"What If... The TV Movie had been a success in the USA?"

Slight Return

Once the dust had settled on 1996's Doctor Who TV Movie, it was clear that despite the best efforts of all involved in the production, the Eighth Doctor's victory over the Master in San Francisco had been a last hurrah rather than a new beginning. 

When the Fox network aired Doctor Who at 8pm Eastern Standard Time on 14th May 1996 to fierce opposition in sweeps month (most infamously in the form an episode of ABC's Roseanne in which John Goodman's character Dan suffered a heart attack) it earned an audience of 5.5 million viewers (joint 75th for the week) and a 9 per cent share. 

Executive Producer Philip Segal had hoped for a share of 17 or 18, with 15 the minimum he believed could net the show an ongoing series (or even further movies). Therefore, even before the TV Movie had been broadcast on BBC1 in the UK on Bank Holiday Monday 27th May 1996, it was already clear that Fox would not be greenlighting any more Doctor Who. 

Unlike in North America, Doctor Who was very successful in the UK, earning 9.08 million viewers (15th for the week). Unfortunately, without a co-production partner, the BBC was right back where it started, unable to make the show to the same standard on 50% of the cost of the TV Movie.  The production budget for the movie was US$5 million, with the Fox Network spending $2.5 million, BBC Television contributing $300,000, and the remaining $2.2 million split between BBC Worldwide and Universal Television. 

Fox's Fall 1996 schedule was announced a few weeks later, and Doctor Who was of course nowhere to be found. Fox and Universal had instead pressed ahead with Season 3 of Sliders, viewed as a cheaper and by far a less complicated proposition as it was completely owned by Universal. 

Nevertheless, even though Universal's license for Doctor Who had been due to expire at the end of 1996 it was extended until December 31st, 1997 by the BBC in a bid to keep the relationship, and the show alive. Fox was out of the picture entirely by this time; indeed, those responsible for bringing Doctor Who to the network in the first place (such as Trevor Walton) were no longer on staff. Ultimately, Universal had little luck in interesting any other entity in Doctor Who, and their option ran out, which had the additional effect of meaning the option on Paul McGann's 5 year contract was no longer binding. 

Any series of Doctor Who that would be made after 1st January 1998 would therefore have to be made either by the BBC alone (more on that in part 2 of this article), or with another, presumably American or possibly Canadian, co-funder away from Universal and Fox.

Burning the bible according to Leekley

It's generally thought that we dodged a bullet there, and evaded some ropey sounding remakes of previous episodes like Genesis of the Daleks, The Smugglers, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, Earthshock, The Horror Of Fang Rock, The Celestial Toymaker, The Gunfighters, The Tomb Of The Cybermen, The Abominable Snowmen, The Ark In Space, The Sea Devils, The Invasion Of Time, The Reign Of Terror, The Claws Of Axos, The Daemons, and Shada, with Paul McGann fronting a rebooted series disconnected from the BBC television series of 1963 to 1989.

But why has this passed into received wisdom? We know that the reboot concept had already been abandoned, before the TV Movie even went before the cameras. 

No remakes, no spirit-Borusa in the TARDIS, no "Cybes", no Master as the President of Gallifrey. 

Even the other concepts not automatically ruled out by the TV Movie - the Doctor's missing father, Ulysses, his human mother, and the true nature of his relationship to the Master - were highly unlikely to ever see the light of day.

The relationship with the "series bible" writer John Leekley had soured spectacularly when he had argued for an Executive Producer credit on the TV Movie, with Philip Segal and Universal victorious in arbitration with the Writers' Guild, having been able to argue that Leekley had hardly invented the 30+ year old series nor concepts that had either been knocking about through various mooted projects down the years, or where hardly particularly original anyway.


One of Segal's first instructions from his superiors at Universal had been to use a studio writer for the project, specifically Leekley. Segal was hesitant, preferring to go outside Universal; former Doctor Who script editor Terrance Dicks was amongst the candidates he considered, but, aware that any fight with Universal would waste precious development time, Segal agreed to bring Leekley aboard. 

