Pluto TV
PLUTO TV is a US-based 24/7 online service; founded in 2013, it is currently owned by Viacom.
The free - but ad-supported - service is currently only available in the United States.
A Latin American service (from April 2020) and a number of different European channels - with feeds available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, plus France and Spain - were launched in the early 2020s, although Doctor Who was only on the German-language channels (see below).
Doctor Who on Pluto TV
In April 2019 it was announced that Pluto TV had acquired the rights to Doctor Who, with the service showing a selection of over 200 episodes from the "Classic" series (the first seven Doctors only) - all for free on special "pop-up" channels (initially on channels 77 and 360, but mainly on 370). (The episodes air with 'closed-captioning' / subtitles.) By late 2020 the series had moved to Channel 532.
In the initial press announcements, these were some of the stories that would be made available:
- The Dalek Invasion of Earth
- Terror of the Autons
- Planet of the Spiders
- The Ark in Space
- The Deadly Assassin
- The Robots of Death
- Earthshock
- The Caves of Androzani
On 12 June 2019, Doctor Who Channel 77 became available for the first time.
When it was launched, serials were added to Pluto's daily schedules on a random basis, with stories playing in no particular order - for example, one showing of The Curse of Fenric was immediately followed by The Ark in Space.
However, by 2020, the stories were available in story order.
The ones we know of so far are (as at late 2022):
- An Unearthly Child
- The Daleks
- The Edge of Destruction
- The Dalek Invasion of Earth
- The Romans
- The Chase
- The Time Meddler
- The War Machines
- The Power of the Daleks (animated)
- The Tomb of the Cybermen
- The Seeds of Death
- The War Games
- Spearhead from Space
- Doctor Who and the Silurians (remastered colourised version)
- Inferno
- Terror of the Autons
- Colony in Space
- The Daemons
- Day of the Daleks (Special Edition)
- The Mind of Evil
- The Curse of Peladon
- The Three Doctors
- Carnival of Monsters
- Frontier in Space
- Planet of the Daleks
- The Green Death
- The Time Warrior
- Invasion of the Dinosaurs
- The Monster of Peladon
- Planet of the Spiders
- Robot
- The Ark in Space
- The Sontaran Experiment
- Genesis of the Daleks
- Revenge of the Cybermen
- Planet of Evil
- Pyramids of Mars
- The Android Invasion
- The Brain of Morbius
- The Seeds of Doom
- The Masque of Mandragora
- The Hand of Fear
- The Deadly Assassin
- The Face of Evil
- The Robots of Death
- The Talons of Weng-Chiang
- Horror of Fang Rock
- Image of the Fendahl
- The Sun Makers
- Underworld
- The Invasion of Time
- The Ribos Operation
- The Pirate Planet
- The Stones of Blood
- The Power of Kroll
- Destiny of the Daleks
- The Creature from the Pit
- City of Death
- The Horns of Nimon
- Shada (animated)
- The Leisure Hive
- Meglos
- Full Circle
- Logopolis
- Castrovalva
- Black Orchid
- Earthshock
- Mawdryn Undead
- The King's Demons
- Resurrection of the Daleks
- The Caves of Androzani
- The Twin Dilemma
- Attack of the Cybermen (2 x 45 mins)
- Vengeance on Varos (2 x 45 mins?)
- The Mark of the Rani (2 x 45 mins)
- The Two Doctors (3 x 45 mins)
- Revelation of the Daleks (4 x 25 mins)
- The Trial of a Time Lord
- Time and the Rani
- Paradise Towers
- Dragonfire
- Remembrance of the Daleks
- Battlefield
- The Curse of Fenric
- Survival
NOTE: The Pluto schedule changed on a daily basis; the stories listed above were not all available simultaneously.
The promised run of "over 200 episodes" was accounted for by the middle of 2020. Note: The Season 22 stories are usually shown in the original 45 minute edits, with commercials to fill out the hour, although Revelation of the Daleks was (instead/also?) shown as a 4-parter.)
In November 2020, a number of new stories were added to the selection, including several more William Hartnell and Sylvester McCoy serials. And in early 2021 additional stories from all seven Doctors were made available, but at same time all bar a handful of Tom Baker stories from Seasons 14 to 18 had been dropped.
Some of these broadcasts apparently display the BritBox logo on them, which indicates that Pluto and BritBox have some sort of share arrangement.
During 2022 further serials were added, some of these being the "Special Editions" with updated SFX from the DVDs, such as Day of the Daleks.
SPECIAL EVENTS
On 4 July 2019, Pluto's Channel 370 screened a special Classic Doctor Who Marathon featuring just fourth Doctor stories ("Celebrate the 4th .. with the Fourth Doctor! All day...").
To celebrate the series' 56th anniversary, from midnight 23 November 2019, Pluto had a Doctor Who Day Marathon, showing "all the Doctor's greatest adventures".
On Halloween Night 31 October 2020, the station ran a series of the "spookiest Classic episodes".
In November 2020, the station started screening the UK/Australian spin-off series, K9.
On 23 November 2020, Pluto held an anniversary day run of special episodes, which included The War Games.
In mid-2021, the animated reconstruction of The Power of the Daleks was available.
Pluto TV Europe
The European branch was launched in early 2021. Only episodes dubbed into German were available, ones that had previously been shown on TV (in the 1980s/90s) or released on DVD; indeed Pluto are using what appears to be old DVD masters, and not the upscaled HD editions created for the recent collection sets or Blu-rays, or recently broadcast on German TV channel One.
- Meglos #
- Full Circle #
- State of Decay #
- Warriors' Gate # (note: this had not yet been released on DVD/Blu-ray)
- The Keeper of Traken #
- Castrovalva #
- Four to Doomsday #
- Kinda #
- The Visitation #
- Black Orchid #
- Earthshock #
- Time-Flight #
- Time and the Rani
- Paradise Towers
- Delta and the Bannermen
- The Happiness Patrol
- Silver Nemesis
- The Curse of Fenric (with different subtitling for the Russian dialogue)
On 23 September 2021, Pluto Europe deleted all the Season 18 Bakers and Season 19 Davison stories (marked # above), and added the following Colin Baker (Season 22 in 45 minute edits) and McCoy stories:
- The Twin Dilemma
- Attack of the Cybermen
- Vengeance on Varos
- The Mark of the Rani
- The Two Doctors
- Battlefield
- Ghost Light
From 15 October 2021, Doctor Who Classic was available on its own dedicated channel - Ch 20 - on the German site.
