Night of the Doctor: 1996

What if, instead of doing a co-produced TV movie with Fox, the BBC just decided to make a new series of Doctor Who in 1996?

They still go with the handover from Sylvester McCoy to Paul McGann but it's in the first episode of a thirteen week series with each episode lasting 45 minutes as in the new series.

Given that this would be a more traditionally British version of the show than the movie how would things like monsters and companions go, and how long would McGann stay in the role and who would replace him when he left?

Landshark said:

What if, instead of doing a co-produced TV movie with Fox, the BBC just decided to make a new series of Doctor Who in 1996?

They still go with the handover from Sylvester McCoy to Paul McGann but it's in the first episode of a thirteen week series with each episode lasting 45 minutes as in the new series.

Given that this would be a more traditionally British version of the show than the movie how would things like monsters and companions go, and how long would McGann stay in the role and who would replace him when he left?

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Martin Clunes?

I'm not sure. I believe Paul would be around till 2000, then replaced by someone else till 2004, when Christopher would have started 2 years earlier.

MatthewFirth said:

I'm not sure. I believe Paul would be around till 2000, then replaced by someone else till 2004, when Christopher would have started 2 years earlier.

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Eccleston, Tennant, and Smith might be butterflied away, in DW terms at least.

MatthewFirth said:

I'm not sure. I believe Paul would be around till 2000, then replaced by someone else till 2004, when Christopher would have started 2 years earlier.

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Christopher as in Christopher Eccleston?

EDIT: Damn samurai...

Well, Richard E Grant did "Scream of the Shalka" so maybe he replaces McGann?

Perhaps Joanna Lumley would be a sort of guest companion

There's always talk of bringing people back (like how Sarah Jane Smith eventually did) so maybe Louise Jameson's Leela gets a guest few stories? Apparently in the Baker-to-Davison handover it was mooted she would be brought back, but they asked for too many stories/too long a commitment

Fraser Hines left Emmerdale in 1994 so maybe he could get some guest stories too

Maybe Keira Knightley could play a younger-than-she-really-is girl companion?

One of the stories that never happened from Colin Baker's lost year was going to be a new Celestian Toymaker one. Michael Gough is still around (tho he is getting on a bit!)

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

The BBC did a radio series with Paul McGann as the Doctor.
However this reboot means No Time War and no being the Last Time Lord alot of the raison detre of the Russell T Davis reboot has gone. Not that this version would be less successful. After all it took 5 years to kill it in the eighties with naff casting and even worse stories. I just wish that the Sylvester McCoy version had been given a run at Saturday teatime. Once they got that "Bertie Bassett" story done the rest were more than half decent and some really good(The curse of Fenric for one).
As to who would succeed Paul McGann in about 2000
Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Lawrie, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Pryce, Jack Davenport, Stephen Tompkinson?
But the next one in 2003 or 2004 George Irving(Dr Mayer in Casualty) would be a shoo in. Then quite possibly still David Tennant in 2006/7 and Matt Smith in 2010. Thus allowing Christopher Eccleston not to have to quit to avoid being typecast.

captain pugwash said:

Martin Clunes?

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Yes. This. I think Clunes would be an astounding candidate in a world where Who continued - if he auditioned like he plays Doc Martin he'd be a shoo-in if the showrunner knew what they were doing. I think he'd be like Colin Baker done right.

I was thinking more of the comedy Martin Clunes of Men behaving Badly not the grumpy one of Doc Martin which is why he wasn't in my list. The latter one would be a good Doctor!

Almost as soon as I posted this I realised who the perfect candidate to succeed McGann would be.

Peter Capaldi.

He's a Doctor Who fan so he'd be up for it, same thing with David Tennant.

So 8th Doctor from 1996 till 2001 would be Paul McGann, 9th Doctor from 2001 till 2006 would be Peter Capaldi and 10th Doctor from 2006 till 2011 would be David Tennant. Though as I write this the idea of Sean Pertwee being the Doctor suddenly appears and demands attention.

As for companions I think we'd see an ethnic companion during McGann years, possibly Sophie Okonedo who appeared in Scream of the Shalka.

If they weren't so enmeshed with Picard/Xavier and Gandalf/Magneto I would have loved to have seen Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian Mackellan as the Doctor and the Master. Don't care which way round.
Or Dereck Jacobi playing the Doctor like he played Professor Yana(before the "watch" was opened).
I assume that there would still be Daleks and Cybermen but could there also be Ice Warriors. Also a plot about Gallifrey becoming, if not exactly evil, more dominating with a do it our way or not at all mentality. (Perhaps because of the onset of the Time War, this way one of the regenerations could be explicitly when the Doctor finally manages to stop the war as implied in the Russell T Davis/ Steven Moffat version.)
Spoiler alert:The Beeb has just released scenes which show the Mcgann Doctors regeneration and why it happens. In the UK you can get it on the red button.