WI : Doctor Who 1996 movie suceeded to relaunch the series?

[BlackWave]

I'm only familiar with 6, all based on being 'unseen episodes' of adventures set during the reboot. They're pretty decent, so this must be somewhat in the past.

I know what you mean, but they're generally considered their own line seperate to what I'm talking about. Still, some of them were good--I liked the Silurian one.

 

[Thande]

I'm only familiar with 6, all based on being 'unseen episodes' of adventures set during the reboot. They're pretty decent, so this must be somewhat in the past.

The Doctor Who EU is even more confusing, complicated and counterintuitive than the EU based in Brussels. There are many, many different series of books, and BlackWave was talking about the Eighth Doctor Adventures from the late 90s which have only the most cursory connexion with the new series.

With regards to the setting, we could see a time war take place which does see the destruction of Skaro and Gallifrey, but where instead of the doctor being the only survivor, there are several spread out who he keeps bumping into, some explicit characters (such as Romana, the Master or the Rani), while it's simply implied that there's a couple of hundred others who we don't see but who could turn up (the Meddling Monk, the Celestial Toymaker, the White and Black Guardians come to mind.) It'd be ambiguous about specific characters until they actually appeared, but that would be the general feel.

That might work as well.

 

[Orville_third]

They actually at one time planned to remake several episodes of the old series, from "The Gunfighters" to "Shada". (I have the book on the Movie somewhere, which a lot of people haven't read...otherwise they'd know the "Crown of Thorns" thing was unrelated to any religious symbolism...)

 

[LSCatilina]

So, maybe they would have hired McCoy to make some episodes between the last and the movie before beggining a new season with the 9th Doctor?

Aslo, what about the budget, the effects on screen. The new DW series is remarkable by comparison of its predecessor, for the effects, the material, etc.
What would be a DW with Fox budget, and desiderata?

 

[Orville_third]

Effects would still be better than the old series, but the writing may not be as good. (They were planning to reuse storylines...) There would be other Time Lords, so Romana would still be around. I can imagine K-9 coming back somehow, since he's so cute! I do think that the New Adventures and Big Finish crew might be asked to write certain things...and RTD could be one of them.
Meanwhile, David Tennant would still want to be the Doctor...or Simon Pegg, for that matter...perhaps they'd be considered to replace McGann?

 

[DValdron]

I'm not sure how much better effects would be. Remember that this is before CGI really comes into its own. I think we might see more latex appliance costumes, but generally, these are expensive, difficult to wear, and hard to get a performance out of.

I agree that there'd be a lot of X-files influence. Possibly lightened with some humour.

I think that the Daleks, Cybermen, etc. might be seriously re-envisioned. Also, I suspect that most of it will take place on contemporary earth, in the manner of the Pertwee series.

I don't think we'd see anything like the Time War storyline. Well, possibly, if it was X Filish enough.

 

[BlackWave]

I'm not sure how far they'd revise a classic monster like the Daleks, given how the Terry Nation estate almost refused their appearance in the new series at all. The EU did produce some whacky Dalek concepts which weren't very well received. But they could reimagine the likes of the Cybermen, which pretty much did get a makeover in the OTL new series anyway.

I do think there could be a similar feel to Sliders, which aired at around the time we're talking.

 

[Sicarius]

It would have been goddamn terrible.

Together with designer Richard Lewis, Segal and Leekley prepared an expensive and extensive series bible -- titled The Chronicles Of Doctor Who?, to introduce Doctor Who in general, and the proposed new series in particular. Segal had envisioned this version of Doctor Who as being largely divorced from the original BBC series -- although the basic concepts of Doctor Who were adhered to, the programme's mythos would be completely rewritten. The bible was written from the perspective of Cardinal Barusa (a misspelling of Borusa, a character who had first appeared in Season Fourteen's The Deadly Assassin).
It introduces the Doctor and the Master, who are half-brothers and both sons of the lost Time Lord explorer Ulysses, Borusa's son. When the evil Master becomes President of the Time Lords upon Borusa's death, the Doctor flees Gallifrey in a rickety old TARDIS to find Ulysses. Borusa's spirit becomes enmeshed in the TARDIS, enabling Borusa to continue to advise his grandson. The Doctor takes the TARDIS to "the Blue Planet" to search for Ulysses, this being the native world of the Doctor's mother.

