The 8th Doctor

Well it's finally happening. I'm bring Doctor Who into this blog.

Doctor Who is, without a doubt, one of my favorite TV shows going today. I only started seriously watching it a year ago, but I have been sucked in. And I've seen it happen to so many people the same way it happened to me. This is a perfect example.

For those who haven't watched the show, Doctor Who is a story of a man who is a Time traveler. He travels around the universe in a blue police box called the TARDIS helping people. When he dies he regenerates into a new physical body. This is how the show continues on. That is the best way I can describe it although others could probably do a better job than me.

In about 3 days, the show will have its 50th Anniversary episode. It's been built up as the biggest thing ever on the BBC and if you're a fan of the show like me, you are probably freaking the hell out cause its going to be incredible.

The writers and makers of the show have had a lot of fun leading up to this big event. The ending of

the 7th season was a huge cliff hanger, with John Hurt turning around and introducing himself as "The Doctor." People were freaking out, wondering how he could be the Doctor since they've already announced that Peter Capaldi is going to be the 12th Doctor. It was later revealed that John Hurt is an earlier reincarnation of the Doctor.

And then that made people angry because it messed up the continuation between the old series, ending with Paul McGann and the new series that started with Christopher Eccelston. (Disclaimer: The first part of this post probably won't make sense to you if you're not caught up with the show)

But then there was a mini episode released that surprised everyone by bringing back Paul McGann who played the 8th Doctor in a 1996 TV movie.

And that's the reason I wrote this post.

I love this mini episode, not only because it helps explain the timeline but it gives Paul McGann a chance to be the Doctor again. Something we really didn't get to see that much of besides the movie. Unless you follow the audio adventures the BBC released of the 8th Doctor's adventure, which I did not, you only have the movie to go off of.

Until tonight, I had always wanted to see the movie but never got the chance. Well I finally got around to it and here's my thoughts.

As a Doctor Who Fan, I really enjoyed this movie. It wasn't the fast paced Doctor Who adventure I was used to but I still enjoyed it. In my opinion, its a good bridge for the fans of the 2005 show to the old series. I've always wanted to watch the old series but with incomplete seasons, outdated special effects, it just wasn't a priority.

I think this movie is such a segway, looking back in time to see where the Doctor of Eccelston, Tennant, and Smith came from.

As a film critic... ehhhh....

This movie is strange. Its not quite sure what it wants to be. A film for the fans or a film to reach a new audience. Doctor Who has a long mythology, in jokes, characters, objects, plot points that only the fans would get. In a sense, it would make sense to make this movie just for the fans. Get straight into the action and not worry about explaining what a Timelord is, or why they have two hearts, or what the TARDIS is.

I could overlook the plot holes and unexplained background because I knew the answer to all the questions that would be going on in people's heads. But if I'm watching this movie for the first time, I would absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

The movie starts with the Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy, bringing the remains of the Master, a rival Timelord back home. It's stated the Master had used all 13 lives and was now executed and put to rest back at Galifrey.

However, the TARDIS stops... for some reason, it may have had to do with the Master's soul escaping from the lock box it was in, but that's not very clear.

The Doctor is shot in a gang war... I'm not kidding. And is rushed to the hospital. At that point he regenerates into the 9th incarnation played by Paul McGann. All the while, the Master possesses the body of the gangster boss from The Dark Knight. He then works out an evil plan to steal the Doctor's remaining lives and continue being bad. Meanwhile, the Doctor has temporary amnesia... never explained why... I can only guess it was a plot device used to help the audience understand who he was... I guess. (again another confusing plot point that makes me wonder who the audience of this movie was) And is hanging out with the doctor who did his surgery right before he "died" named Grace.

The two team up to return to fix the TARDIS, and stop the Master's evil plan.

Now that seems like a simple plot... but its not... at all.

Let's start with McGann as the Doctor.

I have to give him some slack. McGann had big shoes to fill. The Doctor had been played by 7 individuals before him who had seasons to develop their character. McGann had to do it in 89 Minutes.

Also, the Doctor has always been a quirky but beyond intelligent individual. As a impartial viewer, McGann comes off as a crazy person for most of the movie. There are a couple moments where he is quite clever but they're very few and far between because the first half of the movie he has amnesia and the other half he's just running and screaming.

He tries to pull off that quirkiness of the Doctor, being an alien in a world that is unfamiliar to him, but he just kind of comes off as a crazy person. Also this was McGann when he was younger. He had this

very high pitched voice that made it hard for me to take him serious.

The newer series has had actors who are very young play the Doctor. This is known to all the fans but the Doctor is close to 900 years old. He's ancient, and has seen so many things. These things have made him very very wise and intelligent beyond how young he looks.

If you watch the new series, David Tennant and Matt Smith are phenomenal at playing a character of that age but still give him a spry feeling because he is in a younger body. At the same they portray this depth of maturity in their performance. It's these moments when Matt Smith, the youngest of all the incarnations, acts as though he has lived for hundreds and hundreds of year. He knows how the universe works and he is wise despite how young he looks.

McGann unfortunately had never had a predecessor as young as he was. Peter Davidson was pretty young but I couldn't tell you how much research McGann did for the part, especially since it was only 89 minutes.

It's just unfortunate watching this movie, because the fact of the matter is that the Doctor in this movie is

not the same as the one we see in the mini episode.

This Doctor is charismatic and almost whimsical. I'm glad he got a chance to bring back this character, even though for only a 7 minute mini episode.

If you've seen the mini episode but haven't seen the movie... keep it that way. I like Night of the Doctor 8th Doctor a lot better.

The rest of the cast of the movie is pretty bland. Eric Roberts as the Master was a weird choice. At the beginning they set him up as a Terminator looking guy. For the 90's, I'm sure it looked awesome.

But then they put him in this... and it just kinda ruined it for me.

And the Asian guy he tricks into helping him, dumber than a pile of rocks. I blame the writing on this one because that character was quite the dumb ass.

It's unfortunate. The series was already on hiatus and the movie was more of an attempt to give fans some more adventures, even though they weren't doing the show anymore. Unfortunately, the movie just falls flat. The main threat, the Master and the Eye of Harmony, are somewhat unclearly explained, and the time traveling, as little of it as there is, is also not explained well and is confusing. Time travel is a hard story to tell and if its not done right, people get confused. They probably wanted to do more but given the circumstances, it was probably impossible. This was the best they could do and they didn't have Russell Davies, and Steven Moffat yet.

It was good to have the context now of the 8th Doctor. I probably would never watch this film again, but I'm glad I did. If you're a fan of Doctor Who and haven't seen it yet, give it a watch to complete your viewing experience. If you're not a Doctor Who fan, you can skip this one. Chances are you'll be confused and I wouldn't consider it a good way to get into the series. I started with the first episode of the 2005 show. The Christopher Eccelston episodes, although sometimes slow, really put the viewer in the mindset and he prepares the way for David Tennant perfectly... and that's when the show starts to get really good.

I'm sad that the first post on Doctor Who I did on this blog was kind of a sour one but I have to look at it from a movie viewer perspective.

I may do more Doctor Who posts if more material comes up. What do you think? Is that something you'd like to see? Its dangerous waters because saying one bad thing about Doctor Who to the wrong person is a dangerous road but I think I'm willing to risk it.

So have you seen the 1996 Doctor Who movie? If you watch Doctor Who, tell me why you started watching it. And if you don't watch it, tell me why you don't.

I'll leave you with a fun video I saw a while ago.