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| The 8th Doctor (Paul McGann), with Grace and Chang-Lee. |
1 episode. Approx. 85 minutes. Written by: Mathew Jacobs. Directed by: Geoffrey Sax. Produced by: Peter Ware. Original Air Date: May 27, 1996.
THE PLOT
When the Master is executed by the Daleks, he makes one final request - that the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) return his remains to Gallifrey. But there's a plan behind the Master's request. Midway through the trip, the TARDIS is hit by bizarre energy which forces a landing in San Francisco, 1999. The Doctor checks on the Master's remains, and is shocked to discover that the case holding them has broken open. Somehow, the Master has found a way to defy death, and is now on the loose!
Distracted by the crisis, the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS into the midst of a gunfight between San Francisco street gangs, and is promptly gunned down. The bullets do relatively little damage - but the surgery, by a well-intentioned cardiologist (Daphne Ashbrook), is fatal. Now the Master is alive again, his essence possessing the form of a paramedic (Eric Roberts). The Doctor is alive too, regenerating into his 8th form (Paul McGann). The race is on to stop the Master from stealing the Doctor's remaining lives, and destroying the Earth in the process!
CHARACTERS
The 8th Doctor: Paul McGann makes a stunningly good debut as the Doctor. Given probably less than 45 minutes' total screen time, he makes the part firmly his own. His performance is brimming with energy and enthusiasm, but he also is able to project the authority the part demands - a feat with which McCoy, much as I like him, frequently struggled. McGann throws himself into the part with abandon, and delivers the strongest debut performance since Peter Davison at the very least, maybe since Jon Pertwee. It's a pity he never got another full televised outing (preferably in a production not pulled in three different directions by Fox, Universal, and the BBC), but at least he did go on to develop his Doctor on audio and, 17 years later, in the mini-episode,
The Night of the Doctor.
The 7th Doctor: Though his part was apparently gutted between drafts, Sylvester McCoy still manages to do a lot with a role that basically amounts to sitting in a chair, pressing a lot of buttons, and finally getting shot. Always a stronger nonverbal actor than a verbal one, his work may actually benefit from the paucity of dialogue he has. Just sitting in a comfortable chair, reading and listening to music while snacking very gradually on jelly babies, he conveys something so perfectly "Doctorish" that I found myself wishing his debut season could have given a few moments just like these.
Though it probably wasn't intentional, it does amuse me that this Doctor was introduced as largely ineffectual before becoming a "master manipulator." Here, the master manipulator ends begging helplessly for his life in a surgical theater, while well-meaning but clueless humans force-feed him anasthesia and then perform the medical procedure that will kill him. From impotence to mastermind and back to impotence... There is something curiosly fitting about that.
The Master: Eric Roberts' Master is divisive in fandom. I'll fall on the side of enjoying his performance. Yes, it's campy... But so what? Every actor to have played the Master has been campy. It's a campy part. Roberts has fun with the quieter moments of his character, thanking the nurse who tells him he's horrible, or correcting Grace's grammar in the ambulance, or wondering why Chang Lee wants him to kill him ("You kill me, man"). In a quieter production, I think he could have been outright terrific. Unfortunately, he is hobbled by the manic elements of the production, which have his Master literally spewing venom at one point, and electronically treat his voice with "demon effects" near the end. But given what he actually has to work with, I think he does a perfectly fine job. He at least seems to be in on the joke.
Grace: Daphne Ashbrook is Grace, the Doctor's one-shot companion for this story. She is a San Francisco heart surgeon, who apparently has valued her career over her relationships (TM). Those cliches are about all there is to the character. Ashbrook has striking features, which Geoffrey Sax's highly visual direction takes full advantage of. Unfortunately, I never believe in Grace as a character. In a story full of rival Time Lords, body-snatching snakes, and magical fairy dust, the most artificial-seeming element is... Grace, the human.
Chang Lee: On the other hand, Yee Jee Tso is actually pretty good as Chang Lee. He's just as much a stock character as Grace. It's San Francisco, and he's Asian, so of course he's a member of a street gang. We never know why people are trying to kill him at the beginning, or who his two friends (whose deaths he never mourn) were. But Tso plays this thin sketch of a character with just the right combination of swagger and wide-eyed innocence, letting us know that he's in over his head. He also has terrific rapport with Eric Roberts, and the Master/Chang Lee exchanges are some of the most enjoyable bits in the production.
