The TV Movie: Rank - 285

      The TV Movie

(Special, Dr 8 with Grace,  27/5/1996 (UK premiere, a fortnight after the USA and Canadian premiere), producer/showrunners: Phillip David Segal, Alex Beaton, Jo Wright, Peter V Ware and Anthony Jacobs, writer: Matthew Jacobs, director: Geoffrey Sax)

Rank: 285

It's time to drezzzz for the occcashun as the TV movie aka that weird American McGann thing is here!...

He was finally back! After a 7 year absence! And - to quote the best thing about it, the promotional tagline - it was about time! Oh and it was American too, the only time DW has ever been made outside the UK (though like many things American it was actually filmed in Canada where it's cheaper, for some reason). The build up to this was colossal and so was the budget, at least in relative terms to the BBC. Things seemed so promising too: a long list of high profile names were auditioned and the process seemed to go on for so long it felt as if time had stood still (I long for a parallel universe where I can watch Tony Slattery, John Sessions or Michael Palin. Though frankly I'm grateful it wasn't Rowan Atkinson or Michael Crawford). In the end it went to Paul McGann, who looked bemused the whole way through (then again, so would I if I was made to wear his wig). The result was...odd. It all felt small somehow, inconsequential, despite all the fuss and big effects. So many decisions were just wrong. The casting for a start: McGann is a really good Dr now he's had time to adapt the part to his strengths as a more battle-scarred emotional quirky Dr, but as a kissable Edwardian Brit standing on a box to make himself look taller and not much to go on in the script he's totally lost. A lot of fans like Julia Roberts' brother Eric as the latest Master but for me he's worse a strange mixture of an ice-cold presence who still hams up every word he speaks. As for Grace it's great to have another Dr in the Tardis but seeing as her character traits seem to consist of being haughty, loving opera and random kissing she's not exactly a great character either. As for the plot it's another one that re-writes all of DW history. The idea of the Dr being half-human 'on his mother's side' is rightly mocked by fans, but the idea of the eye of harmony powering the Tardis is actually a pretty neat idea (if too easy a solution at the end). In other words it's a near unmitigated disaster that, as such a high profile episode, killed the franchise off for another 9 years. Fans speak of it in hushed tones nowadays, if at all (it doesn't even have a name we all agree on. 'That weird McGann thing' is how most fans know it; 'Grace:1999' my favourite nickname). For all that, though, there's...something there. Writer Matthew Jacobs is clearly a fan (his dad was in 'The Gunfighters' episode in 1966 after all and once took him on set; a lot of Wild West tropes end up here too). McCoy's departing Dr is well written for (well, before and after they kill him off anyway), the millennium setting is fun, there's a nie lot of action between the talking and there are some clever one liners too. Had this gone to series, with the (many) problems wrinkled out I'm one of those fans who reckons this might have worked out. Yes, even the remake of 'The Web Planet' from 1965 with its giant ants and butterflies they were talking about doing. As a 90min one-off though it just had too much to do and got too much of that wrong.

Positives +Poor McCoy had a thankless job. He's effectively fired here after 9 very interrupted years, dies in the least heroic way possible (of all the Drs its this one that forgets to check the scanner during a gun battle?!) and has the indignity of his (even) smaller co-star standing on a box. He doesn't even get many actual words. And yet still he shines, outclassing all the more famous actors and actresses here.

Negatives - Nobody talks about it with so many other higher profile mistakes going on but creepy comedy morgue attendant Pete is my candidate for the single word, or at least unfunniest, Dr Who character ever. I can kind of see why things went wrong with every other aspect of this episode, made it was a by a whole new production team, but how did this part go so very wrong?