“Yes! These shoes fit perfectly!” —The Doctor
Story
When the Daleks execute the Master, his last request is that the Doctor take his ashes back to Gallifrey. But of course, he had more in mind than just his funeral. He’s somehow arranged for his consciousness to survive in the form of an Artron energy being that looks like a ghostly snake (the term Artron energy, coming originally from the Classic series episode The Deadly Assassin, is used but no real explanation of what the Master did is ever brought up). While the Seventh Doctor is on his way to Gallifrey, the Master’s consciousness disrupts the function of the TARDIS, causing it to suffer a “critical timing malfunction” and make an emergency landing in San Francisco on December 30, 1999.
The TARDIS materializes in the middle of a shootout between rival gangs in a back alley and the Seventh Doctor is shot the moment he emerges. Heart surgeon Grace Holloway tries to fix him up in the hospital but, because she doesn’t know he has two hearts, ends up killing him and endangering her career. His regeneration delayed by the anesthetic, the Doctor eventually regenerates in the hospital morgue with no memory of who he is. After finding clothes to his liking in the form of a Wild Bill Hickok costume someone was going to wear to a New Year’s Even costume party at the hospital, he links up with Grace, who has to wrap her head around the idea that this is actually the same man who died on her operating table, and is now telling her he’s an alien from the planet Gallifrey who has to stop his arch-rival before he destroys the world. At least her ex-boyfriend’s shoes fit him perfectly.
Meanwhile the Master has taken possession of the body of one of the paramedics who took the injured Doctor to the ER, and fallen in with Chang Lee, one of the gang kids involved in the shoot-out. Telling Chang Lee that he is the Doctor, the Master has entered the TARDIS and opened the Eye of Harmony, the black hole that powers the TARDIS, as the first step in a scheme to steal the Doctor’s remaining regenerations. Unfortunately if the Eye of Harmony remains open it will destroy the Earth, and by dramatic coincidence that will happen at exactly midnight on December 31, 1999. The Doctor and Grace have to steal a key component of a newly invented atomic clock in order to repair the TARDIS’ critical timing malfunction in order to stop the Master and save the Earth before it’s too late.
Review
After the made-for-TV movie aired in May 1996, Fan Conventional Wisdom (FCW) soon coalesced around two opinions: Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor was wonderful and fans wished they could have more of him, but the particular story which introduced him was awful. Readers of this blog series will probably recall that I only bring up the FCW when I’m going to disagree with it. I will agree that McGann would have made a wonderful Doctor if a series had been picked up; but I think the TV movie itself is a lot better than it’s given credit for.
It has definite flaws, certainly, especially if its goal was to launch a new series and bring in new fans. The story is so steeped in Dr Who lore that you really have to be an existing fan to really appreciate it— but at the same time the differences between it and the style of the Classic series, as well as some changes in its universe, were off-putting to those same fans. But the TV movie has actually improved with age: some of the things that purist fans complained about at the time actually foreshadow the style and content of the new series, and with hindsight this story comes across almost as if it were a deliberate bridge connecting Classic to New Who.
Loud factions of fans at the time were outraged by the Doctor kissing Grace Holloway in a distinctly romantic way (twice). At the time Classic’s “no hanky-panky in the TARDIS” rule, invented only to avoid unfortunate implications in a show aimed mostly at children, had been elevated to a canonical truth by the New Adventures novels and by fans who had concluded that Time Lords were entirely sexless beings. But the new series has left little room for anyone to cling to that idea. Other complaints were directed against having the Eye of Harmony located inside the TARDIS (Classic had it on Gallifrey— although fans “playing the game” didn’t take long to conclude that it was both on Gallifrey and inside every TARDIS, since it had been established as the power source for all Gallifreyan time travel), and fans raised the question of what in the world the Daleks were doing honoring the Masters’ request to have the Doctor come and retrieve his ashes. Most infamously, the Eighth Doctor revealing he was “half human on his mother’s side” drew loud criticism— although when you think about it, that would explain a lot about why Earth has always been so much his favorite planet.
