rock star days, where as keyboardist for D:REAM, he had a top 10 UK hit. You can see him bopping around here.

Cox, a professor of particle physics at The University of Manchester, brings all these skills (including, yes, some bopping) to his new series, Seven Wonders of the Solar System. It's BBC's most ambitious exploration of the planets since, well the Planets, which we made for A&E in the 1990s. Cox and his program makers don't just create the most up-to-date and spectacular CGI to bring us these distant wonders. They use the reality of our own planet to take you there. As Cox explains in just one such instance about the rings of Saturn "[t]he rings are effectively a "sea" of one meter thick icebergs, so we went to the Jokusalon glacier lagoon in Iceland. When we flip between the aerial views from the helicopter of this lagoon of icebergs with me standing on them and the graphics of Saturn's rings, it really works." To make our DVD release even more special we're busy clearing the rights to some one hour programs previously seen on Discovery Science in the States. We can't wait!

Posted: Wednesday February 17, 2010

Remembering Ian Carmichael

It is with deep personal sadness that we note the passing of Sir Ian Carmichael last week at the ripe old age of 89. Sir Ian, who began his career in British film made an indelible impression on public television audiences with his iconic portrayal of Lord Peter Wimsey. The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries were so popular when they began broadcasting on Masterpiece Theatre in 1973 that WGBH decided to launch the Mystery! strand. So in his unassuming way, Sir Ian ushered in that golden age of British television mysteries on American screens. Those of you looking to re-experience those wonderful shows have no doubt noticed they've been off the market for a year or more (although on a certain website--named for a long South American river--you can find used copies at eye-popping prices) so we're pleased to see two of the five, Clouds of Witness and The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, scheduled for a March 30th re-release. BBC didn't manage to film the "Harriet Vane" novels with Sir Ian (that series went to Edward Petherbridge) but we did do audio recordings of those novels with Sir Ian and we're working on getting them released. For a wonderful, late-life performance (when he was nearing 80), you can see him as the amiable aristocrat Lord Connor in our classic presentation of Wives and Daughters.

Posted: Wednesday February 17, 2010

The BBC’s first landmark series on Scottish history

We're already getting requests to release A History of Scotland, a sweeping ten-hour series from BBC Scotland, on DVD, and we can confirm that it has indeed been on our "to-be-announced" schedule almost from the time we first heard of the idea. In a story arc that spans two millennia but always keeps its eye on how this history matters to Scots today, we follow the emergence of the Scottish nation from a number of warring tribes to the establishment of the Gaelic kingdom of Alba, and then to its centuries of struggle against the English to the reopening of Scottish Parliament in 1999. Archaeologist Neil Oliver brings a fresh perspective to the birth and growth of this continually fascinating nation, never before covered in such an ambitious series. With stunning, BAFTA-winning cinematography in high-def and the very latest in historical research, A History of Scotland promises to be well worth the wait.

Posted: Monday February 8, 2010

Did the Earth really change history?

Some of you may remember Iain Stewart's fascinating series Earth: The Biography, which aired on National Geographic in 2008. Iain is back later this spring to show how the powerful forces that shape our planet have also shaped and molded world history. For instance, his exploration of the benefits of fault lines takes us to the Negev desert. There he explores the 6,000-year-old copper mines of Timna, excavated by hand and so old that they look natural (see above). Again and again cities and eventually civilizations rise around the resources that fault lines offer - water, minerals or even scenic landscapes, such as California's spectacular coastline. As he did in his earlier series, Iain brings high-def cameras to awe-inspiring natural wonders. Click here to see a clip of his visit to Mexico's Cave of Crystals and its 30- foot-long natural crystals, only discovered in 2000. Adding impressive CGI and visits to such man-made wonders as the Palace of Knossos and Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, How the Earth Changed History is another great addition in the biography of our planet.

