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Doctor Who (film)

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"Doctor Who (film)" redirects here. For the Dalek movies with Peter Cushing, see Dr. Who (Dalek films).
160 – Doctor Who
Doctor Who telefilm
File:Doctorwho1996.jpg
The Doctor and the Master in their climactic battle.
Cast
Production
Directed byGeoffrey Sax
Written byMatthew Jacobs
Script editorNone
Produced byPeter V. Ware
Matthew Jacobs
Executive producer(s)Philip David Segal
Alex Beaton
Jo Wright (for the BBC)
Production code50/LDX071Y/01X[1]
SeriesNone
Running time85 mins (UK)
89 mins (US)
First broadcastMay 12, 1996 (Canada)
May 14, 1996 (USA)
May 27, 1996 (first UK)
Chronology
← Preceded by
Survival 		Followed by →
"Rose"
List of episodes (2005–present)

Doctor Who (unofficially called Enemy Within by Philip Segal, the film's executive producer) is a television movie based on the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Developed as a co-production between Universal Television, BBC Television, BBC Worldwide, and the Fox Network, The 1996 television film premièred on 12 May 1996 on CITV in Edmonton, Canada, fifteen days before the BBC One showing, and two days before it aired on Fox in the US. The film was the first attempt to revive Doctor Who, the original series having ended in 1989. It was intended as a back door pilot for a new American-produced Doctor Who TV series, and introduced Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor in his only television appearance. Despite being a ratings winner in the United Kingdom, the film did not fare well on American television, and no new series was purchased. The series was later relaunched on the BBC in 2005.[1]

Synopsis

The Master's last wish was for his old enemy, the Doctor, to bring his remains home. In San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999, a trap is sprung that could mean the end of the world. Only the newly-regenerated Eighth Doctor can stop the Master — if he can only remember who he is.

Plot

On the planet Skaro, the renegade Time Lord known as the Master is put on trial. He is found guilty, and sentenced to be exterminated by the Daleks. His last wish is for his remains to be returned to Gallifrey by his greatest enemy, the Doctor.

In the TARDIS, the Seventh Doctor stows the urn containing the Master's remains in a container, locking it with his sonic screwdriver, then settles in for the trip back to the Time Lords' planet. As he relaxes with a copy of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and listens to a jazz record, he does not see the container shake and shatter. A gelatinous slug-like creature oozes out of the container and enters the TARDIS console, causing sparks to fly out. The Doctor tries to compensate, but the TARDIS systems indicate a critical timing malfunction and initiate an emergency landing. The Doctor finds, to his horror, that the Master's container is cracked open.

On December 30, 1999 in San Francisco, a Chinese-American teenager named Chang Lee and his two friends run from rival gang members. An ambush opens fire on them, and as Lee is about to be shot, a high wind whips up in the alley and a police box materialises in front of him. The Doctor steps out only to be shot by the startled gang, and he falls. Lee finds his friends dead and the Doctor gravely wounded. He is unable to warn Lee about the worm oozing out of the TARDIS lock and following Lee as he calls for an ambulance.

In the ambulance, Lee signs the paperwork that Bruce, the paramedic, gives him, putting the Doctor's name as "John Smith". The Doctor is wheeled into the operating theatre while the worm hides in the ambulance, and then in Bruce's uniform. The medical staff are puzzled by the fact that the Doctor's X-rays reveal two hearts which are racing wildly. They decide to page the on-call cardiologist, Dr. Grace Holloway, who is at a performance of Madame Butterfly. To the annoyance of her boyfriend, Brian, she rushes back to the hospital, still in her evening wear.

Puccini plays as Grace starts to operate. The Doctor's eyes snap open and he tries to tell Grace that he is not human, and that he needs a beryllium atomic clock, but the staff puts him back under. The use of a cardiac probe goes wrong as Grace is unfamiliar with the Doctor's physiology. The Doctor goes into a seizure and flatlines. Grace is angry and upset, demanding to see the patient's X-rays, and is disturbed when she sees the two hearts and realizes it is not a double exposure as assumed.