With designer Richard Lewis, Segal and Leekley prepared an expensive and extensive series bible, The Chronicles Of Doctor Who?, to introduce Doctor Who in general, and the proposed new series in particular. Segal had envisioned this version as 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" and introduced the Doctor and the Master, half-brothers and 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 advise his grandson. The Doctor takes the TARDIS to "the Blue Planet" to search for Ulysses, 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 12's Genesis Of The Daleks, would have formed the bulk of the original pilot episode. The script went through several different forms, including some which would have taken place on Gallifrey or during World War II. 

Clearly, however, all of these ideas had been abandoned - including that of remaking old episodes - by the time Jacobs' script entered production.

There's no need, then, to worry about mooted reimaginings of the Cybermen (now called "Cybs") as marauders questionably based on Native Americans... 

...nor Yeti as gentle descendants of the Neanderthals, though as their Amblin-produced designs pre-dated Leekley's involvement, the infamous "Spider-Daleks" were probably a shoo-in. 

Had there been any genuine attempt to adapt the specific scripts mentioned above, it's unlikely that Universal would have wished to meet the cost of payments to the original writers, and would have preferred to employ in-house staff writers. This is, after all, how Segal had found himself allied first to John Leekley, then briefly to Robert De Laurentis and eventually Matthew Jacobs.

So forget what you think you know about the series of Doctor Who that might have followed a successful TV movie, because it's virtually all based on ideas that had been abandoned, contradicted or proven legally contentious. 

The world in which we're living

For a US series to have gone ahead, the TV Movie would have needed to have performed about twice as well on Fox as it did, so let's start there. Let's say Doctor Who scored 11m viewers / 18% share (or higher) and, suitably astounded by the chunk unexpectedly taken out of Roseanne and the other opposition (Ellen & Home Improvement following Roseanne on ABC...

...with 3rd Rock from the Sun, Wings and Frasier on NBC), Fox ordered a series. 

Firstly, this means cancellation for Sliders, after series 2. Sorry, Sliders, fans. 

Although...

To literally, ahem, slide into the place of the aforementioned series' 3rd season in our alternate reality, Doctor Who season 1 would have had to have gone into production almost immediately, with an aim of airing late September/early October 1996. This, however, may have been too tall an order, as no scripts were ready, and it seems highly unlikely that Segal could have recruited and attuned writers other than Jacobs in time to squeeze enough workable scripts out of them.

So there you go, Sliders fans, you may have had a curtailed season 3, ordered to wrap up the show with a grand finale. 

Therefore Fox may have either repeated the TV Movie (which, if it had indeed have been a success they may have felt inclined to do) or sought to commission a 2nd TV Movie before a 13 episode half season order, or a straight 13 episode order with a novel approach of showing a 2-part season opener in the Tuesday Night Movie slot followed by 11 weeks' worth of episodes to show in Sliders' Friday night 8pm slot ahead of The X-Files' spin-off, Millennium. 

Whilst not exactly a graveyard slot, Friday night at 8pm was not a peach pick either, so the series would have its work cut out for it, though equally with potential for modest success if it only replicated Sliders' performance domestically within the US and/or helped Millennium in its 9pm slot.  

Perhaps the optimum time to launch the new series could have been Friday 31st January 1997, taking up the Sliders slot at the end of the week in which The X-Files had delivered its highest rated episode after following Super Bowl XXXI ("Never Again" Season 4, episode 13) and obviously, maximum advertising exposure for both the Tuesday night launch and the regular Friday slot. 

Sliders' swansong episode would therefore have been broadcast on Friday 17th January 1997.  

Doctor Who season 1 would therefore run with a 2hr TV Movie/Season opener on Tuesday 28th January 1997, opposite a much lower rating Roseanne and significantly weaker opposition (mostly repeats) on CBS and NBC, paving the way for a strong start to its' initial 11 week run from Friday 31st January to Friday 11th April 1997.  

