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Doctor Who
Doctor Who - The Movie / Doctor Who - Enemy Within
USA / UK 1996
produced by Peter V. Ware, Alex Beaton (executive), Philip David Segal (executive), Jo Wright (executive) for BBC, Universal, 20th Century Fox
directed by Geoffrey Sax
starring Paul McGann, Eric Roberts, Daphne Ashbrook, Sylvester McCoy, Yee Jee Tso, John Novak, Michael David Simms, Catherine Lough Haggquist, Dolores Drake, Will Sasso, Jeremy Radick, Eliza Roberts, Bill Croft, David Hurtubise, Joel Wirkkunen, Dee Jay Jackson, Gordon Tipple, Mi-Jung Lee, Joanna Piros, Michael Roberds, Geoffrey Sax (voice)
written by Matthew Jacobs, music by John Debney
TV pilot Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Paul McGann), Doctor Who (Sylvester McCoy) (cameo), The Master
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The Master has been killed for good, and in his last will he has asked
Doctor Who (Sylvester McCoy) to take his remains to his home planet
Gallifrey - which the Doctor agrees to, however surprised he might be. But
of course, the Master isn't really dead but has turned into some kind of
slime that soon enough takes over the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS,
and lands it in San Francisco 1999. When the Doctor steps out, he's
immediately fatally shot by some thugs. He's brought to the hospital where
surgeon Grace (Daphne Ashbrook) pretty much immediately pronounces him
dead - even though she is intrigued by his two hearts she can make heads
or tails of. On the way to the hospital, the slime that was once the
Master takes over the body of paramedic Bruce (Eric Roberts) to become the
new Master - but there's a problem, this new body isn't permanent, but the
"Eye of Harmony" that's conveniently carried by the Doctor's
TARDIS, can somehow transfer his mind into another Timelord's body, a
Timelord like the Doctor. The Doctor of course isn't really really dead
but has since regenerated (into Paul McGann) and now he's desparate to get
back to the TARDIS - to see that the Master has left the Eye of Harmony
open and now the TARDIS has run out of power, so he needs some nuclear
thingy to refuel it, a nuclear thingy like the one in the superprecise
nuclear clock that's to be revealed at New Year 2000 in a big ceremony
Grace, whom the Doctor has since enlisted as his companion, conveniently
has tickets to. And he needs the nuclear thingy also because should the
Master succeed in doing his body swap, it will pull the earth through a
black hole. So of course, there are many chases, fights and all that, but
ultimately the Doctor can push the Master into the Eye of Harmony, then
close it, can jumpstart his TARDIS with the nuclear thingy, and New Year's
Eve - and the world - is saved ... Before Doctor Who
was revived to great success in 2005 and has since gone (mostly) from
strength to strength, fandom was overly excited about this attempt to
revive the series laying dormant since 1989 as a British-American
co-production - but this proposed pilot basically hit all the wrong notes:
For one, the concept was terribly Americanized, to the point where a
generic car chase is employed as a plot device, a customary love story is
woven into the plot, and all the quirkiness that made the original series
is gone, replaced by a really far-fetched sci-fi story that relies on too
much coincidence and relies on too many new concepts that make little
sense in the context of the series. On the plus side, at least Paul McGann
makes a good Doctor while Eric Roberts as a villain is a joy to watch as
always, but that's just not enough, and the typical TV-movie look of this
one also did little to attract broader attention.
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