McGann

Mr Bloat

When I was a lad, I started watching Doctor Who just around when Tom Baker was regenerating into Peter Davidson. I stayed watching through the rest of the lads but tapered off a bit during McCoy. I did watch the movie when it was out and thought it was a bit rubbish and totally forgettable. When The Doctor returned in 2005, I had a young daughter with another on the way, Saturday evenings were all about bath time, Dora and bedtime stories. I pretty much ignored the reboot until Netflix launched in Ireland and I started watching them through that. Now, I adore all things Whovian and like most others here, I can't wait until Saturday.
One thing that I noticed over the last few days is the adoration some people have for Paul McGann, especially the reaction to Night of the Doctor. I'm curious as to what I have missed with him and why have people reacted the way they have since the 'minisode'? Is it simply because there was a missing link between Doctors 8 and 9 which is now explained (kind of)?

Sleepy

I think there's a certain love for him in the fandom due to his loyalty to the series in doing so many of the Big Finish audio stories despite such a short time of being The Doctor...

mobitron

McGann has appeared in quite a few audio-only Big Finish stories - I'm not familiar with them myself but I gather they have quite a following. So he has a track record for playing the role apart from the TV movie. I do think he is the best thing about the movie.

Mr Bloat wrote: »

When I was a lad, I started watching Doctor Who just around when Tom Baker was regenerating into Peter Davidson. I stayed watching through the rest of the lads but tapered off a bit during McCoy. I did watch the movie when it was out and thought it was a bit rubbish and totally forgettable. When The Doctor returned in 2005, I had a young daughter with another on the way, Saturday evenings were all about bath time, Dora and bedtime stories. I pretty much ignored the reboot until Netflix launched in Ireland and I started watching them through that. Now, I adore all things Whovian and like most others here, I can't wait until Saturday.
One thing that I noticed over the last few days is the adoration some people have for Paul McGann, especially the reaction to Night of the Doctor. I'm curious as to what I have missed with him and why have people reacted the way they have since the 'minisode'? Is it simply because there was a missing link between Doctors 8 and 9 which is now explained (kind of)?

Doctor DooM

It's because he was the Doctor who waited.

BuffyBot

The movie was far from perfect: but there are quite a few classic and new Who absolute turds out the that are much, much worse. We tend to forget those because there is so many good ones to counterbalance them with.


I thought the movie was ok. It had a lot to pack into a short space of time, especially as it had to cater for the US audience too. McGann's take had great potential: his portrayal for me showed that his Doctor could be quite an interesting incarnation. Many have found that through his audio adventures that it was.

There's also an element of people genuinely being pleased to see McGann getting a second crack of the whip (however short) and/or getting a proper send off on screen and official "closure" for his doctor I think.

The fact that it happened as an integral part of the 50th is also quite nice too!

flazio

The Eighth Doctor was the Doctor of people who remained Doctor Who fans during it's darkest recess of the late 90's early noughties, as mentioned he joined the Big Finish range in 2001 but before that there was a continuous monthly range of book adventures which continued right up until the end of 2005 as well as comic adventures in Doctor Who magazine anyone who collected these grew quite attached to Eight.

Wibbs

BuffyBot wrote: »

The movie was far from perfect: but there are quite a few classic and new Who absolute turds out the that are much, much worse. We tend to forget those because there is so many good ones to counterbalance them with.

+1000 BB. It's so hard to judge a standalone, but there were and are many old/new Who that would not bear the comparison to his one(well two now. feck off ) screen outing too well.

Even his getting it on with the earth babe thing for the new/US audience, something well out of bounds for old Dr Who, worked IMH. IIRC(and I haven't seen it in years to be fair) he remained very "alien" even with the romantic overtones. Plus again for me that bit worked, though I did think "ehhh..." at the time. He was a "young" Doc. With maybe the exception of Davidson, all the previous docs were middle aged or older guys. (grand)Fatherly figures, quite beyond that sort of thing, don't you know. So McGann's doc was new in that sense. Now I've never listened to the audio McGann stuff, but he nailed it really well in this latest 50th thing. Like others I would like to have seen him do more. Just like I would have liked to have seen more of Ecclestone too. Ah well. I'm still pissed off that Tom Baker's Doc pegged it(TBH I didn;t watch it again after that until I fell on new Who back in the mid noughties).

