Hello!
In the TV movie, the Seventh Doctor dies fairly early on - he steps out of the TARDIS and into a gang-fight in San Francisco and gets gunned down. So as with Time and the Rani, the story is mostly given over to the Eighth Doctor's adjustment period. The TV movie features the Master as the primary antagonist.
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| He was in a morgue at that point |
The TV movie was an American production, made in 1996; it was intended to be the pilot episode for a new series. The new series didn't materialise, sadly. It starts with a voice-over from the Eighth Doctor, narrating how the Master was put on trial and executed by the Daleks. Why the Daleks were in charge of that is never revealed; in any case, the Master's final request was to be taken home to Gallifrey by the Doctor. The other important characters are Grace Holloway, a cardiac surgeon who willingly assists the Doctor, and Chang Lee, a young gangster who's deceived by the Master into believing that the Doctor is evil.
En-route to Gallifrey, the Master causes the TARDIS to crash-land in the middle of a gang war in San Francisco, Earth, December 1999. The Doctor steps out of the TARDIS...and gets shot down. A youth, called Chang Lee, calls 911 (America) and the Doctor is quickly taken to a hospital, where they operate on him. The Master, in the form of a gooey snake, hitches a ride with him in the ambulance and hides in an ambulance-driver's jacket sleeve. The operation on the Doctor goes awry when they mistake his double heartbeat for dangerous fibrillation and he eventually passes away (though not permanently!) The Doctor and the Master both revive at the same time; the Master possesses the ambulance-driver, called Bruce, while the Doctor regenerates. The next day, he meets up with Grace, who operated on him, and together they prove that he is who he says he is, despite his different appearance. That evening, the Master, breaking into the Doctor's TARDIS, opens the Eye of Harmony. He uses it to spy on the Doctor...also, he learns that the Doctor's apparently half-human. The Eye of Harmony is the TARDIS' power source - a star in the process of going supernova. The Doctor immediately freaks out upon realising what the Master's done, declaring that the planet will implode if the Eye isn't closed soon. Which makes sense, given the TARDIS' power source is a black hole.
Convincing Grace of the direness of the situation, the Doctor and Grace hitch a ride to the Institute of Technology and Research, where they have an atomic clock; an atomic clock is the only thing the Doctor can use to close the Eye. Once they have the clock, they head for the TARDIS, with the Master and Chang in hot pursuit. Grace falls under the Master's control and knocks the Doctor out; when he comes to, the Master is preparing for the final stages of a ritual to steal the Doctor's remaining lives. The ritual involves the Eye being opened, which requires a human eye. Chang, at the last minute, realises the Master was lying; the Master then kills him, un-possesses Grace and forces her to open the Eye. She immediately runs back to the console room and takes the TARDIS into temporal orbit, cancelling the ritual and freeing the Doctor. The Doctor and the Master tussle over the still-open Eye, culminating in the Master getting dragged in and Grace getting killed. The Eye revives both Grace and Chang, then closes at last. The Doctor drops them off on the 1st of January, 2000 and bids them farewell.
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| The Doctor here looks like Bilbo Baggins |
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| And here he looks like Peregrin Took! Ish. |
Overall, I think the TV movie is pretty good. There are copious amounts of cheese, courtesy of the Master, but I like cheese. The Eighth Doctor is compelling and fun - like Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann does an excellent job of creating a likable, interesting Doctor. The plot is reasonably easy to follow, provided you have knowledge of Classic-era concepts. However, one definite problem with the movie is the fact that there is little explanation for these concepts. I've watched it twice, once with my dad; I remember he was slightly confused by some of the things that happened in the movie. It's a problem because it confuses casual viewers. That's a bad idea when you're trying to pitch a revival; indeed, that's probably why Series 1 of the revival succeeded. The first episode featured a villain which was last seen in the 1970s, for all of two serials; the next four episodes featured new antagonists, and it wasn't until half-way through Series 1 that an old enemy returned.
The movie, meanwhile, can't really decide whether it's for newcomers or for fans. As previously discussed, it references Classic era elements such as regeneration without properly explaining them, which would lead to confusion for newcomers. At the same time, they introduce new elements, such as the Doctor being half-human, or the Daleks, of all people, being symbols of justice and order, which would displease long-time fans, due to the clash with prior material. For example, Skaro, the Dalek home world, got destroyed - it has no business being a base of operations for the Daleks. Another big one is the Doctor being half-human, and the Master's lack of knowledge of this little fact. They grew up together - he ought to know! Another element of this is a scene where the Master mocks the Doctor's English accent while eavesdropping on him using the Eye of Harmony. This is despite spending the entire Classic Era using that same accent - there's no real reason for the Master to mock the Doctor for something the Master also did, especially as the Doctor isn't present for that scene.
However, one thing that is good is the cinematography; one of the best scenes is when the Doctor and the Master revive, with the action cutting between the Doctor and the Master. It's also got interesting undertones; the Doctor revives due to a benevolent, natural process which kicks in automatically for his species, while the Master's revival is unnatural and twisted, forcibly stripping life and free will from another living being. Continuing this idea, the two Time Lords' adjustment periods are juxtaposed as well - the Doctor collapses in a semi-well-lit but abandoned room, in the grip of an existential crisis. When selecting his outfit, he takes a cowboy costume from a locker, but pointedly rejects the bandolier with the outfit; this highlights that the new Doctor is someone who will not commit violence. The Master, meanwhile, is calm and confident, self-assured, adjusting in a far neater environment; his character-defining moment, however, comes when he throttles an innocent woman, his host body's wife, just for the sake of convenience. Furthermore, this contrast is emphasised by their companions - both Time Lords have a human companion for the duration of the movie. The Doctor's companion is an adult woman, working in a professional, highly-qualified field as a cardiac surgeon; after initial doubts, she willingly allies with the Doctor. The Master's companion, meanwhile, is a teenage boy, presumably unemployed and part of a gang. The Master forces Chang to work with him by tricking him, and as soon as Chang realises the truth, he outright refuses to work with the Master, who simply murders him in response. The Doctor ends the movie on good terms with both Chang and Grace, while the Master is rejected by Chang and later killed through the combined efforts of the Doctor and Grace. It highlights the contrast between the Doctor and the Master; the Doctor's allies work with him out of loyalty, while the Master's allies are coerced into allying with him. This in turn emphasises the fact that the Doctor respects peoples' free will, while the Master has no such respect, demanding total obedience and desiring total mastery over all living things.
In any case, I would rank it 5/10 - it's a fun watch, though it's not on the level of the likes of Castrovalva.
Random observations
-By the end of the movie, the Doctor's crossed into the Revival era - only five more years until the start of Series 1.
-I think the half-human thing might be a glimpse into the future - the metacrisis during the Tenth Doctor's time, where the Doctor was, in fact, half-human.
-It's horrifying and darkly amusing that the Master calls Chang "the son I never had", then breaks his neck when he won't obey him.
-There are two botched resurrections in the movie - the Doctor's delayed regeneration, and the failure to revive the show.
-While the Eighth Doctor only suffered one serious negative post-regeneration effect, he did experience several positive/neutral effects, such as the ability to read fates. Pretty interesting.
-There were plans to reboot the show with the Eighth Doctor as the first, not Eighth, and the Cybermen as 'Cybz' - maybe it's a good thing the movie didn't succeed as a pilot...
-The new theme and credits are definitely cool, and look and sound very like the New Series themes. Added to that, the new Time Vortex looks similar to the Series 1-4 Time Vortex.
-Regeneration count - died during a surgery due to complications (Seventh Doctor to Eighth Doctor). 5 out of 12 regenerations left.
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