Doctor Who
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
Following the Master's trial and execution at the hands of the Daleks, the Doctor, currently in his seventh incarnation, is transporting the Master's remains to Gallifrey via his TARDIS. En route, the box with the remains breaks open and an ooze leaks out, infecting the TARDIS. The Doctor is forced to make an emergency materialisation in San Francisco's Chinatown on 30 December 1999.
As he exits and locks the TARDIS, the Doctor is shot by a gang chasing down Chang Lee, a young Chinese-American man. Lee calls for an ambulance and escorts the unconscious Doctor to a hospital, unaware the ooze from the TARDIS has gotten aboard. At the hospital, cardiologist Dr Grace Holloway attempts surgery to remove the bullet but is confused by his strange double-heart anatomy, and accidentally lodges a cardiac probe in the Doctor's body, apparently killing him. The Doctor's body is taken to the morgue, while Lee is given the Doctor's possessions including the TARDIS key. Meanwhile, the ooze takes over the body of the ambulance driver, Bruce, transforming him into a new body for the Master.
Later, the Doctor's body regenerates, and the new Doctor, suffering amnesia, gathers clothes from remnants of a recent party. He recognises Holloway, who has resigned from the hospital after the failed operation, and follows her to her car, proving to her he is the same man by pulling out the cardiac probe. Holloway takes him home to recover. Lee returns to the TARDIS where the Master arrives and puts him under his mind control by claiming the Doctor had stolen his body. The Master convinces Lee to open the TARDIS and then to open the Eye of Harmony within it, which requires a human retinal scan. When the Eye opens, the Doctor is flooded with memories and realises the Master is searching for him, and tries to block the scan. He warns Holloway that while the Eye is opened, the fabric of reality will weaken, and potentially destroy the Earth by midnight on New Year's Eve if they cannot close it. However, he needs an atomic clock to do so, and Holloway finds one on display at the San Francisco Institute of Technological Advancement and Research.
Outside, they find the ambulance with the Master and Lee waiting for them, offering them a ride. The Doctor does not immediately recognise the Master, but discovers his true identity en route, and he and Holloway escape, but not before the Master can spit an ooze-like substance on Holloway's wrist. The two continue to the Institute and obtain the clock, returning to the TARDIS. The Doctor installs the clock and successfully closes the Eye, but finds the damage to reality too great and that he must revert time before the Eye was opened to prevent the destruction of Earth. As he connects the proper TARDIS circuits to do this, the Master remotely takes control of Holloway's body, causing her eyes to become inhuman, and she strikes the Doctor unconscious.
The Doctor wakes to find himself chained above the Eye, the Master poised to take his remaining regenerations while Lee and Holloway watch. The Doctor is able to break the Master's control on Lee, and Lee refuses to open the Eye for the Master. The Master kills him, and then releases his control on Holloway to return her eyes to normal. He forces her to open the Eye and then begins drawing the Doctor's lifeforce. Holloway, under her own control, is able to complete the final circuits to put the TARDIS into a time-holding pattern, preventing Earth's destruction, and then goes to free the Doctor. The Master kills her, but this has given enough time for the Doctor to free himself and attack the Master. The Doctor gains the upper hand and pushes the Master into the Eye. The Eye closes and time reverts a few minutes, undoing Lee and Holloway's deaths.
With no further risk to Earth, the Doctor prepares to leave. Lee returns his possessions, and the Doctor warns him not to be in San Francisco on the next New Year's Eve. The Doctor offers Holloway the opportunity to travel with him, but she politely refuses, and instead kisses him goodbye. The Doctor departs alone in his TARDIS.
=== Continuity ===
==== The Doctor ====
Until 2013's "The Night of the Doctor", the television movie was Paul McGann's sole televised story as the Doctor. It has inspired an ongoing Doctor Who novel line, comic strip, and audio series that featured the Eighth Doctor for years, beyond the TV series' return in 2005. The Eighth Doctor was also featured in a series of BBC7 audio plays since 2007.
The Seventh Doctor is seen wearing a different costume from the one he wore during his 1987–1989 tenure: gone are the question mark pullover and umbrella. The costume does include the original hat, which is actually owned by Sylvester McCoy.
When reluctantly filling out an emergency medical treatment form, Chang Lee (who had only met the semi-conscious Seventh Doctor minutes earlier and did not know his identity) gives the Doctor's name as "John Smith", a recurring alias originally given to the Second Doctor by companion Jamie McCrimmon in The Wheel in Space.