The Master

BuffyBot wrote: »

The movie was far from perfect: but there are quite a few classic and new Who absolute turds out the that are much, much worse.

Love and Monsters................

AtomicHorror

I think it appeals a bit to the completist in us too. We got a brief hint of a new Doctor and then nothing for so long. It was then implied that he had regenerated into Eccleston's Doctor but we were never sure of what had really happened in the intervening time. The Eighth's story was the only chapter we never really got to see the end of, until now.

We still don't know much either about the War Doctor's story or the beginning of the Ninth's story and we don't know whether that will be tied up on screen or just implied, leaving another gap in our knowledge to speculate about...

pixelburp

Against some of the dreadful entries in the 2005 relaunch, in retrospect the TV movie isn't as bad as its reputation would lead you to believe. It had it's minus points - hoo boy did it ever; I'm looking at you Eric Roberts - but perhaps the biggest mistake it made was assuming the audience was already au fait with Doctor Who. Say what you will about RTD's first series, it was written from the point of view that most of the audience would have had a passing awareness of Dr. Who at best. New fans came onboard because they were gradually brought up to speed with the mythology, while old fans had enough nods that they stayed with the new run through its shaky first season.

The TV movie on the other hand was an avalanche of gratuitous mythology, I'd say even John Nathan-Turner himself would have thought it a bit too much. From the very beginning with its ludicrous infodump ('The Master? Daleks? Skaro? What the hell is this about?' said its audience I'd bet) the show made no consideration towards those who didn't possess encyclopedic knowledge of the show; heck I bet even casual fans were lost, the movie was just a narrative mess. Having a regeneration was a really bad idea too. The mucking about with canon - like the Daleks bizarrely putting a Time Lord on trial, or the Doctor's half-human lineage (that has since been casually ignored, ha!) - was bad enough, but the mere presence of any canon in a TV pilot attempting to relaunch a dead show showed how poorly thought out the script was.

The one bright spark in all of this of course was McGann; it's a crying shame that his talent & charm wouldn't be seen in the role again for another 17 years (notwithstanding the Big Finish line). Moffat mentioned something a while ago that I thought was interesting: that from a script point of view, every Doctor more or less writes the same. And when you think of the lines from Night of the Doctor, it's kinda true: you could easily hear Tennant or Smith making the same quips McGann did. The difference comes through the actor & what they bring to the role; Tom Baker is the most (in)famous example of this concept, but all the actors end up transposing their own eccentricities and personality onto the character. McGann was no exception and he brought a dashing, charismatic element to the Doctor that was instantly likable in the TV movie. Even his romance wasn't entirely unbelievable, certainly more than the later, creepy one with Rose Tyler was anyway.

Ultimately though, perhaps the failure of the TV movie was a good thing. I've read some of the plans Amlin had in store for this new iteration of the Doctor and honestly? It stunk. If you think RTD / Moffat has messed with the formula too much, you should dig around for some of the ideas batted around Stateside (you can still find some original FX tests of the Daleks they were to use - terrible mid-90s CGI pepperpots that would have transformed them into spider creatures :rolleyes:)

The minisode does make me realise I should probably listen to some more of the Big Finish audios, but as I've said before on this forum, the sheer volume of them, combined with what seems like a fairly intricate mythology in its own right, makes it hard to figure where I should start. I would definitely join any clamor for a proper spin-off series featuring McGann; he seems genuinely taken with the role and would doubt he'd pass up the chance to play the Doc again for TV.

Sonics2k

Oh Gods, I'd forgotten about Eric Roberts. An actor who keeps getting work, but is always really cheesy.

He did no justice to the Master. The script was shocking and even re-watching it last night on Netflix reminded me of the awful things they did.

McGann though, was amazing and you could really see his potential as the Doctor. I was really happy to see him get a nod in the minisode and finally get his closure.