Posted: Friday January 29, 2010

Congratulations to BAFTA-nominated actors

Today the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced its nominations for the best in 2009 films, and as always "we knew them when." Nominated for both Best Leading Actress (An Education) and the Rising Star Award is Carey Mulligan, who features in recent costume dramas Bleak House, Northanger Abbey and My Boy Jack. A more surprising discovery is that Mulligan also guest-starred in one of the most popular episodes of the new Doctor Who series Season Three's "Blink" (for which she won a Doctor Who fan poll so who needs a BAFTA!) In the Best Leading Actor category are Colin Firth (Pride and Prejudice, Another Country) for A Single Man and Andy Serkis for Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Serkis first came to the world's attention as the actor behind Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. When he followed those three blockbusters with another CGI-laden performance as King Kong, he may have broken the record for the greatest career exposure with the least chance of being recognized. (Apologies to Lon Chaney, Sr.) This year he was nominated for an Emmy for his performance as Rigaud in Little Dorrit. He was also unforgettable as Van Gogh in Simon Schama's drama doc The Power of Art back in 2006. In the running for Best Supporting Actress is Anne-Marie Duff, who plays John Lennon's wayward mother in Nowhere Boy, which will make its US debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Duff is no stranger to fans of costume drama, having starred in Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen, and appeared in The Way We Live Now, The History of Mr. Polly, Aristocrats and The Last King. Last but not least, Nicholas Hoult (star of Skins) just seems to get better with every role (and wear ever less), and his contribution to A Single Man has earned him a nod in the Rising Star category. BBC America will run the BAFTA Awards program on February 21st, so be sure to tune in or set your DVR.

Posted: Thursday January 21, 2010

Oscar-nominee to pen Doctor Who

Our expectations soared when we learned that Steven Moffat had been appointed the next executive producer of Doctor Who. Now we learn that among the writers he has recruited for the new series is none other than Richard Curtis, who is best known as the screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually, not to mention his co-writing credentials on fabulous comedy series Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley. We first knew Steven Moffat as the writer of Coupling, a hilarious sitcom with the occasional Doctor Who reference. Then in 1999 Steven wrote the legendary Doctor Who spoof "Curse of Fatal Death" for the UK Comic Relief telethon. It was sumptuous--23 minutes in four parts. It was star-studded--Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent and Joanna Lumley all playing brief generations of the Doctor. Best of all, it was hysterical. And it was exec- produced by...Richard Curtis. The other writers announced are just as exciting: they include comedy writers Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen) and Simon Nye (Men Behaving Badly) as well as Who stalwarts Chris Chibnall and Toby Whithouse. We can hardly wait!

Posted: Friday January 15, 2010

Survivors… coming soon on DVD

Some of you may remember a sci-fi series called Survivors about a handful of people who must recreate society after most of the world's population has succumbed to a devastating and mysterious plague. Penned by Dalek - creator Terry Nation in the Seventies, this classic had a long second life on PBS. With 30-odd years of innovations that have further complicated and dominated human existence, the BBC realized that the concept of a world without technology was ripe for a remake. Primeval writer Adrian Hodges was recruited to update the series, which is just about to start its second season in the UK. BBC America will run both seasons together, which will be followed by the DVD including both seasons. At the same time we will release the complete original series on DVD as well.

Posted: Friday January 8, 2010

Before he was Poirot, he was Freud

We've been enjoying David Suchet's Hercule Poirot for twenty years now, so it's sometimes hard to imagine those "little gray cells" in service to any other character. But back in 1984 when he was relatively unknown to television, the BBC gave Suchet his first leading role in Freud, a six-part miniseries that aired on A&E in 1985. So far, we've only had the chance to see the series opener that features Michael Kitchen and concerns Freud's tragic enthusiasm for the medical use of cocaine. The New York Times noted that the series was a "warts and all" portrait shot on location in Austria, Italy and Freud's Maresfield Gardens home in London. This breakthrough performance earned Suchet the Royal Television Society's Best Actor award, so we fully expect the rest of the series live up to its promise when we see it on DVD in 2010.

Posted: Tuesday January 5, 2010

London’s hottest ticket

Last year around this time the London theatre world was all a-buzz over a new production of Hamlet from the Royal Shakespeare Company. Tickets for the limited run sold out in three hours, and we'll concede that some of the mania stemmed from the casting of Doctor Who's David Tennant as Hamlet opposite Star Trek's Patrick Stewart as Claudius. But theatre buffs were as excited as everyone else, and even the lion's share of the critics were onboard. For all who are sorry they missed it, and for all who were lucky enough to see it, the production has been adapted to film for the BBC's holiday schedule. Look for it next year on PBS and on DVD. Click here for a review from the BBC News archive. Be sure and scroll down for a video report from the stage door.

Posted: Monday December 21, 2009

Tune in Saturday for The Waters of Mars!

This Saturday, the countdown to The End of Time begins - not 2012, but the final three adventures of the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant. BBC America premieres The Waters of Mars on Saturday, December 19 at 9pm ET, followed by The End of Time Part One on December 26th and End of Time Part Two on January 2nd. David Tennant is the most popular incarnation of the Doctor since Tom Baker. While we're sorry to see him go, we're excited by hints that these specials will give the Time Lord the most glorious send-off ever. Click here  to hear him discuss his imminent departure. Check out the video clips below for some of our favorite moments from David Tennant's tenure.

Posted: Thursday December 17, 2009

Page 1 | 2| 3