Much of the movie's plot rests on a revelation that the Doctor is half-human, "on [his] mother's side". Following the movie, several Eighth Doctor Adventures novels seek either to explain or elaborate on this premise, often with conflicting results. Alien Bodies suggests that only the Eighth Doctor is half-human, and that his interest in Earth people is "something to do with his retroactive ancestry". Unnatural History and The Gallifrey Chronicles suggest that the Doctor is the child of a Victorian lady called Penelope Gate and a Time Lord named Ulysses. The Taking of Planet 5 takes a different approach, suggesting that the Doctor slowly became half-human through repeated regeneration in close proximity to humans, causing the Doctor to absorb aspects of their DNA. Although the issue has yet to be explicitly revisited on-screen, in "Journey's End" a second version of the Doctor is created through a combination of the Doctor's and his human companion's physiologies; unimpressed with his half-human body, this new Doctor wonders how humans can manage with only one heart. In the 2008 Doctor Who comic book The Forgotten the Doctor states that, upon finding out that the Master had escaped from the box, he used the Chameleon Arch to deceive the Master with the fiction of being half-human.
The Seventh Doctor's two hearts on the radiograph are seen but dismissed as a double-exposure. His newly regenerated third incarnation suffered the mistake in Spearhead From Space.
The Eighth Doctor steals his first wardrobe from a hospital staff locker room, as had the Third Doctor and, later, the Eleventh Doctor.
The Eighth Doctor examines a mask of Richard Nixon. The Third Doctor crossed paths with a Nixon waxwork figure in Spearhead From Space, and Nixon would be a significant supporting character in the Eleventh Doctor stories, "The Impossible Astronaut" & "Day of the Moon".
==== 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 "EXTERMINATE!").
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. Later, however, he would be granted a new cycle, as confirmed in the 2007 episode "The Sound of Drums".
==== 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. Several subsequent tie-in novels attempted to explain the change.
This film introduces the idea of including Earth-centric elements on the TARDIS control console, such as an early 20th-Century automobile handbrake, apparently used for a similar purpose. This was used again in the 2005 and 2010 designs of the console.
The Deadly Assassin (1976) established that the Eye of Harmony is held on Gallifrey; its inclusion on the TARDIS in the film conflicts with this.
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 partially human retinal pattern.
==== References to other stories ====
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 and would meet him again in the Tenth Doctor comic "The Time Machination". In 1973's Frontier in Space, the Master is seen reading Wells' 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.
This is one of six Doctor Who adventures to be set on New Year's Eve 1999 and New Year's Day 2000. The comic strip Plastic Millennium, published in the Doctor Who Magazine Winter 1994 Special; Craig Hinton's Virgin Missing Adventures novel Millennial Rites (October 1995); Justin Richards's Past Doctor Adventures novel Millennium Shock (May 1999), the Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins story "Suitors, Inc." (2005) and the Fourth Doctor's segment from the comic The Forgotten (2008) all take place on those dates, as do elements of the Torchwood episode "Fragments".
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 and climax of the television movie which in itself is reminiscent of the vortex in the opening and closing sequences of 1974-1980.
=== Cast notes ===
Yee Jee Tso would later return in 2002 to play Major Jal Brant in the Seventh Doctor audio drama Excelis Decays and Doctor Reece Goddard in the Sixth Doctor webcast Real Time.
Daphne Ashbrook would later return in 2004 alongside Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor as Perfection in the audio drama The Next Life.
Tso and Ashbrook returned to Big Finish together playing Captain Ruth Matheson and Warrant Officer Charlie Sato of UNIT in the audio dramas Tales From The Vault and Mastermind, both part of the Companions Chronicles series, in 2011 and 2013.

Review: Whoever you are reading this review never EVER give up on your hopes and dreams because for DOCTOR WHO fans in the early 1990s not one of us ever believed we`d be seeing our favourite show return , never mind seeing a big budget American production or that this version was gong to have BAFTA award winning actor Paul McGann in the title role .
I`d read every article I could find about the production in telefantasy magaziness , Paul McGann`s Doctor had appeared on the front cover of every British TV guide and the trailers led me to believe the Daleks were going to be heavily featured alongside the Master .
My own memories of Roger Delgado`s original Master soon faded as Roberts bad-ass TERMINATOR inspired American arch enemy of the Doctor stole the entire show .But unfortunately much of the bad outweighed the good and most of this was entirely down to Matthew Jacobs script which involved far too much continuity and extremely bad continiuty at that which not only displeases diehard fans but will alienate casual viewers at the same time .