Besides continuity-cop fan complaints, there are some genuine issues with the story. Starting with the Seventh Doctor regenerating was a mistake. At first glance, it seems to make sense for a couple of reasons— producer Philip Segal was determined to make clear that this was not a “reboot” of Dr Who but a continuation of the same series, and also since Time Lord regeneration is central to the Master’s scheme, it seems a good idea in story structure to show viewers an example. But for non-fan viewers that’s a lot to take in, and seriously muddies viewers’ attempts to quite figure out who the hero of this story is. Even for fan viewers who weren’t confused, it comes across as kind of an odd dramatic structure. (I could go on at length about story structure and where I’d put the Doctor’s regeneration if I was forced to do it during a story instead of at the end of one, but I’ll just toss out the term “Supreme Ordeal” and let you look it up if you’re interested.)
It was also a mistake, when it comes to hooking new viewers, to start in the Doctor’s POV, seeing the inside of the console room (a magnificently beautiful set, by the way, but that’s a different issue) together with a flyby exterior shot of the police box exterior. The new series’ premiere episode Rose shows the right way to introduce the TARDIS to new fans: start in the future companions’ POV, show us the mysterious Doctor and his mysterious blue box, and then walk with the companion through the door for the astonishing “It’s bigger on the inside!” moment.
But there are also some really good things. The script captures Dr Who’s distinctive style of humor quite well. Besides the perfectly fitting shoes (which the Doctor notices right in the middle of explaining to Grace the world’s about to end) we learn he keeps a spare key to the TARDIS in a cubbyhole right above the “P” in Police Box, the Master (played by Eric Roberts) veers in a wonderful way between acting like the Terminator and going utterly campy (he changes into formal Time Lord robes at the end and declares he always likes to “dress for the occasion”). And I love the moment when the Doctor needs to evade a police officer and does it by grabbing the officer’s gun and taking himself hostage.
Let’s look at the Eighth Doctor: Paul McGann is terrific in the part. Fans tend to find a label to sum up every Doctor (the Fourth Doctor was “bohemian,” the Second was “mischevious” and so on). Given his looks, his costume, and his newly romantic attitude toward Grace, it took fans about 5 minutes to decide that the Eighth Doctor was “Byronesque.” There’s a lot in McGann’s version of the Doctor that resembles David Tennant’s later performance. He is also, as every new Doctor should be, a refreshing contrast to his predecessor. No trace of the “Dark Doctor” carries over as in place of a Machiavellian chessmaster, the Eighth Doctor seems to run through his brand-new life with wide-eyed childish enthusiasm and childish impulsiveness. We get to know him so well so quickly, in fact, that it’s a jarring moment when the script tries to close the story with a “full circle” scene of the Doctor settling down in the TARDIS to finish the cup of tea the Seventh Doctor was drinking when the adventure started. Even after only one outing, we already know the Eighth Doctor would be more likely to be dancing around the TARDIS console looking forward to a whole universe to explore “brand new to these eyes” as the Tenth would later say it.
Watching this movie again for my from-the-star series makes me wish again (as I did back then) that a Paul McGann series had been picked up at the time. Rationally, it’s probably a good thing it wasn’t— there’s almost no chance we’d have the new series now if we’d gotten a new series then, and who can say if it would have lasted— but I do wish we’d seen more of McGann on our screens. In fact, much as I loved John Hurt’s “War Doctor” in Day of the Doctor, seeing this movie again makes me wish the 50th anniversary special had featured McGann rather than adding another Doctor to the list. Since the new series began, fans had assumed the Eighth Doctor was the one who fought in the Time War and eventually ended it. And I’ve love to see what McGann would have done with that part.