Perhaps UK broadcasts might have followed just the Saturday afterwards, or maybe one or two weeks behind (particularly to accommodate the theoretical season opener). 

This season would have rubbed shoulders with season 4 of The X-Files (4th October 1996 to 18th May 1997) and Season 1 of Millennium (25th October 1996 to 16th May 1997) with Fox also broadcasting season 8 of The Simpsons...

...the 4th and final season of ABC's Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (22nd September 1996 to 14th June 1997), Season 3 of Showtime's The Outer Limits (19th Jan to 25th July 1997), NBC's 1 and only season of Dark Skies (21st September 1996 to 31st May 1997), Highlander Season 5 (23rd September 1996 to May 1997) 

 

...and UPN's 3rd season of Star Trek: Voyager (4th September 1996 to 21st May 1997) and 5th season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (30th September 1996 to 16th June 1997). 

Relatively recent cancellations in genre TV included Earth 2 (4th June 1995), NBC's Seaquest DSV, whose 3rd and final season ended on 9th June 1996, leaving creator Rockne S. O'Bannon at a loose end till he came up with Farscape, and who had previously worked on Alien Nation and Fox's own Space: Above & Beyond co-created by The X-Files alumni Glen Morgan, James Wong but cancelled after 1 series, which ended on 2nd June 1996. 

It would therefore have slightly predated the 1st seasons of both the WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (10th March to 2nd June 1997) and Stargate SG1 (27th July 1997 to 6th March 1998 - production of which would have taken away the TV Movie's production designer, Richard Hudolin, unless of course he committed to Doctor Who first and SG1 then had to do without) as well as the less successful Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict on Showtime (starting 6th October 1997). 

The Slide

We should take a minute to autopsy Sliders, presuming that Philip Segal and co. would have had the sense to do the same. 

The Fox Network aired certain episodes from seasons 1 & 2 two in a different order than originally scripted to best capitalize on potential ratings-winning episodes, thus causing continuity errors. For instance, the cliffhanger at the end of "Summer of Love" leads directly into the opening of "Prince of Wails" — which Fox had actually aired a week earlier. For Season 2, Fox did not want to resolve the cliffhanger at the end of "Luck of the Draw," preferring to focus instead on brand-new storylines. Thus, in "Time Again and World" (the first episode filmed for Season Two), Arturo makes a brief passing reference to the events of "Luck of the Draw." This missed cliffhanger was particularly significant as the episode had ended with Quinn being shot in the back. 

The series co-creator, Tracy Tormé, has often been critical of the direction the series took in the third season. David Peckinpah was brought onto the series in the third season (around the time when Tormé started to criticize the show), and has been derided by fans, who argue that his involvement (and by extension Fox's more hands-on involvement) caused the show to "jump the shark".

Season 3 saw the Fox Network take more control of the show, moving production from Vancouver, British Columbia to Los Angeles (described in the show by a change in the functionality of the timer), and setting a more action-oriented tone to the series, often based on ideas popularized by current films at the time, such as a tornado-themed episode inspired by Twister and a dinosaur-themed episode inspired by Jurassic Park.

As an aside, Game of Thrones fans might like to note that there has been speculation that Sliders was inspired by George R.R. Martin's 1992 ABC pilot "Doorways", in which the main cast were fugitives fleeing through parallel worlds, while carrying a device that tells them where and when the next Doorway opens. Although six additional scripts after the pilot film were completed, Doorways never went to series, as ABC decided to launch Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman instead in the fall of 1993. At the time of Sliders' launch, Evelyn C. Leeper noted the similarities to Doorways, and in response to rumors that Sliders creator Tracy Tormé applied for a writing position on the show, Martin clarified in a 1995 post on GEnie that it was Tormé's agent that inquired about the position, and Tormé has denied any connection between the two. Martin's script for the Doorways pilot is available in Dreamsongs Volume 2 alongside a 1986 script for The Twilight Zone.

