Hey, I've been a Doctor Who watcher from waaaaaaaaay back and have seen every episode ever filmed, but McGann was out of his element. Bad enough that goddamned Fox just couldn't keep from tampering with the formula (half human? a half-assed romance? Really??), but McGann nearly equaled Peter Davison in the latter's first few episodes for triteness and schizo behavior.
shareAddendum: NObody could be worse than Colin Baker, of course (fat, dumpy and obnoxious -- seriously, was there ever a worse choice?), but all that tampering with the Whovian mythos plus McGann as star was the kiss of death for this flick. Thank heavens its ratings failure meant no U.S. version of the series would be attempted -- THAT would have been just too much to take. The Beeb should maintain custody of the Doctor Who universe in perpetuity. And now we get to see whether Matt Smith can do better than McGann (jury's still out on that, but at least he's less irritating).
shareHe's MY Doctor... with Sylvester McCoy a close second.
Merry Christmas to you, anyway.
No, folks, Paul McGann was a godsend. It was this FILM that was godawful. If it had (thank heavens it didn't) gone to series, he would have been the absolute only endearing thing about it!
shareAs with all things it was ONE glimpse of what they could have done with the character. If it had gone to series I think it probably would have improved. While the original pilot episode of "The X-Files" had nice production values, the series that evolved from it turned out much better-the same for "Fringe" and many other TV shows.
shareThe "Beeb" did keep quite a bit of control in the sense that they had to agree on the choice of the Doctor, the script, and other production choices. Paul McGann was their choice and Philip Segal had to fight with the Fox and Universal for them to agree to his casting.
In short, the BBC approved the casting of McGann and the crappy script that we ended up with. They also approved the "Leekley" script which was a horrendous "re-boot" of the series, proving that they are just as capable of making bad decisions and "tampering with the Whovian mythos" as anyone else. It was actually the U.S. (Spielberg) who nixed the Leekley version as being too similar to his Indiana Jones.
The TV Movie was hardly a "U.S. version". British producer, British writer, British director, BBC maintaining veto power over most of the major production choices, filmed in Canada with mostly Canadian actors. The only thing that makes this a "U.S. version" is the money...which was not the problem with this movie.
PS- McGann was one of the few things worth watching in this movie. He was great. It's not his fault the script sucked.
McGann was brilliant. The film was not that bad either.
I hope we get to see McGann as The Doctor again one day.
Made you look!
I thought he did a good job as the Dr. We will never know if the eight Doctors adventures would have made a good story but this movie probably helped bring back the Doctor Who series years later.
shareWe absolutely do know that the Eighth Doctor's adventures made good stories - Paul McGann did many audio dramas as the Eighth Doctor, and they're amazing. The best of them easily rank with the best TV episodes IMO. http://television.thedigitalfix.com/Content/109/big-finish-the-best-an d-worst-of-the-eighth-doctor.html
Unfortunately Big Finish asks $9 per drama even if you only want to listen to them once (for which I would gladly have paid at least a dollar each), so I had to torrent them. There are some more recent ones up here, though: http://www.dailymotion.com/user/sawbonesocto/2
Paul McGann is my third favorite Doctor after Jon Pertwee and Matt Smith.
The Cockroach Honor Award
2008: WALL-E
2009: G-Force
The cockroach is a noble beast
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McGann was brilliant. The film was not that bad either.
I hope we get to see McGann as The Doctor again one day.
Google "Night of the Doctor" (although something tells me you know this by now lol) and you will see the 8th Doctor finally get his ending. It was a shock to see his appearance as I was expecting John Hurt's Doctor to appear instead. Pleasant surprise to me :)
shareGoogle "Night of the Doctor" (although something tells me you know this by now lol) and you will see the 8th Doctor finally get his ending. It was a shock to see his appearance as I was expecting John Hurt's Doctor to appear instead. Pleasant surprise to me :)
There are loads of Audio adventures with him in - really good. Check them out! He's an excellent Doctor (as is Colin Baker in them btw - who was also let down in the visual medium)
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fin
Right. OUTSIDE!
sharePaul McGann was one of the few good things about this thing.
sharePaul McGann was a great Doctor. He was just given a terrible script. Its a shame that the 1996 TV Movie did not result in a new series or series of movie specials at that time. It would have been great if Doctor Who had a more successful revival in the mid-1990s instead of by 2005 when the BBC decided it was time to bring the franchise back for a revival. McGann has continued playing the Eighth Doctor on original audio dramas and radio plays since 2000 up to the present. Its a shame he has never been given another chance to play his Doctor on screen. A lot of fans, myself included, would love to see him play the part on screen again, even as a guest on the revived series at least.
sharePaul McGann was delightful! It's just that this movie was bad. I wish we see more of Paul McGann as The Doctor.
shareActually, I thought he was a great doctor. The movie was however lacking.
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