1 x 90 minute episode, 12th May 1996 (Canada), 14th May 1996 (USA), 27th May 1996 (UK), Writer: Matthew Jacobs, Director: Geoffrey Sax, Producers: Peter V. Ware, Matthew Jacobs, Executive Producers: Philip David Segal, Alex Beaton, and Jo Wright (for the BBC)
Yep, it's the new Doctor, who we've not even seen yet. What a way to be introduced.
Now the Master is being executed on Skaro for... reasons.
I like to think this was an early move in the time war. The Daleks are allowed to put the Master on trial for the events of Frontier in Space; but really he's there to spy on the Daleks and find out how Skaro was resurrected.
The Time-Lords gave the Master the morphant snake thing, and the Doctor would recover the remains and bring it back to Gallifrey for the Time-Lords to get the info they need. The Master's will for revenge is too strong, though, and he gets out and crashes the TARDIS.
Had the Doctor unwittingly completed his mission to take the remains back to Gallifrey, the Time-Lords would then put the Master in a new Time-Lord body to give him the 13 lives as promised in The 5 Doctors, in return for the info on Skaro. Maybe that's what they did, having retrieved him from the Eye of Harmony, only for him to run away and turn himself into YANA.
What *were* they thinking with those Dalek voices?
They sound like the Smash robots! (Remember those ads?)
Yes! Spot on!
Then a pompous 90s Trek version of the middle 8 of the Doctor Who theme. Oh.
Lovely to see the old Sonic Screwdriver.
The TARDIS has been redecorated... I... don't hate it, but.... carpets? Nah.
I do love the 7th Doctor's new outfit though.
No love lost for the question mark jumper.
Didn't know the 7th Doctor was an Amy Winehouse fan.
Needless to say the Master's remains aren't quite dead, and a slimy snake containing his essence is on the loose...
The Master-snake knackers the TARDIS console, sending the Doctor crashing to Earth...
In San Francisco in 1999, we find ourselves in the middle of a gang turf war.
Chang Lee & his friends are attacked with sub-machine guns, but just when it looks like he's had it...
The TARDIS materializes...
So the bad guys shoot him in the arm and leg it.
The Master-snake gloops itself out of the TARDIS' keyhole.
Chang Lee gets him to an ambulance where the paramedic asks if he's rich.
Love that he's been given the "John Smith" pseudonym by Chang Lee.
Feels wrong that the Doctor is just shot with a gun.
I know. I do kind of like the idea that the arch-manipulator is caught off guard by something random, but even so...!
Better than falling off an exercise bike. I always thought the Seventh Doctor would be killed by a chess board.
It's almost like the show trying to emerge from the then TV landscape of ER and the X-Files.
At the hospital, the Doctor's X-ray baffles the medics...
So they call in "Amazing Grace", who's crying at the Opera.
The Doctor warns Grace to stop the surgery she's about to attempt...
She's soon getting lost in his cardiovascular system...
And soon, she's actually managed to kill him.
As if you wouldn't have turned the Opera off, though.
The Doctor's scream, cut from the original UK broadcast, is really weird. I was happy without it, to be honest.
Shouldn't Grace have given the X-rays the once over *before* she started operating?
Chang Lee checks up on the Doctor, but when Grace breaks the news of his "death" he acts suspiciously...
Now for some reason we're with the paramedic, who's annoying his Mrs. with his snoring.
The Master-snake has hitched a ride in his jacket and gives a comedy hiss at the camera.
The Doctor's body is taken to the mortuary.
So how's he going to regenerate if he's actually dead?
The Master-snake dives down the paramedic's throat, killing him.
The mortuary assistant watches the classic 1931 Frankenstein movie...
While in the morgue, the Doctor's body crackles with energy and starts to gurn.
The regeneration is great actually seeing the face change shape like that, not 100% keen on the inter-cutting of the Frankenstein stuff. It's fun but makes it a bit jokier and steals focus.
The actual physical change of the regeneration is great; much better than the 2 most recent goes.
The Frankenstein stuff I don't mind. The Jesus stuff? Give me a break.
The new Doctor seems a bit shell-shocked and staggers around wearing only the sheet his former corpse was wrapped in.
"WHO AM I?" He's forgotten who he is. Ugh, it's going to be one of *those* regenerations.