Grace tells Lee that "Mr. Smith" is dead, and when Grace figures out that he does not really know the dead man, Lee takes the Doctor's belongings and runs off. Now past midnight on December 31, the Doctor's body is put in the morgue refrigerator. In Bruce's house, the now cobra-like manifestation of the Master creeps out of his uniform and forces itself into Bruce's mouth while he is sleeping next to his wife. The Master has taken over his body.

In the mortuary, the body of the Doctor crackles with electricity, and he regenerates into the Eighth Doctor, who rises from the gurney, disoriented and amnesiac. The Doctor manages to pound the door of the storage chamber off its hinges, frightening the morgue attendant into a faint. Confused, he staggers into a disused section of the hospital, clad only in a sheet and the tag still on his toe. As he spies his reflection, he cries out in anguish, "Who...am...I?"

As dawn comes to San Francisco, the Doctor rummages through the worker's lockers, finding pieces of costumes for the New Year's Party. Lee searches through the Doctor's things and finds the TARDIS key (as well as the sonic screwdriver and a pocket watch). The Master awakens in Bruce's body, saying that he needs to find the Doctor, and that the body will not last long. When Bruce's wife sees the green glow of his eyes, he kills her.

The hospital administrator discusses the Doctor with Grace, and burns the X-rays so that they can cover up the death of the patient. Grace is indignant and threatens to resign. She gathers her things and leaves the hospital, followed by the Doctor, who in his confused state latches on to her as someone he recognizes. Grace tries to fob him off, thinking that he is insane, but he climbs into her car anyway. Suddenly the Doctor screams as he removes the remains of the cardiac probe from his chest. As the Doctor tells her that he has two hearts, Grace begins to realize that this might be the same man, impossible as it seems. The Doctor cries for Grace to drive off and she does.

The Master goes to the hospital to find the Doctor's body but is told it is missing. A nurse tells "Bruce" that the Doctor's property is with the Asian youth, and the Master thanks her and goes off. When Grace and the Doctor arrive at her home, she finds that Brian has moved out and taken most of the furniture. Grace listens to the Doctor's chest and confirms that he has two hearts. The Doctor starts to remember details, saying that he was dead too long this time — the anaesthetic nearly destroyed the regenerative process. Grace asks the Doctor not to talk to her like she is a child; the dead stay dead. However, she is startled when he tells her about the dream she had as a child to hold back death, and that she will do great things.

In Chinatown, Lee uses the key to enter the TARDIS, and is shocked when he sees its dimensionally transcendental interior. The TARDIS also seems to respond to Lee, powering itself on when he touches the console. Somehow, the Master is already there, and hypnotises Lee into giving him the Doctor's belongings. He tells Lee that the "dead man" has stolen his body and they need to find him before the Master dies.

Grace and the Doctor go for a walk, and she theorises that he might be the product of a genetic experiment. The Doctor remembers more details — he is from Gallifrey, and remembers a meteor storm he saw with his father. In the TARDIS, the Master convinces Lee that the Doctor is the evil one and that they must stop him. The Master brings him to the Cloister Room, where the Eye of Harmony is housed. The Master uses Lee's retinal pattern to open the Eye. As the Eye opens, the Doctor's memories start flooding back and he kisses Grace in joy.

The Eye projects images, first of the Seventh, then the Eighth Doctor — and his retinal structure, which is human. The Master concludes that the Doctor is half-human. Meanwhile, the Doctor senses that the Master has opened the Eye, and that he will be able to see through the Doctor's eyes. He shuts them, but not before the Master spots Grace. The Doctor tells Grace that the Master wants to force him to look into the Eye, so that the Doctor's soul will be destroyed and the Master can take his body. He explains that if the Eye is not closed, the planet will soon be sucked through it, and that he needs an atomic clock to fix the timing mechanism on the TARDIS to prevent this. They have until midnight.

Grace, now believing the Doctor to be insane, runs back into the house to call an ambulance to take the Doctor away. The Doctor convinces her, showing that the molecular structure of the planet is changing by walking through her picture window. The Master hears all this and goes with Lee to drive the ambulance to Grace's house as "Bruce". On the television, the Doctor sees reports of weather patterns changing around the world, and then a report of an event in San Francisco showcasing the unveiling of an atomic clock at the Institute of Technological Advancement and Research.

