Doctor Who *** (1996, Paul McGann, Eric Roberts, Daphne Ashbrook) – Classic Movie Review 3309

It is the first Doctor Who appearance in seven years as (not counting Peter Cushing’s cinema appearances) the seventh Doctor Who, played by Sylvester McCoy, is killed off. But, in the morgue, Paul ­­McGann regenerates into the eighth Doctor, who soon faces up to his arch-enemy the Master himself regenerated via an evil slime into Eric Roberts.

Director Geoffrey Sax’s exciting looking 1996 TV movie spin-off is a welcome return for the Time Lord after a gap of seven years thanks to Universal Television, who spin the good Doctor off to 31 January 1999 in San Francisco, where he has to get his hands on an atomic clock to stop the planet being sucked through the Eye of Harmony at midnight. He gets help in the shapely form of blonde surgeon Dr Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook) with whom he (unthinkably) has his first kiss (pretty good going after 30 years).

It is commendably pacy and entertaining, as well as pleasingly adult, with impressive special effects, atmospherically murky photography and a fair story with loads of echoes of fantasy movies (especially Terminator and Raiders of the Lost Ark).

McGann settles into the role nicely and Roberts, in wicked green eyes, has a camp field day in an apparent dress rehearsal for the role of Ming the Merciless. There are no Daleks though, making the eighth Doctor the only one not to encounter the Daleks.

The UK telecast ended with a dedication to Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor, who died a week earlier.

The TARDIS set cost $1million to build in the hope that a series would emerge from the film. It was a ratings winner in the UK with 9.1 million viewers, the best rating for a Doctor Who episode since Doctor Who: Time-Flight: Part One (1982), it flopped on American TV so no new series emerged.

BBC1 controller Alan Yentob and executive producer Jo Wright resisted the return of Sylvester McCoy as they associated him with the decline in popularity and cancellation of the original series. They wanted Tom Baker but the American producers insisted on McCoy, as they were Doctor Who fans, and felt the seventh Doctor deserved a proper send-off, though he speaks only 11 short lines.

It was largely due to the determination of producer Philip David Segal that this movie was made and that its story stayed in the Doctor Who iconography. He was born in the US but grew up in England as a fan of Doctor Who as a child.

Peter Cushing played the Doctor in two cinema spin-offs. The TV Doctor Whos so far are First William Hartnell, Second Patrick Troughton, Third Jon Pertwee, Fourth Tom Baker, Fifth Peter Davison, Sixth Colin Baker, Seventh Sylvester McCoy, Eighth Paul McGann, Ninth Christopher Eccleston, Tenth David Tennant, Eleventh Matt Smith and Twelfth Peter Capaldi.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3309

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/