THOUGHTS
Just to note up front: The half-human thing is a throwaway line, easily ignored, that has been ignored by every subsequent 8th Doctor adventure I've heard or read. Said line has also been ignored by the new series, even as it has otherwise referenced both the 8th Doctor and the TV Movie as having "happened." It's one of those things like the
Doctor having built the TARDIS, or Susan having named it, or
the Daleks being totally reliant on static electricity. In other words, something entirely ignored by later stories, and thus probably best ignored by viewers. As such, I will simply ignore it here.
The TV Movie stands out in the show's history. It was devised to be a continuation of the original series, complete with Sylvester McCoy's 7th Doctor handing over to Paul McGann's 8th Doctor, and has been sufficiently referenced by the new series that only people insistent on plugging their fingers into their ears and screaming, "LALALA!" at the tops of their voices can really deny that it's part of the overall series. But it's a bizarre halfway house, neither American television nor British, neither classic
Who nor new series. An entity that doesn't quite "fit," but which has been more or less accommodated.
The film itself is a mix of very good elements and very bad ones. Many of its ideas would get folded into the new series, whose TARDIS design certainly owes at least as much to this TARDIS as to previous ones. A more human and passionate Doctor, with a more tactile and immediately emotional relationship with his companions. A higher emphasis on action, sometimes at the expense of story logic. And what, to get ahead of myself in these reviews a bit, is the whole
Boomtown climax/
Parting of the Ways finale if not one giant retroactive explanation for the nonsensical "magic fairy dust" finale of this film? A lot of what
Who would be in its next incarnation is clearly directly influenced by what was done here.
The film's greatest strengths, aside from McGann's performance, are mostly visual. Director Geoffrey Sax brings a strong visual sense to the production. This starts with the brief pretitles sequence, with effects shots melding one into the next to create the illusion of a single shot, straight through to the title sequence. The striking images, some of which linger in the mind long after the bulk of the film is forgotten, continue throughout. Sylvester McCoy, sitting in a comfortable old chair, slowly but contentedly lifting a jelly baby to his lips. A single whisp of breath coming from Paul McGann's lips, followed by him sitting up, his eyes catching the sole source of light. The new Doctor, striding about a disused wing of the hospital wrapped in a morgue sheet, his disorientation reflected by the chaotic multiple reflections of him in broken mirrors. The Doctor, now fully himself, striding through a glass window to demonstrate the deteriorating matter. Image after image, crafted and framed with care. This may be the most visually beautiful
Doctor Who story ever made.
Though the storytelling falls down a bit, for about 60 minutes, the good outweighs the bad. The plot is nonsense, but that's nothing new for
Who. McGann makes the part his own very quickly, and it's pacey and has a sense of fun. In between the (too frequent) action scenes are some lovely quiet moments between the Doctor and Grace, which indicate that Matthew Jacobs could have written a delightful
Who relaunch if he hadn't been so busy trying to make it into a "B" action movie. And even if the story basically amounts to an extended chase between Doctor and Master, there is something refreshing about seeing a
Doctor Who movie that is clearly targeted toward adults - even if the script itself fails in actually appealing to thinking adults.
It falls badly apart at the end. Once the Master captures the Doctor, the writer seems to realize that he's written himself into a corner. At this point, we get the Master "drezz-ing" for the occasion, the Doctor shouting out dull speeches at him, and finally that intensely horrible reset button ending. The last 10 - 15 minutes of this film make the worst of Russell T. Davies' season finale excesses look meticulously structured by comparison.
Ultimately, I do enjoy
The TV Movie. For an hour, it moves along at a fast enough clip that the weaker elements and the thin plot don't really matter. Paul McGann is terrific, Sylvester McCoy gives a strong final performance, and there are a handful of very good individual scenes and moments. It's a vastly better start for a new Doctor than
Time and the Rani was. And though it's a worse-
structured story than
The Twin Dilemma, it is so much better-made... and enjoys the benefit of a new Doctor audiences might actually
want to follow.
Rating: 5/10.
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