The Master arrives at the door but the Doctor does not recognize him. They ask him to take them to the Institute. The ambulance lurches as they stop for a traffic jam, and the Master's sunglasses fall, revealing his alien eyes. The Doctor takes a fire extinguisher and fires it in the Master's face as he spits burning, bile-like venom at them, hitting Grace in the wrist. Grace and the Doctor escape from the ambulance. The Doctor commandeers a police motorcycle by threatening to shoot himself. The ambulance, driven by Lee, races the Doctor and Grace on the motorcycle towards the Institute.

When the Doctor and Grace reach the Institute, they see the ambulance in the parking lot. Grace and the Doctor mingle at the reception, introducing the Doctor as "Doctor Bowman" from London, but are blocked from entering the room containing the clock. They manage to sneak in anyway, and the Doctor removes the timing chip. As they make their way out, they see Lee and the Master and try to avoid them, running into a group of security guards who have been paralysed by the Master's venom. The Doctor triggers the fire alarm as he and Grace head for the roof, descending to the ground using a fire hose. They get back on the motorcycle and ride back towards Chinatown and the TARDIS.

They gain access to the TARDIS with the spare key the Doctor keeps in a cubbyhole above the 'P' in the "POLICE BOX" sign. As they enter, they hear the cloister bell signalling disaster. The Doctor installs the beryllium chip into the console and closes the Eye, but it may be too late — the Eye has been open too long. The only way to prevent the destruction of Earth is to go back before the Eye was opened, but the TARDIS is out of power. Grace challenges the Doctor to think - his knowledge of what happens to her in the future must come from somewhere. The Doctor proposes directing residual power from the Eye directly into the time rotor, jump starting the TARDIS. But as the Doctor sets things up below the console, the Master's venom takes effect on Grace, making her take up a tool and knock the Doctor out, just as the Master and Lee enter the console room.

The Doctor wakes up in the TARDIS cloisters, strapped down. He tries (apparently) unsuccessfully to convince Lee that the Master has been lying to him. The Master, in the meantime, has changed into Gallifreyan garb. Grace, still possessed by the Master, chains the Doctor on the upper balcony, attaching to his head a metal harness designed to keep his eyes open while he stares into the Eye of Harmony. The Master tries to get Lee to open the eye but makes a slip which makes Lee realize the Master has lied. The Master breaks Lee's neck, and uses Grace to open the Eye instead.

The glow from the Eye focuses onto the Doctor and the Master, linking them both, and starts to transfer the Doctor's regenerations to the Master. The Doctor shouts for Grace to go to the console room and divert the power to start the TARDIS or everyone will die. As the clock counts down to midnight, Grace struggles with the console circuitry, and manages to connect the wires just as the clock strikes midnight. The time column starts to move and the TARDIS goes into a temporal orbit, suspending everything at the moment of destruction. Grace runs back to the Cloister Room and tries to free the Doctor from his chains but the Master pushes her over the side of the balcony and kills her.

The Doctor and the Master battle over the Eye of Harmony, and in the struggle, the Master gets sucked into the Eye and is seemingly destroyed. The clocks on the TARDIS continue ticking backwards, and a glow from the TARDIS washes over the bodies of Grace and Lee, bringing them back to life as the Eye closes once more. The Doctor then resets the console and brings them back to December 31, just before the stroke of midnight in San Francisco, and time proceeds again as normal.

Back in San Francisco, Lee returns the Doctor's things to him. The Doctor tells Lee not to be around next Christmas, and the teen leaves. The Doctor asks Grace to go with him, but she declines, saying that she's not afraid of life anymore. The Doctor kisses her goodbye, and enters the TARDIS, which then dematerializes. The Doctor settles back in his chair in the console room, picks up the H.G. Wells book he was reading earlier, replays the record, and heads off for further adventures.

Then, the movie ends... with the record skipping again, much to the Doctor's dismay.

Cast

Cast notes

Miranda, the wife of Bruce, is played by Eric Roberts' real-life wife, Eliza Roberts.