With this in mind, Segal would have done well to avoid anything other than episodes that were absolutely stand alone, or at least to space out and limit "arc" style episodes to season openers and closers (or in separate episode orders so as not to run the risk of being juggled within that specific order). He probably needn't have worried too much about ensuring that episodes were action-packed (like the Pertwee era) with recognisable story touchstones (like the Hinchcliffe era). 

Doctor Who on Fox, 1997

So if all this is the case, then what would a Doctor Who series made by Universal for Fox following a successful TV movie have actually been like...? How and when would it have been broadcast? Who might it have been written and directed by, and what actors might we have expected to have seen in the episodes that would have resulted? 

Firstly, we know our star; it's Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor, already signed up for 5 years and having proven the smash hit of the TV Movie. 

For Series 1, he can, with the regeneration story out of the way, start to work at making his Doctor more distinctive, perhaps more of the devil-may-care swashbuckler that we finally got to see in The Night of the Doctor, with an extra edge of recklessness, but taking forward some oft-forgotten quirks of the TV Movie, and perhaps even subverting them. Can he really read people's futures in their minds? Has he really met all those historical figures? Maybe, just maybe, as with Tom Baker's 4th Doctor, we might just sometimes get the feeling that he's just making it all up.

We can probably assume McGann may have had some slight tweaks to his costume, some variations from recording block to recording block, perhaps a different coloured coat (the blue version seen in later comic strips is an easy option), different waistcoats, cravats (on or off) etc. and it's almost guaranteed that there'd be no return for the wig that McGann infamously hated. He would likely have had to kept his hair longer (as seen in his audition) but perhaps could have gained a compromise in length, making his appearance halfway between what we saw in the TV Movie and The Night of the Doctor (a version which was, after all, very deliberately based on the original).

Even more than McGann, we can be sure we'd be seeing production designer Richard Hudolin's Jules Verne TARDIS console room, and probably the Cloister room too. These costly sets would go a way to offsetting budgets, and we could probably expect at least one The Edge of Destruction style episode to keep costs down. 

The gif below shows artist Paul Cooke's impression of a Hudolin-designed Dalek in the spirit of the (enclosed) Spider-Dalek previously designed at Amblin (larger version).

As an action packed opener, our "TV Movie 2" / 2-parter, should probably feature the Daleks, and in all likelihood should introduce a new companion.

To a degree, Grace Holloway was a character designed to fulfill the function of playing Scully to the Doctor's Mulder as a romantic will they-won't they foil, and of course to make the gag that they're both doctors, she's a heart surgeon, he has two etc.

Longer term, though this is likely to make for a dynamic between the two leads that keeps people rooting for them to get together, Segal may have sought a slight realignment of that dynamic to bring it closer to the best friends of the 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, and he would have done well to note the rapid demise of Lois & Clark after the leads shared the secret of the last son of Krypton.   In the 8pm slot the show may have been going after a slightly younger demographic, too, and there've certainly been conspiracy theories regarding Sliders seeing the introduction of a female character that would appeal more to teenage boys than the (no doubt lovely in his own right) John Rhys Davies. 

Our new companion is one who is probably (1) female and (2) a bit younger than Grace Holloway, more of a Buffy-style character, more of an identification point than a highly skilled surgeon. She might be a student or a rookie cop (indeed for a modern equivalent of how this might work look at Fox's Sleepy Hollow, wherein Lt. Abbie Mills and her police badge are man-out-of-time Ichabod Crane's psychic paper and foil in one). Our companion may even have a Rory or Danny of her own, a Harry Sullivan figure who might later join the TARDIS crew as a third lead, someone who's a bit readier with his fists than the Doctor, so he doesn't have to be. 

They could do worse than take inspiration from PC Tom Campbell AKA Bernard Cribbens' introductory scene from Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD, allowing the companion to see that it's safe to go off with the Doctor because they can always arrive back just as they left - if all goes to plan. 

