Myth Makers



Myth Makers is a professional series of documentaries about the principal creatives of Doctor Who. It is produced for the direct-to-video market by Reeltime Pictures — with most releases being interviews with a single cast or crew member. There are a number of different hosts for the series, including "voice of the Daleks" Nick Briggs, Robert Dick and notably Sophie Aldred.

Myth Makers was, and is, groundbreaking. It was the first about the production of Doctor Who. Its longevity proves there's an appetite for such information, and it is probably fair to say that it helped pave the way for Doctor Who Confidential, as well as the audio interviews that became commonplace on most Big Finish audio CDs.

Today Myth Makers has reached nearly 150 editions! Many are now being made available through Koch Media in glass-mastered Region Free NTSC DVDs in a series titled The Doctors.

Availability
Most of the Myth Makers early releases were never made available in North America when they were first released, in part due to the expense of PAL to NTSC conversion. However, now all titles are available as NTSC DVD, download and stream from: www.timetraveltv.com.

UK
In the United Kingdom, the first 25 releases had at least two, and sometimes three, VHS editions. First edition covers were the only ones to indicate the number of the tape, and it is from this first edition numbering that the numbers of the remaining 32 tapes are inferred.

Nothing in the footage of any video indicated a particular number.

In general, UK editions varied only in that the covers were different. The one exception to this was the Elisabeth Sladen interview which had two editions released simultaneously in April 2001. The "Special Edition" had 15 minutes of additional footage over the normal version.

US
Because the UK numbering scheme was based upon the UK first edition covers, the numbers were meaningless for the US editions, which were always compilations of the UK originals.

The following chart attempts to explain which British tapes were used to comprise the American editions.

Video on demand
In 2015, Reeltime Pictures relaunched as Time Travel TV, and began to offer old and new releases on DVD and through video on demand service Vimeo, to rent or own. Some new releases issued archival material for the first time.

Music
Mark Ayres, a composer for the Doctor Who series during its final seasons, was commissioned to write music for the videos, and this later resulted in the release of a soundtrack album, Myths and Other Legends on Silva Screen Records (FILMCD 088).