I absolutely loved this week’s episode of Doctor Who for a multitude of reasons, but the main one has to be how beautiful A Town Called Mercy looked in HD. It was just stunning. The photography was among some of the very best I’ve seen Doctor Who produce, and I may go as far as saying that it was perhaps the best photographed episode of all Doctor Who episodes so far. While I appreciate location work is both expensive and perhaps not that environmentally friendly in the grand scheme of things, you can’t deny that Almeria in Spain where this episode was filmed really helped spruce things up.
After the Doctor Who Experience last year which had a couple of specially shot scenes projected on big screens that made the show even more impressive, it makes me wonder why the BBC doesn’t offer arrangements with local cinemas to show episodes of Doctor Who for patrons who want to enjoy Doctor Who on the big screen.
Given the show’s ever increasing grandiose storylines and stunning locations, this show is now screaming for the big screen treatment. It’s current exhibition in cinemas shouldn’t just be restricted to a few choice venues (namely the BFI, South Bank) and just for the press – anybody should be given the chance to see it locally.
The upside to this approach would be that by letting cinemas show the latest episode of Doctor Who should generate more cash for the BBC as an additional revenue stream alongside sales of the DVDs, Blu-Rays and everything else that the BBC’s licensed.
Taking that idea further: can you imagine what Doctor Who would look like if it were shot in IMAX resolution? It’d probably bankrupt the BBC due to the cost, and drive the entire cast and crew insane with the logistics of shooting in such a large format, but it’d be an experience nobody would ever forget.