Once he's made good on that promise to take the companion back at the end of their first, perhaps uaccidental, trip in the TARDIS maybe they'll choose to go off with him more long term. Our first story should take place in more than one time zone, and on more than one planet. The TV Movie didn't give us that, so "TV Movie 2" has to deliver, and start the series with a bang.

We'll need to see different planets and times, alien races and maybe historical figures too. Naturally enough, it's more likely we'll be looking at historical events and figures significant either internationally or to US viewers more than UK.  

Maybe we'd see the Doctor team up with another John Smith to investigate the lost Colony of Roanoake in 1607, and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937, mistaken for Wild Bill Hickok (as per his original costume) in the Old West, and giving us our"Aztecs" or "Pompeii" moment of being unable to write a single line of history aboard the RMS Titanic in 1912 or even the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 . The mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle and Roswell would be ripe for exploitation, and a US audience would likely still very much appreciate a hunt through foggy Victorian London for Jack the Ripper. We'd want an episode set aboard a pioneering near future space station, strange alien worlds and a far distant future of space wars. We'd want our Daleks and Cybermen, maybe even a more substantial return for a new incarnation of the Master. 

Budget permitting, obviously. And do remember that this would be another show, like The X Files and Stargate SG1, made in Canada, so it'd be goodbye quarries and hello every planet looking like a forest in British Columbia.  We might see some contemporary version of UNIT, alien invasions of modern day Earth being likely to be cheaper at least on the costume and set front.

So who are our likely writers?

Fantasy Football Writer's Roster

Matthew Jacobs, to start with, obviously. Does he maybe get to be Head Writer by default? He's the only one at this stage with a handle on the series who hasn't been rejected or taken to the courts. 

Universal would probably push for Robert DeLaurentis to have another stab at it, and needing writers at least vaguely familiar with the concept Segal may have at least given him a The Edge of Destruction style bottle episode if nothing else.

Of course, I've just made a load of Sliders' writers unemployed, haven't I? Though having ditched them, does Universal want them on board the TARDIS? Perhaps not. Tracy Tormé probably wouldn't feel too well disposed to either Universal or Fox, but could be reasonably attuned to Who's sensibilities if Segal felt like seeking to recruit him. 

Segal would have known Rockne S. O'Bannon from Seaquest DSV (and whose own Farscape wouldn't take off until 1999, though O'Bannon, along with Brian Henson had been trying to get it off the ground since the early 90s. So, yes, let's have creatures by Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, while we're at it). which could make him a reasonably realistic choice at that time for a couple of episodes, and through that Seaquest connection to Segal, maybe Doctor Who would have appealed. 

We can possibly look to Fox stablemate The X-Files, where Glen Morgan & James Wong, ex of Space: Above & Beyond were jobbing alongside other now-bigger names like Howard Gordon (24 and Homeland), Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) and John Shiban (Star Trek: Enterprise, Smallville, Supernatural, Breaking Bad and perhaps notably, Torchwood: Miracle Day) though whether these are natural fits for Doctor Who is questionable. 

From the Buffy the Vampire Slayer pool of writers Jane Espenson (Torchwood: Miracle Day, Battlestar Galactica, Once Upon a Time) had just written an episode for season 4 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 

The likes of Marti Noxon (accusations of "ruining" Buffy punctured by one Joss Whedon, alas too busy himself at this point), David Fury (Lost, 24, Fringe and Hannibal.) could have been available and perhaps slightly better attuned than The X-Files pool. 

Tim Minear, another collaborator of Whedon's on Buffy had also scripted episodes for Lois & Clark's 4th & final season. 

We could also look at the likes of Melinda Snodgrass, who wrote several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as Seaquest DSV and The Outer Limits. 

Snodgrass is - and indeed was at that time - a frequent collaborator with George R. R. Martin, so who knows, he may have taken even bloody longer to get his Song of Ice and Fire shiz together if he'd taken the time over a Doctor Who script or two.  Come broadcast of our theoretical Doctor Who season 1, Book 1: A Game of Thrones has just been released and Book 2: A Clash of Kings is at least a year away. 