Casting the Doctor

The producers of the television movie compiled several lists of actors to consider for the part of the Doctor. Among early thoughts were Michael Crawford, Tim Curry, Eric Idle, Billy Connolly, Trevor Eve, Michael Palin, Robert Lindsay and Jonathan Pryce. Not all were interested in the project, or available for the intended filming dates. Casting sessions took place in March 1994; actors who actually auditioned for the role include Liam Cunningham, Mark McGann, Robert Lindsay, Tim McInnerny, Nathaniel Parker, Peter Woodward, John Sessions, Anthony Head and Tony Slattery. Paul McGann was first considered around the time of these auditions, but did not formally audition for the part until later.[1] Anthony Head would later work on a number of Doctor Who-related projects, including audio dramas, narrating Doctor Who Confidential and guest-starring in the 2006 episode School Reunion.

Continuity

  • This is one of five Doctor Who adventures to be set on New Year's Eve 1999 and New Year's Day 2000. The Virgin Missing Adventures novel Millennial Rites by Craig Hinton, published in October 1995, the Past Doctor Adventures novel Millennium Shock by Justin Richards, published in May 1999, the comic strip Plastic Millennium, published in the Doctor Who Magazine Winter 1994 Special and the Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins story Suitors, inc. all take place on those dates.
  • The book that the Doctor sits down to read at the beginning and the end of the movie is The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. The Doctor shared an adventure with Wells in the Sixth Doctor serial Timelash. In 1973's Frontier in Space, the Master is seen reading Wells's The War of the Worlds. In the untelevised story Shada, Professor Chronotis can be seen with a copy of The Time Machine, which is later visible throughout the episode.
  • The "time tunnel" effect of the 2005 Doctor Who series onwards is reminiscent of the vortex that the TARDIS travels through in the opening credits of the television movie.
  • The TARDIS steering mechanism in the movie is simpler than in any other Doctor Who episode. This mechanism is more old-fashioned and controlling the date is done by adjusting a block with the date. However in Castrovalva, the fifth doctor tells Nyssa that flying the TARDIS 'is harder than you think' and 'You don't just flick a switch' or push a button which Tegan did.

The Doctor

  • The television movie remains Paul McGann's sole televised story as the Doctor. It has nonetheless had a significant impact on the Doctor Who mythos, with an ongoing Doctor Who novel line, comic strip, and audio series that featured the Eighth Doctor for years, until the TV series returned in 2005. The Eighth Doctor also featured in a series of BBC7 audio plays in 2007.
  • A major plot point in this story is that the Doctor is half-human, "on [his] mother's side". Though the Doctor's own comments can be read ambiguously as a joke, several other references to the detail are harder to reconcile (not for want of effort in the following tie-in novels). This fact proved immediately, and explosively controversial within the existing fan base, and as such has been — like the Morbius Doctors issue — a popular piece of continuity to sweep under the rug. Outside of a few gag references, the revived series remains mum on the issue. At one point in the movie, the Doctor states that he can "transform [himself] into another species" when he regenerates; some fans take this to suggest that the Doctor's half-human biology could be unique to his eighth incarnation. The Tenth Doctor adventure "Human Nature" reveals that Time Lords have the technology to rewrite their DNA to imitate other species. This may also provide an explanation for the Eighth Doctor's human retinal structure though it suggests that this change occurred during the Seventh Doctor's incarnation.
  • The Doctor's regeneration is, as usual, depicted differently from any before. In this case, unlike all previous (and later) regenerations, it sets in long after the Doctor's apparent "death", a detail linked to the Doctor's amnesia and attributed in dialogue to, perhaps, the anaesthesia in his system.
  • On-screen dialogue confirms that the Seventh Doctor "dies" at 10:03 PM on December 30, 1999, with regeneration occurring early on December 31.
  • The Seventh Doctor is seen wearing a different costume from the one he wore during his 1987-1989 tenure: gone is the question mark pullover and umbrella. The costume does include the original hat (which is actually owned by Sylvester McCoy).
  • While rummaging through lockers in search of clothing, the Doctor momentarily examines a long multi-coloured scarf, similar to that worn by the Fourth Doctor. The Eighth Doctor also offers a policeman a jelly baby, a favourite confectionery of the Second and Fourth Doctor. A 900-year diary is also fleetingly visible in the TARDIS.