Snake-Master has turned the paramedic's eyes green. For... reasons.
The following morning Chang Lee rifles through the Doctor's stuff. His fob watch appears to play "There's no place like home."
The new Master throttles the paramedic's wife, and plots to steal the Doctor's lives.
And with that 15 minutes of some weird US show over, we're back to watching Doctor Who, with a traditional costume-pick scene!
So who was going to the party as Tom Baker?
McGann really looks the part, but it looks like we'll have to get used to his 'confused face' for a while.
Hospital Jerk plots to cover-up the 7th Doctor's death and 'disappearance' & burns the X-Ray, so Grace quits.
But look who she's bumped into in the lift. (Or "Elevator" if you must).
The Doctor asks Grace who he is. Don't tell him, Pike!
The new Doctor still has Grace's camera probe wotsit sticking out of his chest, even after the regeneration.
The Master has dressed like some sort of hungover short-arse terminator...
...and goes to the hospital to pick off a pesky finger nail and dish out some racism.
Grace takes the Doctor home, where he's soon making her swoon with his fancy double heartbeat & open shirt.
Already, McGann has TOTALLY nailed it.
By the way, I have it on the authority of someone who has *actually touched it* the coat is bottle green, before anyone starts. ;-P
You can see the join at the hairline in these shots. It was chucking down rain on the day they filmed and I think the glue was coming unstuck when they went inside!
He knows odd bits about himself, remembers about regeneration, and meeting Puccini...
...and shows off his live self-dubbing skills to tell her how many lives he's got.
Chang Lee enters the TARDIS & we get the "bigger on the inside" scene half an hour after umpteen other TARDIS scenes.
The Master is already in the TARDIS (?) and recruits Chang Lee to help him find the Doctor.
The Doctor & Grace go for a walk in the park in the middle of the night. What are they up to? I suppose it's December, it might not be so late.
The Doctor remembers Gallifrey and his father(!)...
...then he gets excited by shoes. Everyone loves that bit. Don't really get it.
*mentions Ulysees* *gets lynched by fandom* *except possibly Lance Parkin and fans of The Gallifrey Chronicles* *possibly*
The Master gives Lee some BS about the Doctor having "his" body & offers him a bag of gold-dust. YEWTREE!
You know, it's a bit of a wacky performance, but if you imagine that Roberts is possessed by the Ainley Master, it's EXACTLY the same.
The Master shows Lee the only other room in the TARDIS (note: no loo, no kitchen, no laundry...)
When Lee opens the eye of Harmony...
...the Doctor's memories are restored.
He snogs Grace in celebration. Got there first, Eccleston!
Now the Eye blags the Master that the Doctor's half-human. What a card that Eye is.
Best TARDIS interior ever.
I love the console, but I could do without the carpets. I love the white roundelled look too much.
Yes, I miss the roundels too. I loved John Hurt's one too which seemed a combination of the two plus the modern one.
1 TV Movie. 2 John Hurt's. 3 Original 1963 4 1970s Wood panelled 5 2013/14 6 Matt Smith's original 7 60s Movie.
I believe at one point it was intended to see *all* the previous Doctors in the Eye projection. How great would that have been?
When the Doctor info-dumps about Daleks and Time-Lords, Grace legs it. Fair play.
But the Eye's started pulling the planet inside out (for... reasons) so the Doctor can just push through glass like it's liquid.
The Doctor has a good old giggle at Fox News. Hilarious stuff.
Just as the news tells him where to find the plutonium for his flux capacitor, the Master turns up...
McGann is in full on Doctor mode now.
This little ambulance scene where the Master corrects Scully's grammar's great too.
The Doctor doesn't recognise the Master in this body, but when he gets a glimpse of his glowy green eyes the game's up.
Tim @parks8472 Glowy green eyes is a dead giveaway of badness
Always Gween.
The Doctor & Grace escape when the ambulance stops for a traffic jam caused by a lorry full of chickens.
The 8th Doctor does the 3rd proud with a high speed vehicle chase. But fails to run over any tramps.
On broadcast this was dedicated to Jon Pertwee after his then recent passing.
They make it to the McGuffin Institute but the Master's already there. Can that ambulance fly?
That's an old school Doctor's-face cliffhanger shot right there going into that US ad break.
