As fans in both the UK and US have now had a chance to eagerly buy and watch the Doctor Who Series 3 box set, an interesting discovery has come to light - the content for each region is not identical! One subtle but important difference is the commentary on the final episode “Last of the Timelords”. 
Essentially the R2 PAL version of the DVD has a newer commentary by Freema, David and John Barrowman whilst the R1 NTSC (North American) version has the older/original commentary by Russell T Davies, Julie Gardiner and Phil Collinson.
So what have those in the states missed? In our opinion, an important bit would be during the moment where Martha Jones rings Tom Milligan to just see if he is okay - David Tennant teases Freema “he’s your boyfriend…” but then asks uncertainly whether Martha Jones does indeed hook up with him, and if it will get mentioned in Torchwood. John Barrowman responds with a quick “no” but then continues with “you’ll have to wait and see”. So John knows, but is not telling! Keep an eye on his interviews! (thanks to Doyle for spotting this)
No, that is a cosmetic difference because one is produced for the North American market, the other for Europe. Btw, that is not the only difference on the covers!
Bluemoon, you are right about the notes on the pamphlet enclosed with the DVD set, the “Doctor Who Series 3 Episode Guide”. The notes for Disc 5 for Last of the Time Lords state, “Audio commentary with Freema Agyeman and John Barrowman”. Strange, since it not only wrong for the North American DVD set, but since the statement leaves out David Tennent, it’s also incorrect for your British version.
By the way, does your version have all the commercials in the front of each disc…that irritates me when they do that. You pay good money for a specific product and they load it with advertisenments or commercials (some were for Torchwood). I couldn’t even hit the menu key to get by them, I had to hit the next segment button 2 or 3 times to get to the Dr Who menu. Unfortunately, they’re doing that more and more these days.
Just curious but is the Tradis Crew commentary only missing from the final episode or is it missing from all of them. I am asking for the DVD for Christmas mainly for the cast commentary and if I find out that the cast commentary is not included on any of the episodes, then I won’t buy it. I do still have Season 3 on DVR !
In the North America version there are commentaries for every episode and as far as I know they are the same as the British version in all except the last episode. The commentaries are done by various producers, writers, and actors, etc. I had all the episodes and the commentaries prior to the DVD release and I believe they are the same, again, with the exception of the Last of the Time Lords. I believe that episode is the only one they had the Tardis crew come back for a new commentary and they substituted it for the original one with the producers.
Bluemoon, correct me if I’m wrong.
That’s right: it did seem to be only the commentary on LotTL that was problematic. A rumour was circulating that this was because of copyright restrictions placed on songs that the stars were singing, which is quite bizarre. Having said that, the fact that the whole commentary was apparently axed (rather than edited) owing to an injudicious comment or two is also very disappointing.
I took one look at that, and thought you meant Freema was hooking up with Barrowman…No, that’s weird
*giggles*
Just think, Tom won’t have a clue who Martha is…it went back in time…ooh, wait until he finds out
in the last Doctor Who Magazine, RTD said that the difference was because of the joke made about the folk song, which was improvised around a popular tune - he said it was “Streets of London”, but it was, of course, “Duelling Banjos” (is the man -deaf?!-) which would have apparently cost an hilarious amount of money to secure the rights for overseas. In other news, it’s a brilliant commentary and definitely worth tracking down if you get the chance.
Yes and RTD also covered my point about editing, too, in that the singing was not confined to one part of the commentary and would, therefore, have been too tricky and costly to edit out. I agree, Charlotte, that our cousins in the colonies have missed out on a gem here.
Is it just me, but the box set sold in Australia doesn’t have commentaries?! It has the DT diaries and all the stuff on the first disc but nothing?! Am I missing a pinnacle piece of info here or something?