User:DaveJB/History of Doctor Who 1990-2004

This is a history of the Science Fiction TV show Doctor Who between the years 1990 and 2004. While the show was not in production during this era (save for a 30th anniversary special named Dimensions in Time which re-united all the surviving Doctors), Paul McGann starred in an American produced TV movie, also called Doctor Who.

The television movie

Although in-house production had ceased, the BBC were hopeful of finding an independent production company to re-launch the show and had been approached for such a venture by Philip Segal, a British expatriate who worked for Columbia Pictures' television arm in the United States.

Segal's negotiations dragged on for several years, and followed him from Columbia to Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment company and finally to Universal Studios' television arm. At Amblin, Segal had come close to interesting the CBS network in commissioning the series as a mid-season replacement show in 1994, but this eventually came to nothing. Finally, at Universal, Segal managed to interest the Fox Network in the programme, in the form of their Vice-President in charge of Television Movie production, Trevor Walton, an Englishman who was already familiar with the series. Although Walton had no power to commission a series, he was able to commission a one-off television movie that, if successful, could possibly act as a 'back-door' pilot for a series revival. The movie that was eventually made was simply titled Doctor Who. To distinguish it from the television series, Segal later suggested the alternate title Doctor Who (Enemy Within). Opinions on how to refer to the television movie differ among fans, but the most common usage is to just call it the "television movie" or abbreviate it as "the TVM".

The original plan was for a completely new American version of Doctor Who, in the same way that Sanford and Son was an unrelated re-make of Steptoe and Son and All in the Family had re-made Till Death Us Do Part. However, when new scriptwriter Matthew Jacobs came on board in 1995 - at Walton's persuasion, feeling that a simpler story was needed than the intricate back-stories Segal had created with writer John Leekley - he persuaded Segal that the movie should instead be a direct continuation of the BBC series, something no American production had ever attempted before when buying the rights to a British programme.

Segal agreed, and Sylvester McCoy appeared briefly at the beginning of the film, before "regenerating" into the Eighth Doctor as played by Paul McGann. McGann had been Segal's first choice for the part, although both the actor himself and the Fox Network had not initially been keen. Segal later claimed that the BBC's Executive Producer on the project, Jo Wright, had wanted the role of the "previous Doctor" to be played by Tom Baker, as it was felt he was regarded as the definitive Doctor by the British public and McCoy's tenure had not been as popular, but she backed down when Segal explained how this went against the continuity of the programme. Segal also had to fight to retain the familiar Doctor Who theme; composer John Debney wanted to write a new piece, but was convinced to create a rearrangement of Ron Grainer's composition, although Grainer did not receive screen credit for his work. A further tie to the BBC series was the use of the logo used from 1970 to 1973 during the Jon Pertwee era. This logo subsequently became the official franchise logo until it was replaced in 2004 (although it still appears on all merchandise featuring any of the previous Doctors).

Transmitted on the Fox Network on May 14 1996 and on BBC One thirteen days later — although actually having debuted on City TV in Vancouver, Canada, where the film had been shot, on May 12 — the production drew only 5.5 million viewers in the United States, although it was far more successful in the UK with 9 million viewers, one of the top-ten programmes of the week.

McGann's Doctor was a combination of boyish glee and wonder at the universe with occasional flashes of an old soul in a young body, and was well received by fans, even if the reactions to the television movie were mixed. However, in spite of the success and popularity of the film in the UK, the disappointing US viewing figures led Fox to decline to commission a series. With no broadcast network attached in the United States, Universal could not produce a series for the BBC alone. Indeed, it would have been cheaper for the BBC to make a new series themselves rather than pay for a series with no production partner. Thus plans for a new series were scrapped, with no new production looking likely as the decade came to an end.

Back to the BBC

Following the 1996 telemovie, Universal retained some rights to produce new Doctor Who stories, but without a broadcaster attached, they allowed those rights to expire. Full production rights therefore returned to the BBC in 1997.

Little happened at the BBC regarding new Doctor Who production until the following year, when producer Mal Young arrived at the Corporation's in-house production arm as Head of Continuing Drama Series. Young was keen on reviving the programme, and this interest was shared by the then-current Controller of BBC One, Peter Salmon. Tony Wood, a producer in Young's department, who previously worked at Granada Television, recalled his former colleague Russell T. Davies' enthusiasm for the programme and recommended him to Young as someone who might make a good writer of a new version. Davies had recently written for the popular Granada dramas The Grand and Touching Evil for the ITV network, and earlier in the decade had worked for the BBC, writing the well-received children's science-fiction serials Dark Season and Century Falls.

A meeting was arranged between Davies and Mal Young's development producer, Patrick Spence. In 1999, the media took hold of the story, following the success and critical acclaim surrounding Davies' Channel 4 drama Queer as Folk. Although various sources claimed that a provisional title of Doctor Who 2000 had been given to the proposed new series, in reality very little work had been done, as Peter Salmon had been informed by BBC Worldwide that a new series would upset the tentative plans they were making for a new film version of the series. Thus, plans for the television revival were shelved for the time, and seemed to become even less likely in 2000 when Salmon was replaced as Controller of BBC One.

The fortieth anniversary

However, Salmon's successor, Lorraine Heggessey, proved to be equally enthusiastic about the idea of new Doctor Who, often commenting to the press that she would like to pursue the idea but that "rights difficulties" — presumably BBC Worldwide's film negotiations — prevented it. Equally positive comments were made by the Corporation's overall Head of Drama Jane Tranter. Heggessey had received several new series proposals since she had taken over control of BBC One, the highest-profile being from producer Dan Freedman — who had produced a full-cast, official, audio Doctor Who story, entitled Death Comes to Time, for the BBCi website in 2001. Another came from actor/writer Mark Gatiss, who in 2002 drew up and submitted a proposal in collaboration with writer Gareth Roberts and Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman.

In the meantime, BBCi, the interactive media arm of the corporation, who had scored successes with their Doctor Who webcasts (beginning with the aforementioned Death Comes to Time, which was followed by Real Time in 2002 and a re-make of the uncompleted Shada in 2003) decided on a more ambitious project to celebrate the programme's upcoming 40th anniversary. In July 2003, BBCi announced the production of Scream of the Shalka, a fully animated adventure adapted for webcasting with Richard E. Grant as the Doctor and Sir Derek Jacobi as the Master. As there were no concrete plans for producing a new series, BBCi announced Shalka as the "official" continuation of the programme, and that Grant was the "official" Ninth Doctor. However, events were soon to overtake that.