The Doctor distracts Wagg with some outrageous BS about being half-human in order to nick his pass.
This seemingly-psychic knowledge of *everyone*'s future would get boring quickly if this had gone to series.
But enough of this charming character stuff, back to mindless chase scenes!
When you get a chance, watch McGann's little hoppity run as he sets off the fire alarm. It's pure Troughton.
(The 8th Doctor says he doesn't like heights...) ACTUAL LOGOPOLIS REFERENCE KLAXON!! ACTUAL KLAXON KLAXON!!
That bit of music was so ridiculously Star Trek / James Horner.
The Doctor seems to find the TARDIS like a homing pigeon.
Why aren't there tyre tracks everywhere in the TARDIS after that motorcycle cop did his comedy bit?
The Doctor closes the Eye, but it seems it's already too late.
McGann's rough handling of the console is great Doctor-ing. Acting-with-the-console should always be part of the audition for any new Doctor.
McGann handles it like a pro of course.
I always lean against the photocopier at work with both hands straightforward on the edge like Davison at the 80s console :-P
Grace has succumbed to the Master's control, infected by his psychic-snake-spit.
The Doctor awakes at the mercy of Lee, and the Master, who's drezzzzed for the occasion.
"Oh, please!" says the Doctor when the Master kisses his companion. Pot, kettle.
"In 700 years no-one's managed to open the eye..." and it can only be done by a human. What?
"I have wasted all my lives because of you!" Yeah, definitely the same old Master, giving himself away like an idiot. That was pure Ainley Master. Only needed the anagram pseudonym for the ambulance driver to top it off.
"I would only protect you," the Master says, seconds before breaking Lee's neck.
He still needs a human so he sucks his psychic slime out of Grace to turn her human again. Gross.
Keeping up his Jesus fetish, the Doctor wears a crown of thorns as the Master drains his regenerations through the Eye.
The world starts to tear itself apart as midnight approaches. So the TARDIS caused the millennium bug, then?
The Master starts to feel alive; the cloister bell rings...
The Doctor sends Grace to fix the TARDIS before coming back to save him...
When Grace's repair work kicks in, the TARDIS enters temporal orbit. So the TARDIS flies around the Earth making time go backwards like in Superman? Absorbing the Eye energy as it goes?
With the Eye closed & the link broken, the Master gets a monster voice, and believes Grace can fly (she can't).
All the Doctor's lives go back to him, or something, and the two struggle by the open Eye.
The Master launches himself at the Doctor but he shines a light in his eyes, causing him to miss...
...and the Master is sucked into the Eye of Harmony. This is where I assume he'll come out the other side on Gallifrey.
As the TARDIS is putting all the energy given out over the last 2 days back where it came from...
...it crams the life energy back into Lee & Grace, resurrecting them.
You do get a real feeling that with that crazy day over things can get back to "normal" for the new Doctor.
The Doctor points out Gallifrey on his star map...
...and thumps the console when the TARDIS stalls.
The Doctor is overjoyed to be reunited with his Sonic Screwdriver. Fair dos, it is that lovely classic version and not that clawed monstrosity of Matt Smith's.
The Doctor tells Lee not to be here next year. That's quite a threat.
"How can you miss me, I'm easy to find - I'm the guy with two hearts!"
Love that adventuring, swashbuckling quality the 8th Doctor has, perhaps not really seen since his 4th incarnation.
As bombastic and Trek-like as the theme arrangement is, you can draw a straight line from this to the 2005 version.
You do have to disengage brain & work really hard to ignore some terrible continuity wrecking guff, as well as forcing your way past some of the clunkiest info-dump-iest dialogue imaginable, but there *is* much fun to be had, not least in the performance of Paul McGann, & the eye-popping console room.
While I don't like the 7th Doctor, I am glad he at least got a proper regeneration. I want the 8th Doctor back; I want to see him go from this version of himself to the war-weary one in 'Night of the Doctor.'
You're not alone there! I absolutely love the 8th Doctor comic strips, too, and you can see my reviews of the collected volumes here: 1. Engame, 2. The Glorious Dead, 3. Oblivion, 4. The Flood. Tweet me your thoughts on DWM's 8th Doctor comic strips - what are your favourite stories?
In the meantime, why not relive the 8th Doctor's last bow...
TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... Endgame
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