Doctor Who (1996)

In 1989, following the recording of the third series to star Scottish actor Sylvester McCoy, the BBC pulled the plug on Doctor Who. Remarkably, it refused to go away -- Doctor Who had become a British icon. Several attempts to set up a film production were made, none of them getting far beyond script stage (as chronicled in Jean-Marc L'Officier's book The Nth Doctor). Expatriate British producer Philip Segal finally managed to negotiate a deal to produce a TV movie and a possible new series in a co-production with Universal Television. This arrangement was then licensed to the Fox Network, which would show the TV movie, with a series to follow should the ratings prove adequate. Paul McGann was chosen to portray the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, the story was set in San Francisco at the turn of the millennium, and the villain was to be the Master, a longtime villain in the series. The production is solid, certainly, but very, very flawed. Matthew Jacobs' script is a breathless, galloping affair that tosses in bits of backstory without regard for audience comprehension, giving little insight into the Doctor and no explanation as to who the Master (portrayed with carpet-chewing ferocity by the badly miscast Eric Roberts) is or where he comes from. The Doctor's seventh incarnation (played once again by Sylvester McCoy) begins the story, with almost no dialogue. Shot by accident, Who dies in the hospital and metamorphoses into his eighth form, all without the audience being told what and why -- the Who fans knew, of course, but they comprised a small part of the viewing audience. Doctor Who is sometimes gorgeous to look at, with a redesigned TARDIS (the Doctor's time-space ship, which looks like an old English police telephone box on the outside) that has tremendous scale. McGann fits right in with the concepts, playing the Doctor with tremendous zest despite the slipshod script, but it seems like a great deal of effort for very little end result -- one is left wishing for more Who with McGann, but in a vehicle that lives up to the best of the old show's legacy. ~ Steven E. McDonald, All Movie Guide