From a more familiar pool of writers, Terry Nation could potentially have contributed - and of course, this would have made securing the rights to use the Daleks much easier.  Nation suffered from poor health in his final years, and died from emphysema in Los Angeles on 9th March 1997. Shortly before his death, he had been collaborating with actor Paul Darrow on another attempt to revive Blake's 7, but this could potentially have been set aside if he'd had the offer of a Doctor Who script. Previously he may even have been able to act as either Head Writer or a script consultant of sorts, but his health may have precluded this. 

Our season, then, could just have shaped up a little something like this:

1/2) TVM2 (Daleks) by Matthew Jacobs & Terry Nation - Tuesday 28th January 1997
3) ---- by Rockne S. O'Bannon  - Friday 31st January 1997
4) ---- by Melinda Snodgrass - Friday 7th February 1997
5) ---- by Jane Espenson - Friday 14th February 1997
6) ---- by Glen Morgan & James Wong - Friday 21st February 1997
7) Inside the TARDIS by Robert DeLaurentis Friday 28th February 1997
8) ---- by Marti Noxon & Tim Minear - Friday 7th March 1997
9) ---- by Vince Gilligan- Friday 14th March 1997
10) ---- by David Fury - Friday 21st March 1997
11) ---- by John Shiban - Friday 28th March 1997
12) ---- by George R. R. Martin - Friday 4th April 1997
13) Finale by Matthew Jacobs - Friday 11th April 1997

Something of a shoot-for-the-moon Fantasy Football Team of writers, selected with the bias of later achievements, of course, but hopefully harmless fun by way of an illustration. The reality is probably that other than Jacobs, all the other names on that list would have been total unknowns.

There's probably not quite so much fun to be had with directors; likely the same names that worked on other Universal shows like Sliders would be assigned (there'd be something pleasing about having Adam Nimoy aboard, I think, after his famous father coming close - if reports are to be believed - to being involved with one of the various film versions previously mooted), and perhaps Geoffrey Sax would return. 

There's probably more fun to be had looking at the guest actors that could have been available for parts over the course of the series, with US and Canadian based (i.e. living and primarily working in the US) actors like Jeffrey Wright, Jeroen Krabbé, Francisco Quinn, Max von Sydow, James Earl Jones, Keith David, Lukas Haas, Laurie Holden, Kristen Cloke, Jeri Ryan, Don Franklin, Brad Dourif, Bruce Davison, Harry Groener, Sarah Silverman, Ed Begley Jr., John DeLancie, Harve Presnell, Tim Kelleher, Eric Balfour, Ken Lerner, Musetta Vander, Robert Wisden, Clive Revill, Alan Rachins, Jim Jansen, Thomas F. Wilson, Fred Willard, Soon-Tek Oh, Crystal Lowe (possible companion?), Roger R.  Cross, Tobin Bell, James Morrison, Tucker Smallwood, Nicholas Lea, Brian Thompson, Jerry Hardin, Paul McGillion.

and British actors who might be Stateside or parachuted in for the UK audience, such as
John Rhys Davies, Roger Daltrey, Stephanie Beecham, Anthony Stewart Head, Carolyn Seymour and just from those that had appeared in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-3) alone: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Daniel Craig, Christopher Lee, Peter Firth, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle, Elizabeth Hurley, Timothy Spall, Jason Flemyng, Michael Kitchen, Kevin McNally, Ian McDiarmid, Douglas Henshall, Sean Pertwee, Terry Jones, Steven Berkoff to name but a few.

Season 2

With production rolling along nicely by this point, with strong enough ratings, Doctor Who could have secured an order for a full season to run in the more tradition fall to spring (roughly late September to late May), and the rest could have been a very different history. 

Of course, things could have been different still - What if the TV Movie still hadn't worked out in the US, but after Universal's option expired at the end of 1997, the BBC had thought quite differently and brought Doctor Who back in house in 1998? What if...?

TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... "What If... The BBC brought Doctor Who home after the TV Movie?"