Daleks and the Master

  • Although the Doctor's most famous alien adversaries, the Daleks, are not seen in the film, they are heard condemning the Master to death during the film's opening sequence (sporting their trademark war cry of: "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!"). However, their 'appearance' and role here has proven to be controversial amongst fans for a number of reasons, ranging from the arguably trivial (the DWAS said that their voices were "too squeaky") to the claim that it was uncharacteristic of the Doctor to run an errand for his mortal enemies (but see below). Also, a previous episode, Remembrance of the Daleks, showed the destruction of Skaro by the Doctor, though the Master's trial may have predated this event in the Daleks' chronology.
  • The Master tried to use the Eye of Harmony to obtain a new set of regenerations before, in The Deadly Assassin. He was also offered a new set of regenerations by the Time Lords in The Five Doctors, but his continued quest for regenerations in later stories like Planet of Fire implies that he never received them.
  • This remains Eric Roberts' sole appearance as the Master. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.
  • The Master is shown sporting cat's eyes; this is a reference to his previous appearance in Survival in which he temporarily turns into a cat person.
  • The Master's snake form is given an explanation in the spin-off novel The Eight Doctors.
  • This would also be the Master's last official television appearance in Doctor Who until the 2007 episode "Utopia". In the following episode, "The Sound of Drums", it is stated that the Time Lords themselves resurrected him to use him in the Time War.

The TARDIS

  • Although the TARDIS interior changed several times throughout the original series, the movie's set was the most dramatic change yet, replacing the sterile white corridors and "roundel"-based design with a steampunk theme reminiscent of Jules Verne. Several subsequent tie-in novels attempted to explain the change. In the 2005 series, the interior changed once again, just as dramatically. In a later interview with Doctor Who Magazine, series producer Russel T Davies mused that the TARDIS interior is probably "skinnable", like Winamp. This seems to be confirmed in the multi-Doctor special "Time Crash" where the Fifth Doctor remarks that the Tenth Doctor had "changed the desktop theme."
  • This film introduced the idea of including earth-like elements on the TARDIS control console, such as an early-20th Century automobile handbrake, apparently used for a similar purpose. When the series was revived in 2005 this idea was maintained, with items such as a bicycle pump being added to the console.
  • As established in The Deadly Assassin (1976), the Eye of Harmony is held on Gallifrey; its presence on the TARDIS therefore seems a peculiar inclusion for the movie. Fan theory quickly resolved the conflict by speculating that the "Eye" on the TARDIS was merely a spaciotemporal link to the actual Eye on Gallifrey — a feature presumably contained on all TARDIS crafts as a source of energy. This theory soon found its way into licensed material such as the BBC novel range. The later episode, The Sound of Drums also supports the link to Gallifrey by revealing how Master had been revived by the Time Lords without the Doctor's apparent knowledge.
  • The film further states that the "Eye" can only be opened with the scan of a human retina, a fact apparently tied to the Doctor's own human retinal pattern. The 2000 Big Finish audio play The Apocalypse Element attempts to explain this decision by introducing a plot point in which the eye of the Doctor's companion Evelyn Smythe is keyed to a Gallifreyan security system so as to confound enemy expectations by allowing entry only to the most unlikely of candidates.
  • The Doctor's reference to the chameleon circuit as a "cloaking device" was for a while another point of criticism within the fan community — although, notably, the term "chameleon circuit" was introduced rather late; its first citation on-screen was in the 1981 serial, Logopolis. As with "regeneration", the device has taken on many names throughout the history of the series. Russell T Davies referenced the criticism in the 2005 episode "Boom Town"; when at one point Rose Tyler refers to a cloaking device, the Doctor corrects her.