Behind the Scenes
Making this TV movie involved a long and convoluted struggle, almost all of which took place completely outside of the view of fans, even dedicated Doctor Who Magazine reporters. Although DWM kept fans up to date once production began, most of what it took to even reach that point never came to fans ears until much later: in fact I didn’t know very much about it myself until the documentary included with the DVD release. See that for the full story— here are are just the (wildly oversimplified) highlights.
American producer Philip Segal had approached the BBC about making Dr Who even before the Classic series was canceled. Segal had British grandparents and became a fan while on visits with them as a child, and in the 1980’s legislation from the UK government had mandated the BBC turn over a percentage of its shows to outside production companies instead of doing everything in-house. BBC television from the 50’s through the 80’s had largely followed the style of stage productions (while American television followed the style of movies) but now this was changing. Segal saw an opportunity for a Hollywood budget to do justice to what Dr Who could be.
He was surprised by the attitude of the BBC executives: “They hated Dr Who. It wasn’t that they thought it was old news, or needed a revamp. It was rubbish to them.” Late Classic writer Ben Aaronovitch agrees, saying it wasn’t just Dr Who, the BBC execs considered any “genre” and especially science fiction, beneath the proper literary drama that should be on the BBC. For ten years after Dr Who’s cancellation, there would be no science fiction or fantasy of any kind produced by the BBC.
But there was one ray of hope. In charge of BBC-2 was an executive named Alan Yentob, soon to become Doctor Who Magazine’s designated hero. Yentob scheduled US imports Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files on BBC-2 and, not long afteward, quietly starting showing reruns of Classic Dr Who. He was eventually brought over and put in charge of the “main” BBC, where he was upfront to fans that he’d love to bring the series back, although there were formidable institutional barriers to be overcome.
Segal had a window of opportunity. By this time he was working for Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment, on the series Seaquest DSV. He pitched Dr Who to his boss, and Spielberg was intrigued enough by the character to give a go-ahead for negotiations with the BBC. Problems remained. BBC execs were still adamantly opposed to the show. There were also rivals. A UK film studio had paid a large chunk of money to gain the rights to make a theatrical film, and they didn’t want a rival production back on TV. BBC Enterprises (later called BBC Worldwide) was making lots of money off the now-active VHS releases of the Classic series, and though they weren’t supposed to be on the production side of things, they were lobbying for a 30th anniversary special that would reunite all the Doctors, Five Doctors style, and they also weren’t keen on a rival series stealing thunder.
Constant back and forth went on for years before things were settled enough for Amblin to start development with Philip Segal as executive producer (and with Spielberg’s name on the credits). The agreement was for a 2 hour pilot and a guaranteed order for an initial season of 13 hour-long episodes. Segal started work with writer John Lookley on a “series bible” and on a script for the premiere. Paul McGann was cast as the Doctor.
Segal did not like the script Lookley eventually came up with. Like the theatrical film being rumored at the time, it would have told the Doctor’s origin story, and the series to follow would have been a reboot (or prequel) to the Classic series. Fan conventional wisdom has long held that the Doctor’s infamous “half human” remark was the result of executive meddling with some US executive demanding it so the Doctor would be “like Spock” but in fact it was integral to Lookley’s series bible as well as to the pilot story, which would have had the Doctor leaving Gallifrey in search of his vanished father, a famous Time Lord explorer, after learning his mother was from Earth. (Interestingly, this suggests that Paul McGann was originally cast as, in essence, a young William Hartnell.)
Segal did not like the script and neither did Steven Spielberg, who basically said “We’ve already done the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” and dropped Amblin’s support for the project. Segal chose Dr Who over his job, and quit Amblin to search for another backer. He eventually attracted the interest of the Fox network, which had a regular made-for-TV movie slot in its schedule at the time. Fox’s interest did not include the 13-episode guarantee, at best the movie would be a potential pilot, so negotiations with the BBC had to begin all over again.
