31. Doctor Who: the movie (1996, made for TV), dir. Geoffrey Sax

[strange_complex]

I actually watched this months ago - some weekend in the late summer when I was feeling rather ill and it was on one of the cable TV channels, I think. So it is well out of sequence as far as my reviews are concerned. But better late than never

Comments

[shadowturquoise]

The 1996 movie was a highly anticipated life-line for those of us who were around for the demise and had lived through the 7 years of nothing in-between. It wasn't perfect, but for a group of starving fans it was certainly good. I've always felt that if it had been BBC produced they would have ironed out the kinks and a reboot would have followed. Being an American production, the emotional stakes to make it work just weren't there

[strange_complex]

Ah, thanks for that about Chang Lee going round the outside of the TARDIS! I can well imagine Ian doing that, actually, though it's quite a while now since I've seen the first story and I don't remember that sort of detail about it now. So I guess Rose doing it in the new series doesn't need to be a reference to the movie at all - more likely it is just bypassing it altogether and referencing the Classic series.

[xipuloxx]

Re: half human. I have heard this argument before, but I don't buy it. Let me explain...

To me, if it was just the Doctor saying it, I could assume he was kidding. Or if the Master thought it, but it wasn't otherwise confirmed, he could be mistaken.

But the Master surmises it from information available to him, and based on this, guesses that Grace's iris print can open the Tardis, or the Eye of Harmony or whatever it was (it's been a long time!). And it works. If he was wrong about the Doctor being half-human, why did it work? No alternative explanation is given.

Add to that the fact that the Doctor claims to be half-human completely independently of this, and never says he was joking or anything, and there's only one conclusion:

The TV Movie is telling us that the Doctor is half-human. Which flies in the face of everything we learned about him prior to that.

Of course, as Penny says, continuity is overrated. And it seems to have been quietly forgotten since! But it still bugs me a bit.

[xipuloxx]

I do agree with you about how much we as fans appreciated new Doctor Who after 7 years, though! But one not-very-good movie later, I for one felt rather deflated. I enjoyed it, sure, but it was rather disappointing. If it had gone to a series, I would definitely have watched it and hoped for the flaws to be ironed out.

But as it became clear that no series was going to happen, the movie became rather more despised for not being what it could have been. If it had been better, maybe there would have been a series. But because it wasn't good enough, there might never be a series again.

Nowdays, of course, that's all history. With a very successful 5-and-a-bit years of New Who behind us, and at least one more to go (probably more than that!), we can view the movie more as a curiosity, without that baggage. And even without watching it again, I find I'm more forgiving of its flaws (as I am of the McCoy era, in part again because I know it didn't kill off the series for good). And that means I can appreciate the good stuff more. :-)

[shadowturquoise]

I find I'm more forgiving of its flaws (as I am of the McCoy era,. . .

Interesting. I can easily forgive the 1996 movie because I was so starved for anything Doctor Who at the time. But I still haven't forgiven JNT for being the cause of that famine.

[xipuloxx]

I'm a lot more forgiving of JNT now than I was at the time. Even then, I felt that he'd done some good for DW when he arrived, but had stayed too long. Now I know that he'd requested to be moved to another programme but his bosses had refused, and that they'd basically said they would cancel Doctor Who if he left, as they had no-one else willing/able to run it. In that situation, what would you have done