The bible went on to detail the Doctor's encounter with the Daleks—still creations of Davros, but now controlled by the Master. These events, clearly inspired by Season Twelve's Genesis of the Daleks, would have formed the bulk of the pilot episode. Various other possible adventures are detailed, most of them drawing, to a greater or lesser extent, on stories from the original series:

The Smugglers,
The Talons of Weng-Chiang,
Earthshock,
Horror of Fang Rock,
The Celestial Toymaker,
The Gunfighters,
Tomb of the Cybermen,
The Abominable Snowmen,
The Ark in Space.
Others excised from the final draft included adventures inspired by
The Sea Devils,
The Invasion of Time,
The Reign of Terror,
The Claws of Axos,
The Dæmons,
Shada

Many familiar Doctor Who monsters were extensively revised.
The Daleks were hideous mutant creatures whose travelling machines appearing not unlike those from the original series, albeit without a "head" region or external appendages -- opened up into a spider-like design.
The Cybermen, now called "Cybs", were marauders whose cybernetic parts were culled from a variety of sources, giving them a patchwork appearance (though they were still vulnerable to gold dust).
The Yeti are gentle descendants of the Neanderthals.
The bible concluded with the conclusion of the Doctor's adventures, in which he locates Ulysses and travels back to Gallifrey to depose the Master and become President.
The bible was completed around the end of March. Leekley then began work on sample storylines, with most work concentrating on the revised version of The Gunfighters, now called Don't Shoot, I'm The Doctor. This was similar to the original Season Three serial only in broad sketches; the Doctor does travel to Tombstone suffering from a toothache, but the rest of the story hewed much more closely to the true events of the OK Corral, as opposed to the more fictionalised version offered in the original Doctor Who story. As well, the idea at this point was for the new episodes to be made for one-hour American time slots (meaning about forty-five minutes of actual programming).

 

[CobaltKnight]

I do think there could be a similar feel to Sliders, which aired at around the time we're talking.

That's probably the best comparison on the thread so far for similarity.

In all reality, I think it'd have the feel of Sliders, but more of a SG-1 premise. With all the traveling about to different planets, but more of a focus on the character effects and responses to the various cultures instead of the focus on the politics and cultures themselves.

 

[The Professor]

It would have been goddamn terrible.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear!

 

[Alex Richards]

It would have been goddamn terrible.

Oh Lord. It might have taken off in America, but with that much difference from the original so soon after the original series, I have this horrible feeling that in the UK we'd still have a 'return of Doctor Who' at some point in the first couple of decades of the 21st Century. Possibly not until about now.

 

[JjeeporCreepor]

It would have been goddamn terrible.

Oh yeah. I think Who dodged a bullet when that series never happened. Unlike Doctor Seven, of course... To be honest, I think Paul McGann and Eric Roberts were both pretty good in the TV Movie, but everything else about it was horrible. Not so much the Americanisms as the fact that it was so...stupid, is the word I think I'm looking for...

Talking of reimagined Daleks, one of the things that always seemed to get bandied about in those days was the idea of "spider-Daleks", ie Daleks as giant mechanical spider-things, perhaps in some effort to get around the Terry Nation estate's restrictions (although surely they'd still own the name?)

 

[wietze]

On the other hand, if the idea of a crossover with Star Trek would arise here as it did with RTD, it would be for a decent series, DS9. Quite a cool thought, actually.

I think a triple crossover of DW, Babylon-5 and Voyager would have been way cool

 

[Sicarius]

Oh yeah. I think Who dodged a bullet when that series never happened. Unlike Doctor Seven, of course... To be honest, I think Paul McGann and Eric Roberts were both pretty good in the TV Movie, but everything else about it was horrible. Not so much the Americanisms as the fact that it was so...stupid, is the word I think I'm looking for...

McGann was deffo the best part of the movie, and in the later Big Finish audio dramas he's great. One of my favorite Doctors. Eric Roberts was okay, but he has a level of camp menace that he really didn't reach in Who 96, as opposed to - for instance - the classic Wolves of Wall Street.

I've always thought the ideal scenario springing from the 1996 series would be a show in continuity with old Who, with McGann, filmed in the UK at least partially (you could see a switch in location between seasons - if Highlander can do it, so can Who), and with an initial American companion to mollify whoever the US distributor would be. I think the tonal similarity to Sliders someone mentioned is right on. For some reason I want to raid someone from Buffy for the companion. Alyson Hannigan? Or maybe Sarah Michelle Gellar would work better in contrast to McGann's more soft-spoken and sensitive Doctor.

 

[The Vet]

For some reason I want to raid someone from Buffy for the companion. Alyson Hannigan? Or maybe Sarah Michelle Gellar would work better in contrast to McGann's more soft-spoken and sensitive Doctor.

I used to like to think Giles was actually the Doctor exiled to Earth again and the vampires in Buffy were some kind of sub species of the ones seen in State Of Decay