Who Review: The Movie

While transporting the remains of his recently-executed arch enemy, the Master, back to Gallifrey, the Doctor’s TARDIS runs into trouble. A temporal fault causes it to malfunction and materialize on Earth–San Francisco to be precise. Not one to hold tightly onto death, the Master’s life force oozes from the small chest in which it is held, and makes its way out of the TARDIS. Meanwhile, the Doctor steps outside, and is shot by a local gang, who then make a hasty departure. Thankfully, he is rescued by Chang Lee, a rival gang member, and the intended victim of the bullets. The Doctor is rushed to hospital, but dies on the operating table. While the Doctor regenerates, the Master finds a temporary new body for himself, and sets about his plan to capture the Doctor and steal his remaining regenerations. Doing this will involve opening the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS, which will have devastating consequences for planet Earth. As the clock counts down to midnight, and the dawn of a new millennium, the Doctor must repair the TARDIS, and stop the Master from opening the Eye of Harmony before it’s too late…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

During Doctor Who’s sixteen-year “wilderness” period, between the show’s unofficial axing in 1989, and its glorious resurrection in 2005, the 1996 movie was a brief but refreshing oasis. While it isn’t all it could be, and definitely cringeworthy in places, the Movie rekindled passion for the show, and demonstrated that despite falling on hard times, there was still a vibrant, willing, and forgiving audience out there for Doctor Who. Indeed, audience figures in the UK were good enough that it could have launched a new series. However, as a co-production with Fox in the US, it needed good American figures too, and it was scheduled against the last ever episode of hit sit-com, “Rosanne.” This detracted significantly from the audience of potential American Who viewers. Fox didn’t pick up the option, and all plans for a series went out the window. For now. But we still have the movie!

Let’s get my main gripes about The Movie out of the way first. Probably my number one gripe is that it’s as if someone made a list of all the tropes and icons in Doctor Who, and scattered them throughout the script simply as candy for the Whovians. So we have the TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver, the Master, the Daleks, Skaro, H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, “two hearts,” Gallifrey, the Seventh Doctor, regeneration, the Time Lords, a long multi-colored scarf, jelly babies, the Eye of Harmony, time travel, time, the Doctor knowing long-dead celebrities (e.g., Puccini and Freud), and probably others I don’t recall, or I missed. What this did was make it a movie for fans, not for those new to Doctor Who. It assumes too much of the audience. And even though you could follow the plot without knowing about any of these things, I imagine it would be hard not to feel as if you’re missing something important if you don’t get the references.

And some of the references don’t make any sense. Why on Earth would the Time Lords permit the Master to be executed by the Daleks on Skaro? Why would the Daleks even cooperate? Last I heard, the Dalek judicial system consisted of “Exterminate” and you’re dead. There’s no “standing trial” on Skaro. No Dalek barristers with funny wigs. It’s all utter nonsense. And why is the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS? According to Who-lore, the Eye of Harmony is the nucleus of a black hole that resides under the citadel on Gallifrey (the Time Lords’ home planet), providing them with an infinite power source which they use for time travel. Well, now it seems the Eye of Harmony is a ball with eye lids that resides in the TARDIS cloister room giving power to the TARDIS! To be fair, the Eleventh Doctor story, “Journey to the Center of the TARDIS,” also had the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS. However, a) this was after the destruction of Gallifrey, so it made sense for it to be elsewhere, and b) it was in a room of infinite size and described as an exploding star permanently in the process of becoming a black hole. Also, in the New Series, you can only be in the presence of the Eye of Harmony for a few minutes before you fry. Not so in the Movie! Indeed, a human staring into the Eye of Harmony opens it up. Puhrleeez.

But perhaps the most controversial notion introduced by the Movie is the Doctor being half-human, “on my mother’s side.” This is mentioned first by the Master, and then by the Doctor as a “secret” he wants to tell an official at the museum. Fans have reacted to this in three ways: 1) full embrace of the idea; 2) complete rejection of the idea (usually goes along with considering the Movie as non-canonical and a waste of time); 3) explanations to get around it. I think the idea of the Doctor being half-human was a plot device for the Movie, and doesn’t really make sense in the context of the series. The Doctor is an alien, and has given a number of reasons for his penchant for humans, none of which have ever made reference to the Doctor being related to homo sapiens by blood. Indeed, his frequent exasperation at the folly of humanity would belie such a relationship. I don’t want to completely write the Movie off, though, so I explain it away by saying it was misinformation, or an exaggeration, on the part of the Master, and a lie from the Doctor to surprise the official so he didn’t notice the Doctor stealing his badge.

What does the Movie get right? In my opinion, the biggest win for the Movie is Paul McGann as the Doctor. Even those who despise the Movie can’t get away from the fact that McGann is a brilliant Doctor, and the success of his audio adventures (see Big Finish) has only demonstrated the truth of this. It’s a shame he never got a TV series. Who knows… maybe one day.

There are some other good points about the Movie. The supporting cast do well, though the obvious attempt to make Grace into a “love interest” for the Doctor falls flat. This was the first time we had seen the Doctor kiss anyone, and it’s something the New Series hasn’t shied away from. However, in the New Series, the kisses are not meant to be romantic. There may be a level of affection, but the Doctor’s companions are not supposed to be his “love interest.” It seems to me that the smoldering romance and the car chase were included to draw the non-Whovians. If I’m right, that’s disappointing. Surely you want to get non-Whovians into the show, not patronize them with hackneyed devices to keep their interest a few minutes longer? The long car chase was well executed, but a bit much for Who. I thought the Master taking over Grace was a nice twist, as well as the fact that both Grace and Chang are killed near the end. That the Eye of Harmony spits out “regeneration dust”(?) to revive them is a little lame. (I wonder if Russell T. Davies was inspired by this for his Doctor regenerations, and/or for the stuff that Rose imbibes from the TARDIS console in “Parting of the Ways”?)

Since this Movie is the only time we get to see the Eighth Doctor in a full-length story, it’s “Must-See” viewing almost by default. For the casual viewer, it’s an entertaining eighty minutes. For the Whovian, if you can overlook the flaws, it’s not a complete waste of time. The Movie could have been so much more, but in hindsight, it was an important stepping stone for what was to come.