Eric Roberts (the Master) and Paul McGann (the Doctor), the stars of Doctor Who: The Movie. (Credit: BBC)
Twenty years ago, the Eighth Doctor arrived in his first and only full-length episode. We look back at the story in this review.
27th May 1996 was a day that changed my life. Because that was the day of the UK broadcast of the Paul McGann TV movie, and it was an episode that made me a Whovian for life.
It wasn’t the greatest of Doctor Who stories. In fact, it wasn’t even the first episode of the show that I had watched. I distinctly remember repeats of Jon Pertwee back when I was five, with his memorable curly white hair and flowing cape.
I never remembered the plot, but I always remembered the theme tune, so when an advert came on one day a few years later, with a brand new epic version of that distinctive theme, plus the announcement of, “He’s back… and it’s about time!” the eight-year-old version of me was super excited to watch it. I loved that theme tune, and I was grown up enough to understand what was going on this time.
Flash-forward to twenty years later, with me on the day and even at the exact time of broadcast, re-watching the TV movie as part of an annual tradition, despite knowing something that I had known about for years: it isn’t exactly very good.
There are several key reasons for this, a lot of which have to do with the film not just being a feature-length episode, but also acting as somewhat of a revival of the series, nearly nine years before ‘Rose’ was broadcast. So what happened, and why did it fail so badly that it took another decade for the show to come back on television?
The first thing that leaps out is seeing how the movie tries to introduce the show to a brand new audience, specifically an American audience. The series might’ve had a cult following at best with Tom Baker’s Doctor, but it certainly wasn’t the institution that it was in Britain. So how did the TV movie try to do that, while also showing it to be a continuation of the original series?
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Pretty badly, as it turned out. One thing that doesn’t help is how “Americanised” the movie is. A lot of the time, it doesn’t feel like a Doctor Who story at all. Yes, there’s the part of the Doctor saving the world, and even a “monster” in the form of the Master (especially in his brand new snake form, which is given no explanation).
But it lacks the family charm that both the classic and new series have in spades. With the depiction of gang warfare and horrifically decaying-yet-living bodies (seriously, that shot of the Master peeling off a bit of skin was so unnecessary), all while shot mostly at night in the streets of San Francisco (well, Vancouver), there’s a feel of Doctor Who trying to be something it’s not. At times, it feels like a rather odd mix of more adult American sci-fi, particularly The X-Files and the two good Terminator movies, while never being as good as either.
Next: Part 2: Continuation
Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor enjoys a good book and a hot cuppa in the 1996 ‘Doctor Who’ TV movie. (Credit: FOX/BBC)
Perhaps even worse than that though is seeing how the movie tries to compensate for this by how much it makes an effort to show that it’s not a reboot, but a continuation of the original series. Honestly, its attempts at doing this are possibly the weakest part of the TV movie due to trying too hard.
There’s a big amount of information given to the audience before the theme music even begins, with the Master being put on trial by the Daleks on Skaro and exterminated, before having his remains taken to Gallifrey by the Seventh Doctor.
After that massive bit of narration by the amazing voice of Paul McGann, we then see a telephone box flying through space before cutting to the interior of a massive spaceship. Inside the spaceship is the Seventh Doctor, who’s only in the film for twenty minutes and is literally there just to die and regenerate.
It’s not the best or most emotional of departures, either – literally seconds after stepping out of his TARDIS doors, he’s gunned down by Americans. Not that it kills him, oh no – the American healthcare system takes care of that! (A word to the wise – if you’re performing heart surgery on a patient, never, ever, ever say the words, “Let me try something!”)
Honestly, it’s hard not to see something symbolic about a British icon getting shot and killed in his own American movie. (It’s also harder now not to be reminded of how panicked the Eleventh Doctor was about Americans shooting him in ‘The Impossible Astronaut.’ He must’ve had San Francisco flashbacks.)
After all of that, we then get to the regeneration itself. With barely any warning, the hero comes back to life, only this time physically changing into a brand new body. For fans, this is of course to be expected, but for an audience of millions that this would be a completely new series for, God knows what they made of all this!
