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I'm a huge fan of DVD commentaries (the Hellboy cast commentary is easily one of the funniest things ever commited to sound recording instruments and a testament to the fact that there's a stand-up career awaiting Ron Perlman if he ever gets tired of this acting lark), but how well do they work when divorced from the images they accompany?

BBC 7 are broadcasting commentaries with the cast and crew of last night's episode, which is sure to raise as many questions as the series itself!

WHY...do David Tennant's trousers keep falling down?

WHAT...is it about Psychic Paper that Catherine Tate doesn't understand? It's paper. That's psychic. A-derrr.

WILL...Marvel Comics sue when they discover the Innermost Secrets of the Doctor Who special effects team?

HOW...are you supposed to work out which bit they're talking about when you can't bloody see it?!

It was a rhetorical potato! scream

I'll have to listen to a commentary one of these days. I've got all the box-sets just sitting there with that option never explored. I hear the one for Last of the Time Lords is especially amusing.

Like how batty the idea of Radio broadcasts of commentaries without pictures is though. Listen to them while watching other shows and see if they accidentally match up at any point! I'm tempted to try Partners in Crime with Supernanny.

Interestingly...this sort of thing is part of what makes Doctor Who financially possible for the BBC right now. The Beeb's got a massive shortfall in its budget (and Drama's bearing the brunt of this) and more chanels, stations and outlets than ever that it has to fill with content. The fact that we're talking about BBC7 here at all gives overseas readers an idea of the situation. It desperately needs to produce more broadcastable stuff using less money.

Doctor Who's budget is viable because it's one expensive strand of programming on which they can hang lots of cheap strands of programming (radio commentaries, Confidential, Totally, Weakest Link Specials, etc).

The same logic's behind Torchwood. By debuting episodes on BBC3 (to promote freeview), offering a family version (so kids can enjoy the soul-crushing cynicism too!) and offering a HD version (to explore the technology) then...hmm...the BBC have also managed to fill three hours of primetime for the cost of a fourty-five minute episode. A fourty-five minute episode that they wouldn't have been able to afford if it was just a BBC2 drama.



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