Paul McGann, however, makes an original Doctor and it's a shame a potentially interesting incarnation of the great Time Lord wasn't allowed to develop.
Can't people accept somebody who is an alien?This film certainly has its moments and shows great potential for a new series, but it's just a shame Fox couldn't get their act together and make that series instead of allowing it to fall back into the clutches of the money-minded BBC where it'll probably never be seen again.Not an example of Dr Who at its best by any means, but if you're a fan of the program like me then it's worth watching just to see the Doctor back in action, if only for one adventure..
In 1996, seven years after the original Doctor Who series was canceled, the American network Fox thought a USA reboot of the show might be a good way to bring everybody's favorite Time Lord back to the small screen.
Nevertheless, as messy as it is, this 1996 version of Doctor Who (which is part of the official mythology) has a few valid selling points that make it worth tracking down on a boring Saturday afternoon.The original show ended with the Doctor being played by Sylvester McCoy, the seventh incarnation of the character, and it is still McCoy, albeit credited as a guest star, who controls the TARDIS at the beginning of the story.
As for the Doctor, once he's regenerated into a half-human eighth embodiment (Paul McGann), he has to stop his nemesis once and for all.The plot is a classic good vs.
What I do dislike is the fast-paced, action-oriented nature of the story, which prevents character development (Chang Lee is the chief offender here) and doesn't allow any room for the Doctor to act like a detective (which is his usual schtick).Still, good effects, a rockin' music score and some nice arty camera work elevate this far above the average TV production.
So many fans went bananas over things like the Doctor being half-human and the Eye of Harmony being on board the Tardis and the Master being able to slither around in that black snake form to find a new host body or why he was put on trial by the Daleks.
I'd like every Dr Who fan who can't sleep at night fretting over this bit to explain to me what the White Form in the story where Tom Baker regenerated into Peter Davison was and why the other regeneration scenes took place without such a White Form "merging" with the Doctor.As for why the Eye of Harmony was on board the Tardis I'll say that if a new Doctor Who series had resulted from this pilot movie they could have done a flashback story at some point featuring Sylvester McCoy's Doctor and explained all that.
I thought the Master being put on trial by the Daleks was kind of cool - sort of like they were saying "This guy is so evil even the Daleks are outraged!" If a new series had resulted they could have done another Sylvester McCoy flashback story at some point to explain what led up to the Master being put on trial by the Daleks.
Sylvester McCoy was pretty cool for agreeing to appear in this movie to give the potential new Doctor Who series a legitimate link to the original British show.
The poor guy had to come in with a lame regeneration scene and went out the same way and the effort was for nothing since the show's own fans turned up their noses at this film and the new series was never given a chance.
Let us mercifully pass over the spectacle of the Doctor's first on-screen kiss--except to say that if he was never tempted by some of the companions in his past (particularly Romana, who at least was of the same species!) then why the heck would he be tempted by some jittery Earth woman who didn't particularly like him?Please, o scriptwriter, if you're going to use characters and equipment that have been established over a quarter of a century, does it not make sense to have some passing familiarity with what you are writing?
The Movie itself starred Paul McGann in the best ever first 'New Doctor' performance since the Original episode starring William Hartnell.
I loved Doctor Who in its original form, and I think that while this movie did not catch on to the true greatness of SF storytelling that made the show in the first place, it DID capture the spirit of the series and continued it well..
The Doctor Who T.V Movie was excellent!!Paul McGann was a great Doctor (even though he only played it once!!)The acting was superb and the direction/script was good.I say the BBC should stop earning a penny for the Doctor Who franchise, if they're not going to make new episodes....don't you think??Bring back The Doctor......no new Doctor Who is driving me crazy!!I hope this has helped the BBC decide.Kind Regards,The Doctor  ^?.
The interesting thing is that both Baker/McGann rein from the great city of Liverpool.The designs of the TARDIS, Plus the costumes and Special effects, all hit the mark and help make this look like a $40million movie.
If it was that simple why didn't he do that in 500 odd episodes of the television series?Overall though, excellent Theme Music [John Debney, Brilliant Hartnell style costumes for the Doctor, a Good TARDIS set, nEAT sfx and up to the standard acting.
