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

[strange_complex]

Oh dear, don't get too swayed by my upbeat positivity! I have left out lots of things which most fans get really annoyed about, mainly because I feel they've been written about quite enough already. But believe me, there is plenty of really quite rubbish stuff in this film. My best advice would be to keep an eye out for it on the cable channels, where it does crop up fairly regularly, and even then only watch it if you're at a bit of a loose end. Don't for goodness sake go out of your way to see it!

[xipuloxx]

Although there is a lot to criticise in this story, there is a lot of good stuff. I really like McGann in it, and Daphne Ashbrook, and yes, Yee Jee Tso. In fact it slightly annoys me that people go on about her so much and he gets so forgotten about! And it's one of McCoy's best performances too; in fact I actually think it's a shame he isn't in it more, and I could never have imagined myself saying when he was the incumbent Doctor

[strange_complex]

I quite agree about Timelash - it is pretty unremittingly dire, isn't it? Not actually as bad as The Twin Dilemma, but not far ahead. Mind you, given how very little resemblance the character called 'H.G. Wells' bears to anyone who could possibly have gone on to become the author of the books we know, you could always reconcile it all to yourself by just saying that it isn't really H.G. Wells the sci-fi author at all, but just some random Joe who happens to have the same name. That work for you?

And yes, I agree generally that there is a lot more good stuff here than its general status in fan circles might suggest, and that both McCoy and McGann are definitely more than worth the price of admission. :-)

[xipuloxx]

Unfortunately, all the HG Wells references in Timelash are a clear indication that we're meant to understand that his science fiction was inspired by his experiences with the Doctor. The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man -- all have clear "parallels" with the events of this story, though only superficially (the story is too stupid to indicate how much Wells's stories were social satire and genuine extrapolation). I can't just ignore that and pretend it was a different HG Wells. :-(

And that's without mentioning the lazy writer's insult to the audience when, at the climax of the story, the Doctor survives a certain-death situation. How? "Neat trick. I'll tell you later." There is NO EXCUSE for that (to put it mildly).

I actually didn't mind The Twin Dilemma when I rewatched it recently -- like the TV movie, it's got some terrible rubbish, but some good stuff too. The first and last episodes are quite fun, though the middle two are feeble.

[strange_complex]

I liked Azmael, the elderly Time Lord, in The Twin Dilemma. But I thought the rest was just dreadful. Still, if there's one thing we Who fans certainly know how to do well, it is picking the good bits out of otherwise dismal stories!

[huskyteer]

I'm surprised by how much I remember of the film, given that I haven't seen it since it was first shown. (I watched it at DocSoc and I think all our jaws were on the floor at the WTFery of it all.) I'd like to see it again in light of all that has followed it.

And yes, the 7th Dr's death was a real shame and shocker - the most powerful bit of the film for me.

[strange_complex]

Yeah, it's definitely worth watching with hindsight. You can be much more sanguine about how it departs from the Classic tradition, because that doesn't really matter any more, but you can also enjoy spotting the things it did which were picked up by New Who a decade later.

Poor old Seven - but I'm so glad he got a proper death scene after all. It could so easily not have happened for him - just as, indeed, it never happened for Eight either.

[xipuloxx]

Though as a fan I am glad Seven got a proper send-off, I nevertheless agree with those who say it was a mistake to launch a new version of Doctor Who with one actor only to have him turn into another after 20 minutes!

For the viewer not previously familiar with Doctor Who, it must have been weird and confusing (and not in a good way!).

Better to start, as RTD did, with the new Doctor already present. It keeps the information the new viewers have to process to a minimum.

[strange_complex]

I don't know - I thought that having Seven in the story allowed for some quite important and effective plot developments. The whole theme of the Doctor's physiology being so catastrophically misunderstood by human medical professionals that they actually kill him does a lot to get across what sort of character we are dealing with - and that couldn't have been done without also having a regeneration.

[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. :-)

[hollyione]

I wasn't a big fan of this film still not really! Although Grace was very easy on the eye.

I think someone here got it right when they said that being American it was just not going to be as "right" as if the BBC made it - it did feel very American and it was obviously set there, and even when original Who had an American character the actress was English and so it felt right to us (Just like Patrick Stewart uses American pronunciations in ST:TNG,which annoys me but presumably not Americans).

Now are you going to rewatch the Peter Cushing films? ;)

[strange_complex]

Maybe at some point! They keep cropping up on the cable channels, too, so it wouldn't be hard. I'm quite fond of them in a funny way. I guess that because they are so obviously not part of mainstream Doctor Who, you can sit back and enjoy their technicolor silliness and massive deviations from the normal rules of the Whoniverse in a way that the 1996 movie doesn't really allow. My favourite bit is the way the Daleks decorate their base with tastefully-placed lava lamps in the first film!

[hollyione]

yes indeed - groovy. I liked it when Bernard Cribbins was pretending to be a Cyberman too