Wibbs

pixelburp wrote: »

Against some of the dreadful entries in the 2005 relaunch, in retrospect the TV movie isn't as bad as its reputation would lead you to believe. It had it's minus points - hoo boy did it ever; I'm looking at you Eric Roberts - but perhaps the biggest mistake it made was assuming the audience was already au fait with Doctor Who. Say what you will about RTD's first series, it was written from the point of view that most of the audience would have had a passing awareness of Dr. Who at best. New fans came onboard because they were gradually brought up to speed with the mythology, while old fans had enough nods that they stayed with the new run through its shaky first season.

Oh I agree, however the two were written from very different angles. RTD's reboot was greenlit as a series, the US model of one off pilots seeking a series constrains things, especially with a reboot. That's where the infodump and all that guff came from. You'll see this in most pilots for US main network TV. Infodump like mad to keep the audience after the second commercial break and hope the numbers greenlight a full series. RTD had time and space(no pun:)) to build a narrative, they didn't. Plus they were aiming at a US audience so that changes things, or at least it did. Tends to make story by numbers more prevalent.

The one bright spark in all of this of course was McGann; it's a crying shame that his talent & charm wouldn't be seen in the role again for another 17 years

+1000

Even his romance wasn't entirely unbelievable, certainly more than the later, creepy one with Rose Tyler was anyway.

I dunno PB. IMHO the TV movie "romance" was incredibly jarring. Clearly aimed at a US audience new to the franchise, that execs may have felt would have been skittish about some old bloke traveling with "companions" with no sexual undercurrent. Throw in the "i'm half human on my mother's side" and the jarring is complete. He just kisses her apropos of nothing. No script reason for it, nor "human" reason for it either. I can understand them aiming to get a romantic aspect in for audience figures, but they could have made it an undercurrent of will they/won't they(US stuff does that a lot since). IMHO it landed like an alien spacecraft in an episode of the Waltons.

On the other hand RTD is very good at writing people/relationships, the scifi stuff is almost set dressing with him(which is his big problem IMHO). The Doc/Rose thing is a little creepy and IMHO intentionally so(originally RTD had it that our hero had "groomed" her throughout her life to be his "companion"). However it evolves and you can see why it might evolve. It isn't shoehorned in and it remains more an undercurrent. For all the low level feels being thrown around it's mostly one sided and the Doc keeps an "alien" distance, yet at the same time keeping her "hooked". As Doc Doom noted in another thread, the opening episode of the reboot "Rose" is pretty much all about her. The Doc is a foil, this odd(and yes creepy) presence that gives her an escape from her boring life and it's more believable for me. That gets explored further as the story goes on and she becomes less attached to her old life. The jolly japes and monsters are background to that, except that she's arguably traveling with the biggest "monster" of all and she's falling for him. For me it's a very dark undercurrent for mainstream Saturday nights on the couch TV and again for me I did find that interesting at the time. It's one reason why I thought it a pity Ecclestone went when he did as a second series with him would have had a very different flavour compared to "I used to be in a boyband" Doctor.

Ultimately though, perhaps the failure of the TV movie was a good thing. I've read some of the plans Amlin had in store for this new iteration of the Doctor and honestly? It stunk. If you think RTD / Moffat has messed with the formula too much, you should dig around for some of the ideas batted around Stateside (you can still find some original FX tests of the Daleks they were to use - terrible mid-90s CGI pepperpots that would have transformed them into spider creatures :rolleyes:)

+ 1000. I found some of those ideas in my wanderings and as you say very bad plan and luckily it did fail as a pilot.

I would definitely join any clamor for a proper spin-off series featuring McGann; he seems genuinely taken with the role and would doubt he'd pass up the chance to play the Doc again for TV.

Plus a million. I was well impressed with his few minutes. More than I thought I would be TBH.

The Master

Sonics2k wrote: »

Oh Gods, I'd forgotten about Eric Roberts. An actor who keeps getting work, but is always really cheesy.

He's due to play parts in over 60 films in the next 12 months, complete hack of an Actor, almost ruined me

Sonics2k

The Master wrote: »

He's due to play parts in over 60 films in the next 12 months, complete hack of an Actor, almost ruined me

I was honestly hoping you'd post after me.