Production

File:DoctorWho96.jpg
Doctor Who 1996 movie poster
  • Producer Philip Segal had been trying for some years to launch a new American-produced series of Doctor Who, but the Fox Network - the only American network that showed any interest - was only prepared to commit to a single telemovie. It was hoped that, if the telemovie were successful, Fox might be persuaded to reconsider a series; however, the telemovie's ratings performance in America was not strong enough to hold Fox's interest.
  • Writer Matthew Jacobs's father Anthony Jacobs played the role of Doc Holliday in the 1966 First Doctor serial The Gunfighters, and the young Matthew visited the studio during production.
  • The movie was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, the first time any Doctor Who story had been filmed in the "New World" (although the 1985 Sixth Doctor story The Two Doctors was originally going to be filmed in New Orleans). It is, to date, the only Doctor Who production ever to be entirely mounted outside of the UK (all previous episodes filmed on location outside Britain nonetheless included at least some studio taping back in the UK).
  • It had its debut broadcast on the Edmonton, Alberta CITV-TV station on May 12, two days prior to the Fox Network showing.
  • The production budget for the movie (as revealed in the book Doctor Who: Regeneration) was $5 million US, with the Fox Network spending $2.5 Million US, BBC Television spending $300,000 US, while BBC Worldwide and Universal Television split up the remaining $2.2 million US.
  • In "Weird Science", an episode of the documentary Doctor Who Confidential in 2005, Sylvester McCoy revealed that during the sequence where he locks the casket with his sonic screwdriver, he held the tool pointing the wrong way (although in the original series, it was seen being used both ways). The sonic screwdriver was blurred in post-production to conceal the error. This is also the only time the Seventh Doctor was seen using a sonic screwdriver.
  • "TVM" is the production code used in the BBC's online episode guide.[2] The actual code used during production is 50/LDX071Y/01X.[1] Doctor Who Magazine's "Complete Eighth Doctor Special" gives the production code as #83705.[3] Big Finish Productions uses the code 8A, and numbers its subsequent Eighth Doctor stories correspondingly.
  • Also see: History of Doctor Who

Opening sequence

  • The opening pre-credits sequence went through a number of modifications, with several different voice overs recorded. At one stage the voice over was to be made by the old Master, played by Gordon Tipple, however in the end this was not used. Tipple is still credited as "The Old Master" though on the final edit his appearance is very brief, stationary and mute. If the original pre-credits sequence voice-over as voiced by Gordon Tipple had been used, it would be unclear if Sylvester McCoy was playing the Seventh Doctor (he is simply credited as "The Old Doctor"). Only the rewritten narration (as read by Paul McGann) makes his number of regenerations clear.
  • John Debney was commissioned to write the score for this film, and intended to replace Ron Grainer's original theme music with a new composition. Ultimately, Debney did in fact use Grainer's music for the theme, although Grainer was not credited.
  • Instead of designing a new Doctor Who logo for this film, it was decided instead to use a modified version of the logo used during the early part of the Jon Pertwee era of the original series (1970-1973). This logo, being the final form from the "classic series", is used to this day by the BBC for all Doctor Who merchandise relating to all of the first eight Doctors.
  • The opening sequence of the TARDIS flying through the time vortex was briefly used in the opening of Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death as the Master observes Rowan Atkinson's Doctor.

Alternative titles

  • There is some disagreement over exactly what the movie should be called. The production documentation only referred to the project as Doctor Who. Segal suggested the unofficial title Enemy Within as an alternative at Manopticon 5, apparently after being repeatedly asked what the actual title for the movie was. The DVD release is labelled Doctor Who: The Movie. The most common fan usage appears to refer to it as "the television movie", the "TVM", or variations thereof. See: Doctor Who story title controversy
  • Upon translation into French, this film was renamed Le Seigneur du Temps ("The Lord Of Time").

Broadcast and releases

File:Doctorwho1996dvd.jpeg
Official cover art of the TV movie's DVD release in the United Kingdom from BBC Video.
  • Commercials on the Fox network advertising the film used special effects footage from the 1986 story The Trial of a Time Lord, although this footage was not used in the movie. This marked the first time that footage from the original BBC series had been shown on a major American network. The advertisements also used a different arrangement of the Doctor Who theme music than that heard in the film.
  • The television movie received disappointing US ratings (partly due to the popularity of the programmes it was up against, partly because of poor marketing by the Fox Network, and partly because of unfamiliarity among average American TV viewers with the British series). However, when shown on BBC One in the United Kingdom thirteen days after its American broadcast, it received over 9 million viewers in the UK alone (the highest drama ratings in Britain for the whole week).
  • Third Doctor actor Jon Pertwee died a few days after the US broadcast of the film, and the UK broadcast included an epitaph to the actor.
  • The UK broadcast was edited for broadcast in a pre-Watershed timeslot. The scenes where Chang Lee's friends are fired upon was cut because of the gun violence (particularly in light of the Dunblane massacre which took place three months before). The operating room scene was also extensively cut, in particular Sylvester McCoy's dying scream.
  • The movie was scheduled to be released on home video in the United Kingdom several weeks before broadcast to capitalize on the interest in the series returning. However, the British Board of Film Classification required the video release to have the same edits as the broadcast version, and so the release was delayed to a week prior to its debut broadcast on BBC One. Hundreds of fans queued in London at midnight in order to buy a copy at the earliest possible moment, however overall sales were impacted by the now-imminent broadcast.
  • The unedited version was released on DVD in 2001. Both versions have also been released in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. However there has been no home entertainment release of any form in North America owing to complicated licensing.

