Why the TV Movie DOESN'T Suck
Many people in the Doctor Who fandom at large rail against the TV movie (even if they haven't seen it), because of the great stigma it carries. It was the failed pilot episode, the abortive attempt to restart the dead juggernaut that the Doctor Who franchise had become as of 1989. And I admit, there are quite a few problems with the TV movie...yet, there are some pretty big positives about it too:
Bridging Classic & New
The TV movie, in its tone, recaptured much of the high-flying sci-fi feel of Classic Who, being character-driven as well as quirky and a bit esoteric in places. Yet it also paved the way for darker conflicts and more action/adventure scenes, all of which most Whovians associate with New Who. In this way, we find in the movie an effective bridge between the two distinct eras of the show--which we can only see with our 20/20 hindsight vision, since the movie certainly wasn't viewed this way at the time. In fact, many of the features that are now heralded as strokes of genius in the New Who series, such as the special effects, expensive sets, and romance between the Doctor and a companion, actually began in the TV movie, and were reviled by Classic Whovians! (What a difference a couple decades make, huh?)
The "Doctoriest of Doctors"
The Eighth Doctor actually hearkens back to all seven previous Doctors! Paul McGann's performance blends the following elements into a beautiful new whole:
- First Doctor's clothing sensibility & stubbornness
- Second Doctor's musicality & eccentricity
- Third Doctor's pragmatism & scientific knowledge
- Fourth Doctor's jelly babies & grandiosity
- Fifth Doctor's nobility & heroism
- Sixth Doctor's sass & temperamental genius
- Seventh Doctor's wit & cunning
I marvel at how McGann played all these disparate shades of the Doctor's character, focusing them all into one intense point of light like a reverse prism. It is truly a mark of his acting talent that we are able to see all of the Doctor's previous lives in him, just in this one outing; his performance hits ALL the high notes and we get a great overview of Eight's character. Indeed, in hindsight, there is even a bit of foreshadowing for the Eighth Doctor's development over time (pun intended). As one of my online buddies once said, "Eight is the Doctoriest of Doctors!"
Beautiful Set Design Aesthetics and Special Effects
The sets, most especially the TARDIS set, are stunning, and so are the special effects. As Sylvester McCoy would note years later, the set design and special effects styling proved what Doctor Who could look like with "a little money behind it," since the Classic series had often been filmed as cheaply as humanly possible. (This is why the early Daleks look like rolling trash cans equipped with kitchen utensil weapons--they, uh, kind of were, LOL!)
The design choices made for the TV movie, thus, most certainly laid the groundwork for the tone of Doctor Who upon its rebirth in 2005. The show's budget was more pointed toward special effects and set design than ever before, and the show's popularity took off as a result.
McGann + Ashbrook = Onscreen Magic
One thing I absolutely adore about the TV movie are the scenes between Dr. Grace Holloway and the Eighth Doctor. In part this is because...well, ok, Paul McGann is one of the finest-looking men I have ever seen and his Doctor is my fav forever and ever, but I also really love the way Daphne Ashbrook portrays Grace. Grace is smart, canny, scientific, and yet sensitive enough to love the opera too; she is a multifaceted female human being, not a stereotypical "Strong Female Character." Quite frankly, she's River Song before River Song (and she's a better, less Mary-Sue version too, I might add).
In the scenes with Grace and Eight together, Ashbrook often reflects McGann's sheer acting brilliance like a mirror reflecting light back toward a diamond, creating this wonderful repartee that is by turns utterly trusting and utterly sass-filled. (He also returns the favor, allowing her characterization of Grace to shine as well!) Together, they draw in the audience to learn more about the Doctor and to care about Grace as a possible future companion.
Speaking of which...
Helpful Companions We Actually Care About
Within the context of the TV movie, it's pretty easy to care not only about the Doctor, but his companions too; Grace and Lee both have fairly well-established backgrounds (given the relative short time frame they're allotted in the film). Time is taken to tell their individual stories as subplots, and to show why they react the way they do to the Doctor's presence. Admittedly, Lee gets less build-up than Grace, since the latter spends quite a bit more time with the Doctor and the former does not, but still, they are much better established than one might expect in a movie that is trying to do so much. Both characters feel like people we'd love to see traveling in the TARDIS again!
Additionally, Grace and Lee are both "audience characters" (as my wise boyfriend put it); their questions and curiosity about the Doctor's identity/technology/origins actually help introduce us viewers pretty gracefully to Doctor Who as a series. Though all the background and info they provided may have seemed superfluous to current Whovians at the time, I can say definitively that the TV movie was the ONLY thing that actually explained enough about the Doctor and his history to make me interested in the rest of the show. Not even the first episode ("An Unearthly Child") did that for me!
Proving the Doctor Doesn't Need Anything to Survive
During the course of the movie, we see the Doctor literally come up from having absolutely NOTHING, not even clothes or a knowledge of who he is, to getting all his stuff back and reclaiming not only his identity, but his regenerations and continued life. This proves that even when he is without his TARDIS, Sonic Screwdriver, and even fully helpful companions, the Doctor is still capable of survival. I absolutely LOVE this touch; though he's a character often associated with technology, he can still function without its aid.