Segal hired writer Matthew Jacobs to write an entirely new story for the movie. Jacobs was also a longtime Dr Who fan. His script was the one eventually produced, although it did suffer a lot of executive meddling. By the time production got underway, the BBC itself, BBC Worldwide, Universal Studios, and the Fox Network all had money in the project and their own sets of executives putting their ideas in. “By the end,” says Segal, “there was no longer any question of me having creative control; I was just a referee trying to find a compromise between all the different contradictory ideas.” Matthew Jacobs notes that in the end, only about 60% of what made it to the screen came from his actual script.
In particular, his original opening made far more sense than the mystery of the Daleks honoring the Master’s last request: the Doctor would have received a telepathic message from the Master asking for his help, and there was a lengthy action sequence of the Doctor sneaking into, and escaping from, the Dalek headquarters as he recovered the Master’s remains. It would have made much better use of the Seventh Doctor’s return, giving him a triumphant (if brief) final adventure.
Despite all the comings and going, the movie eventually got made, and was broadcast— but in a final misfortune, Fox scheduled it opposite the series finale of then mega-hit sitcom Roseanne, guaranteeing it would not get good enough ratings to justify picking up a series.
The Dark Years, part 2
The TV movie was better received in the UK than in the US, but an interesting thing happened: a lot of UK TV critics started talking about Dr Who as a “British Insitution” and a “national treasure” that should never have been turned over to the Americans in the first place. Dr Who fans could be forgiven for asking them “where were you when the series was on the ropes?” but we all knew the answer: these were mostly the very same critics who had denounced the series as rubbish during its final years. Still the sudden patriotic fervor spurred by the existence of an American-made Dr Who did not fade, and laid the groundwork for the eventual return of the series.
At the same time, though, immediate fan demand for a new series subsided. Fans generally took the attitude “We had our shot, they made the movie, now it’s time to move on.” Dr Who in other media was thriving. The Classic series was coming out on VHS, and the DVD releases were about to begin. Anticipating a new Eighth Doctor series, BBC Worldwide had taken back the rights to Dr Who novels from Virgin publishing, and while many felt they treated the creative team at Virgin unfairly, at least some fans (including me) thought the BBC’s Eighth Doctor novels were far more pleasingly “Dr Who-like” than the Virgin New Adventures had become. A series of semi-professional videos started to appear, dancing around the edges of copyrights by not (quite) calling themselves Dr Who. One company produced a series of science fiction made-for-video movies starring the actors who’d payed the Doctor, but in non-Doctor roles. Another hired Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant for a sci-fi series featuring “the Stranger” and his companion “Miss Brown.” These things were Dr Who in all but copyright-violating name, and while some were not good others were.
Around the turn of the millennium, a company called Big Finish started producing audio dramas. They began with a series authorized by Virgin publishing, featuring Bernice Summerfield (companion of the Seventh Doctor in the New Adventures) a character Virgin retrained copyright to despite losing the Doctor himself. Having achieved success with the series, Big Finish approached the BBC for rights to do Dr Who productions, and soon began a series of adventures featuring the last three Classic Doctors— Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy. Not long after that, they got Paul McGann on board for a series of new Eighth Doctor adventures which earned great praise from fans (and which have recently become canonical, since when The Night of the Doctor showed McGann’s regeneration into the War Doctor, he named his companions from the Big Finish series).
Big Finish continues to release Eighth Doctor stories to this day, and have added to their line stories featuring all the Doctors: Tom Baker has partnered with Classic producer Philip Hinchcliffe for e “Philip Hinchcliffe presents” series of Fourth Doctor adventures, and they have new actors playing the First, Second and Third Doctors in audio releases as well.
By the early 2000s, Dr Who was thriving everywhere except at the BBC. But that was about to change. As the series’ 40th anniversary approached in 2003, Doctor Who Magazine reported that the Doctor was about to return in a new series featuring the Ninth Doctor— but not the one you think.
Next Week:
“Scream of the Shalka,” 6 15-minute episodes. First story of the Ninth Doctor (but not that one).
