Honestly! You wait five weeks for a DVD Details update, and two come along at once! Firstly, the BBC have released a new statement on the bonus menu fiasco, which is elaborated on in this article.

Those who are having trouble with the menu on Disc Two of their Series III DVD will be able to send off for a replacement, which will give you the option of a plain text menu, as well as the animated one. Hurrah for the BBC and GNP, say I. Apparantly, this is an unprecedented move, and it reinforces the fact that those in charge really do care about the DVD. OK, it was bad that they didn’t spot it before it went out, but at least they’re rectifying it now. What more can you ask for? Excellently, the easter egg on the menu will be rehidden elsewhere, meaning we’ll have the fun of finding it all over again!

The Series IV DVD will be released with the two options, which is marvellous. I have to say that after using the animated menus a few times, I prefer to just go straight to the extras themselves, so the text menu will not just be benefitting those who own one of the thousands of DVD players that don’t “conform to the industry standard”. And speaking of the Series IV DVD, we now have some sneak peeks at the menus. The main drive room will have Cat’s hairdryer, a parrot from… Parrot’s and some cans of Leopard Lager. And amongst the paraphinalia on the bonus menu is: Talkie Toaster, Bellini’s escape pod, the escort boots, Lister’s guitar, Kryten’s spare heads, more lager and… a big heart. I WONDER WHAT FEATURE THAT WILL LINK TO.

The other DVD update today is the Region One release. There’s the nasty big-logo covers, as well as discs with massive holes in them! The releases will also include some lovely limited edition trading cards, which I bloody well want. Some titbits: the Region Two Series V release will have Cat on the spine; it is confirmed that Series IV will be released in America a fortnight before it is in Britain; there’s a little Warner Brothers logo on the discs (I wasn’t aware that they were involved); the USA is apparantly a “big country”. Thanks for that.

Don’t forget that the Memorabilia fair starts tomorow at Birmingham’s NEC. I did forget, and have spent all my money and arranged to go out. Bah! This means I’ll be missing out on meeting Chloe Annett, Craig Charles, Clare Grogan, Danny John-Jules and Norman Lovett. That’s a mightily impressive line-up; at least two of those people will definately not be at the next Dimension Jump. If you are going, buy me some of those lovely new gravity pens from The Stamp Centre. Go on.

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