Awards

In print

File:Audio Book dwNovel of the Film.jpg
The audiobook version of the novelisation

The television movie was novelised by Gary Russell and published by BBC Books in May 1996. It was the first novelisation of a televised Doctor Who story to not be published by Target Books (or related companies) since Doctor Who and the Crusaders in 1965. It is also the last novelisation of a televised story to date.

Basing the adaptation on an early draft of the script, Russell adjusted some details to make it more consistent with the original series, and the novelisation also contains elements that were cut from the shooting script for timing reasons.

  • The novel begins with the Seventh Doctor receiving a telepathic summons from the Master (à la The Deadly Assassin) to collect his remains from Skaro and a short prologue detailing how the Doctor escapes from the planet with the casket. This was originally intended to be a pre-credits sequence in the movie, and was subsequently contradicted by the ending of the novel Lungbarrow, where Romana gives the Seventh Doctor the assignment to retrieve the Master's remains.
  • More detail is given to Chang Lee and Grace's backstory, including his recruitment into the Triads and his seeking a father figure as well as flashbacks to Grace's childhood.
  • The Eighth Doctor finds the Seventh Doctor's clothing in the hospital rather than the Fourth Doctor's scarf. Also, the sequence where Chang Lee and the Master see the Seventh Doctor in the Eye of Harmony features all the previous Doctors as originally drafted.
  • The scene where the Doctor and Grace meet the motorcycle police officer is relocated to a traffic jam on the Golden Gate bridge (impossible to film in the movie since it was shot on location in Vancouver).
  • When the Doctor first kisses Grace, he immediately pulls back, grins apologetically and murmurs, "I'm sorry, don't know what came over me there." This makes the romantic nature of the kiss more ambiguous. Instead of the second kiss at the end, he gives her the Seventh Doctor's straw hat as a memento.
  • The Doctor is still referred to as half-human, to which the Master comments, "The Doctor once claimed to be more than just a Time Lord — He should really have said less than a Time Lord!" This was a reference to a line cut from Remembrance of the Daleks, although its unclear how the Master knew the Doctor said this.
  • Instead of dying and brought back to life, Grace and Lee are merely rendered unconscious, though aware of what is happening around them. Russell also spends some time showing the Doctor and them discussing what a "temporal orbit" is.

The canonicity of the novelisation, like all spin-off fiction, is unclear.

The novelisation was the first Doctor Who novel published by BBC Books. The book was actually published prior to the conclusion of Virgin Books' contract for publishing original Doctor Who fiction, so the next release by BBC Books did not occur for about a year when the Eighth Doctor Adventures series began with The Eight Doctors. The novelisation was released as a standalone work and is not considered part of this series. The Eighth Doctor Adventures series ran until 2005 when it was discontinued.

In 1997, the novel was also released as an audio book, read by Paul McGann. This reading was later included on the 2004 MP3 CD Tales from the TARDIS Volume Two.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Segal, Philip (2000). Doctor Who:Regeneration. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-00-710591-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ Howe, David J. "The TV Movie: Details". Doctor Who: The Television Companion. BBC Doctor Who website. Retrieved 2007-07-26. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ "The DWM Archive: Doctor Who (1996) - In Production", Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition, no. 5, p. 69, 2003-09-03 (cover date) {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Wikiquote has quotations related to The Eighth Doctor.

Reviews

BBC novelisation

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