There were a few annoyances however: the change from "chameleon circuit" to "cloaking device", the half-human revelation (as a biologist, I find that hard to swallow, despite the frequency of hybridization in the 'natural world'-- but it does explain things like the Doctor's traditional difficult regenerations), and a few weaknesses in the plot and continuity from the series.
Eric Roberts' portrayal of the Master is good and strong, as can be expected of him, though perhaps not as memorable as his predecessors.The movie also has enough exposition so one doesn't have to know all the ins and outs of Doctor Who in order to enjoy it, but the fact it's a TV production perhaps prevents it from blowing the viewer's mind.
People take against Paul McGann because they thought that the overall film sucked but his performance here was actually quite in tune with the previous doctors, still very English, and I admit he's no Tom Baker or Patrick Troughton, and his assistant was no Sarah Jane Smith, but you can't say that this was worse than the twin dilemma can you?.
Although the actor recently expressed his true feelings that he couldn't care less if he isn't chosen for BBC1's proposed revival of the Dr. Who television series, based on this and a reappraisal of his movie role, I believe he should continue as the Doctor at least for one season..
First of all, I'm heartened to see the previous comment, it's good to see the Americans know it was terrible too.Now, imagine my surprise and delight at the news that Doctor Who was making a long awaited come-back, I even loved the tagline, "He's back, and it's about time." Quite clever and catchy if I do say so myself.
What's more they relied on the Doctor Who name for success, and if you consider them apart from it as films in their own right they're not much cop either, I'm just glad there's no sign of a series being spawned from it.Basically, it's all very well trying to find new things for the Doctor to do, but you can't just rewrite the entire universe like that, I really do wonder how they managed to make it without someone saying "You're actually going to do this??
Only a non-fan would regard it as not being true Doctor Who!!All the elements are present - the TARDIS, though I prefer the smaller control rooms seen until 1989 - a companion, Grace, and danger to the world in the form of the Master, a good try from Eric Roberts.
It is amazing that an 89 minute long movie which introduces and even develops a character as interesting and fun as the Eighth Doctor can possibly be so horrible but somehow the inept team behind this abysmal abortion of a project manage to make this such a thoroughly horrendous movie in every way imaginable outside of some minor positives.Let's list those and get them out of the way: The titles and the arrangement of the theme are both quite good, McGann is just great as The Doctor, and he's surprisingly given some pretty good dialogue to work with (which is miraculous considering the unutterable dialogue for the rest of the characters).
The best scene in the entire movie other than McGann attempting to find clothing is the motorbike chase, which is a good bit of fun (with a nice lead-in with the jelly babies gag) and at least a bit of a rest from Eric Roberts' truly abysmal, ridiculous, and insulting Master.Oh I don't even feel like covering what was done to The Master in this movie but it was simply insulting.
The script has no concept of pacing, the editing techniques used to create 'tension' are far cheesier than the worst-looking rubber monster Doctor Who ever had, and the camera angles and general look of the film are hysterically, abysmally bad on a Coleman Francis scale of ineptitude thanks to the director Geoffrey Sax.I usually don't rate things 1/10 unless I find nothing to enjoy in them, but despite McGann's Doctor and some of the design in this movie I simply have to give it a 1/10 on principle.
The only bad thing I can think about the Doctor Who TV movie is that it didn't become a new series.
Shown seven years after the cancellation of the television series and nine years before the relaunched series with Christopher Eccleston, it was the only new Who in the 1990s.It also brings a lot of ingredients that was used in the relaunched series as Russell T Davies studied what it did right and what it did wrong.Sylvester McCoy returns as the seventh Doctor who having been shot and receiving botched hospital treatment regenerates into Paul McGann's eighth doctor.The Tardis lands in San Francisco in 1999, the Master escapes in a snakelike form from the Tardis and plans to take control of the Eye of Harmony once he has occupied the body of a paramedic (Eric Roberts).
The visuals were grand and obviously some of the morphing techniques were inspired by films such as Terminator 2.The casting of Paul McGann was the master stroke, with the 60 minutes screen time he had, you really felt that he was the Doctor, a Byronesque romantic (he even got to have a kiss) and man of action, it was a shame we have seen so little of McGann's time lord apart from the mini adventure, The Night of the Doctor; although there is plenty of Eighth Doctor audio adventures.I also liked the malevolent interpretation of the Master by Eric Roberts who really pushes up the dial of campiness when he puts on the time lord regalia.