While story wise it’s hardly a classic, it’s hard not to compare the TV movie to ‘Rose’ and see how re-introducing a show with a massive history to a brand new audience is properly done. It begins with the point of view of the new companion, an ordinary person living in London, before finding out more and more about monsters, the Doctor, and the TARDIS gradually throughout the episode.
The TARDIS’s introduction is a perfect example of getting it right – we don’t see the inside of it until halfway through when Rose walks through the doors for the very first time. Even then, we initially only see the look of shock on her face before she walks back out, walks all around the blue box, before heading back inside and we see what it really looks like on the inside.
Ironically, the TV movie actually did this first with Chang Lee, and it did it really well, (the best part is seeing Chang Lee walk in, cue massive interior shot and epic choir in the soundtrack, before having a look on his face that basically says, “Nope!” and immediately walking back outside). It just did it at completely the wrong point in the story, long after the audience had already seen the inside of it.
And that’s kind of a symbol of what makes the TV movie so frustrating to watch as a fan – there are flashes of greatness and good ideas hidden throughout, but ultimately, it’s lacking in execution, both as a Doctor Who continuation and as the start of a brand new series.
Next: Page 3: What the Movie Gave Us
the Eighth Doctor – credit: observationdeck.io9.com
So why did I love this film so much as an eight-year-old?
Well, for one thing, as badly as it introduced a lot of the show’s key ideas and mythology, ironically, it was those ideas that I completely latched onto when watching it. Honestly, the most I had ever known about the show back in 1996 was that the Doctor was an alien, he travelled around in a telephone box like Bill & Ted, and that he was played by different actors like in the James Bond movies. Oh, and of course, that it had an amazing theme tune.
Finding out that there was actually a reason in the story why the actors changed so much got me interested. Finding out that the Doctor died and came back from the dead literally a changed man just blew me away. As a young kid who had enjoyed science fiction and superheroes, nothing else from either of those genres seemed to have an idea that was as genius and mind-blowing as that.
Also, finding out that the TARDIS was bigger on the inside (a fact which, due to previously watching Pertwee repeats set exclusively on Earth, I had no clue about), was also fantastic. This turned it from something that was pretty cool already into something absolutely magical. So while the story itself was lacking, I didn’t care, as these key parts of the show were brand new to me, and I had immediately just latched onto them and ignored almost everything else.
But I think what really made me a fan for life was the Doctor himself. There’s a lot the movie gets wrong about the show, but the Eighth Doctor? I think it portrays him really well. Yes, he gets into motorcycle chases (although, to be honest, Three seemed to be in a lot of chases in fast vehicles), and he even kisses his companions (yes, believe it or not, the Doctor kissing Grace was a huge deal for fans back in 1996, as he had never done anything like that before. Well, not on-screen, anyway).
At one point, he even holds a gun. While, admittedly, this did happen on the show, why include it in a movie meant to introduce a new audience to the character? On the other hand, it is kind of a moment that sums up the Doctor best, because he doesn’t point it at the police officer whom he’s threatening – he points it at himself. He would rather take one of his own lives than allow an innocent to die, and it’s Grace that forces him to stop.
It’s beautiful to watch that moment, even more so two decades later. Because it’s not just a great moment for the Eighth Doctor, but it’s also an attitude that he keeps with him right to his final chronological story ‘The Night of the Doctor.’ Only when he’s risking his life in that, there’s no one else to stop him. Both moments help to highlight how important the companions are to the Doctor, especially in his Eighth life – a man who truly wants to do the right thing, no matter what the cost to himself.
It was something completely different to watch for an eight-year-old who was more used to heroes solving problems with fists or guns against other people, and it helped shape the idea of what kind of hero the Doctor was for this young fan.
For all its faults, I’m really grateful for the TV movie for giving us my favourite Doctor. Paul McGann is a great portrayal of the character, a really nice bridge between the classic and the new era Doctors, and he’s serviced far better by Big Finish’s excellent audios.
And while the characters of Chang Lee and Grace Holloway haven’t appeared outside of the movie and comics, I’m equally grateful for the fact that the film brought the actors Yee Jee Tso and Daphne Ashbrook into the fandom. Both have appeared in several Big Finish audios playing different characters, and both have been very vocally supportive towards the fans.
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