From a corrupt, evidence-destroying hospital administrator, to a confused plot-line about New Years Day 2000 (maybe the writer really thought the world was going to end and nobody would be around to see the stupidity in his script.) It is these standard clichés that give Hollywood such a bad name, and wreck this effort.I've never completely bought into the whole "Curse of the Time Lords", business, (it always seemed something could be going on between the Jon Pertwee Doctor and Jo Grant) so found the kisses between the Doctor and companion trite, but not devastatingly so.
the film has big budget special effects which looked pretty good for the time, the new design of the Tardis interior is very well made and its influence on the later interior designs in the revived series can be seen.
there are also a lot of unnecessary concepts that have been added to the film, such as the idea of the Doctor being half human, which doesn't work for the character at all and is an example of the Americans trying to be a little bit too clever.
This movie was supposed to be the kickoff for an American/British revival of the show.The good stuff- Having Doctor Who #7 (Sylvester McCoy) in the beginning of the film.McGann himself was pretty good.
I think in some ways he was trying too hard to be Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor), and he was written in such a way to be like that version, the one probably best known and most popular to Americans.Still, it's a better movie than I remember it being than when I saw it in 1996, but that's probably because I'm now used to seeing The Doctor with decent production values thanks to Eccelston, Tennett and Smith.
We're presently up to the Jon Pertwee era, so I have had the pleasure of watching the Master in action, which added to one reason why I was disappointed with the film.I love the camera work and editing, especially the cutting between the regeneration and the Frankenstein movie, what I call the 'Rebirth' of the Doctor and the Master, and finally the costume change and Lee going through the Doctor's things.Paul McGann was a terrific choice for the Doctor and I wish he could have stayed on longer- he has a sense of humour, a slightly angsty side, a playful side, a sneaky side (putting a gun to his own chest to threaten the policeman comes to mind)...
So, with the Master onboard, the movie can really only hook fans of the TV series, not get too many, if ANY, new, casual viewers to turn their eyes from some established US sitcom or drama on at the time its up against.
The Doctor is at his best when he is on the hunt, searching for the answer to the mystery, piecing the clues together while at the same time, with the help of his assistants, taking the viewer with him on the adventure.Paul McGann turns in a very good performance, as does Daphne Ashbrook, but the hammy performance of Eric Roberts has turned the Master into a Disneyvillain.The best thing to do would be to explain away this chapter in The Doctor's life as some kind of time/space paradox..
After the cat is finally out of the bag (or Water/Air Snake...thats the form The Master takes!) all subtlety goes out the window (or what this show THOUGHT was subtlety) and Eric Roberts starts being the campest incarnation of the character.There are also plot points that are only just brought up in this film like The Doctor being half human (despite the fact that Gallifreyans, from what we've seen in the Classic and New show are basically human looking so why did that plot point exist?), The Eye Of Harmony being an "access Regeneration" point for other Doctors (I guess that was a way of writing in a "safety net if McGann stuffed up and being like "say hello to Doctor #9 - Tom Baker!").So overall is this special AS BAD as people make out?
Star Trek managed it, this Doctor Who TV Movie didn't quite do it.Paul McGann made an excellent Doctor, and the supporting cast were all pretty good - including a hysterical, over-the-top Eric Roberts as the Master.In this movie, the Doctor's 7th incarnation (Sylvester McCoy) is shot in San Francisco.
It was always about the plot, and the never ending story of a renegade Time Lord on the run from his people in a rackety old Tardis.Now Paul McGann was a perfect choice to carry on the role of the Doctor.
However, with the graphic CGI and first-time orchestration of the historical theme tune, and stunning performances by Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann (the Doctors), Daphne Ashbrook (Dr. Grace Holloway), and particularly Eric Roberts's portrayal as the Master, this TV Movie, although seen by only 9 Million people in the UK (despite there being no new WHO for seven years!)on original broadcast on Monday 23 May, 1996.
And yes Hollywood have ruined it with this movie but there are some good bits in there.McGann is excellent as the new doctor, with a touch of his predecessors about him he is believable as the awkward yet clever doctor, sometimes a bit nonsensical but always behind it all a genius.Eric Roberts (another actor I like) is miscast as the master, he is way to "Ming the merciless" which to be fair is the scripts fault but he just doesn't come across as the doctors evil counterpart.
Previously, this incarnation appeared only in an American produced TV movie broadcast in 1996, bridging the gap between the original series and the 2005 revival.In this film, the Eighth Doctor is played by Paul McGann, best known for starring as the eponymous "I" (or Marwood) in Withnail & I (1987) alongside Richard E.