http://cuttingsarchive.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=John+Lavalie&feedformat=atomThe Doctor Who Cuttings Archive - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T08:11:47ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.33.0http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Covers_(2010s)&diff=32756Covers (2010s)2024-03-24T20:06:55Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{covers}}<gallery mode="packed-hover" heights="200px"><br />
File:2010-03-04 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2010-04 Gay Times.jpg|[[Look Who's Back (Gay Times)|click for article]]<br />
File:2010-04-24 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2010-05 SFX cover.jpg|[[The First Eleven|click for article]]<br />
File:2010-06-26 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2010-11-27 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-03-12 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-04-21 Time Out London cover 1.jpg|[[Doctor Who: what's in store|click for article]]<br />
File:2011-04-21 Time Out London cover 2.jpg|[[Doctor Who: what's in store|click for article]]<br />
File:2011-04-21 Time Out London cover 3.jpg|[[Doctor Who: what's in store|click for article]]<br />
File:2011-04-21 Time Out London cover 4.jpg|[[Doctor Who: what's in store|click for article]]<br />
File:2011-04-21 Time Out London cover 5.jpg|[[Doctor Who: what's in store|click for article]]<br />
File:2011-04-21 Time Out London cover 6.jpg|[[Doctor Who: what's in store|click for article]]<br />
File:2011-04-23 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-06-04 Total TV Guide cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-06-18 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-07-09 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-08-27 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2011-09-03 Total TV Guide cover.jpg<br />
File:2012-08-03 Entertainment Weekly cover.jpg<br />
File:2012-09-01 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2012-09-22 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Time to say goodbye|click for article]]<br />
File:2012-12-10 TV Guide cover.jpg|click for article [[Doctor Who is No. 1|#1]] [[Barrowman|#2]]<br />
File:2013-02-22 London Evening Standard cover.jpg|[[Who Do You Think You Are? (Evening Standard)|click for article]]<br />
File:2013-03-23 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-03-25 Daily Mirror cover.jpg|[[Doctor Who Sex Scandal|click for article]]<br />
File:2013-03-29 Entertainment Weekly cover.jpg|[[Home is where the TARDIS is|click for article]]<br />
File:2013-03-29 Entertainment Weekly 2.jpg|[[Home is where the TARDIS is|click for article]]<br />
File:2013-04-22 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-05 SFX cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-07 British Philatelic Bulletin cover.jpg|[[Who's Who (British Philatelic Bulletin)|click for article]]<br />
File:2013-11-16 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-11-20 TV Guide cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-11-23 Total TV Guide cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-11-23 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg<br />
File:2013-11-23 TV Times cover (1).jpg<br />
File:2013-11-23 TV Times cover (2).jpg<br />
File:2014-08-08 Entertainment Weekly cover.jpg|[[Once Upon a Time Lord (Entertainment Weekly)|click for article]]<br />
File:2014-08-23 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[The man in the blue box|click for article]]<br />
File:2014-08-25 TV Guide cover.jpg|[[Doctor Who: The Next Regeneration|click for article]]<br />
File:2014-09-20 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Keeley's dark side|click for article]]<br />
File:2014-11-01 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[The right stuff?|click for article]]<br />
File:2014-11-29 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Nick Frost guest stars as Father Christmas|click for article]]<br />
File:2014-12-13 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[Festive Frost|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-08-22 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[The Doctor is about to return with companion Clara in what's set to be a truly explosive new series|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-09-19 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[Who's looking at Who?|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-09-19 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[The Doctor will see you now (TV & Satellite Week)|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-09-19 We Love TV cover.jpg<br />
File:2015-10-17 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[The wisdom of youth|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-10-31 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Zygon attack|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-11-21 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[The end is nigh|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-12-05 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[The nightmare man|click for article]]<br />
File:2015-12 Sci Fi cover.jpg|[[Living it up on the Tardis|click for article]]<br />
File:2016-06 WYCC Magazine for Members.jpg<br />
File:2016-11-05 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Regenerating the Doctor|click for article]]<br />
File:2016-11-26 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[Look Who's coming! (Radio Times)|click for article]]<br />
File:2016-12-10 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Get ready for excitement this Christmas when Doctor Who returns after a year-long break|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-04-15 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[A girl named Bill|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-04-15 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[New friends, new enemies|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-06-24 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[Dead man walking?|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-06-24 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Master of mayhem|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-07-17 Daily Star p1.jpg|[[It's Dr Rude!|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-07-17 Metro p1.jpg|[[About time: Jodie is the first female Doctor Who|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-12-09 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[Time gentlemen (2017)|click for article]]<br />
File:2017-12-16 TV and Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Doctor Who Christmas preview|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-07-20 Entertainment Weekly cover.jpg|[[About time!|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-07-21 Radio Times.jpg|[[I'll do it my way|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-06 Daily Express Saturday cover.jpg|[[Meet the New Doctor|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-06 Mirror We Love TV cover.jpg|[[Look Who's Back!|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-06 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Jodie's space odyssey|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-06 TV Times cover.jpg[[The Doctor is an alien - not a woman|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-06 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[I Enjoy Life Through Make Believe|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-20 Radio Times cover.jpg|[[It's Behind You!|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-10-12 Scottish Sun TV Mag.jpg<br />
File:2018-11-24 TV & Satellite Week cover.jpg|[[Reign of Terror|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-12-08 Radio Times cover digital.jpg|[[Every dog has his day|click for article]]<br />
File:2018-12-23 Big TV.jpg<br />
File:2018-12-23 Sunday Mail TV cover.jpg<br />
File:2019-12-07 Radio Times cover.jpg<br />
File:2019-12-28 Sun Saturday Magazine cover.jpg|[[Happy Who year!|click for article]]<br />
File:2019-12-28 Daily Star Hot TV.jpg<br />
</gallery></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-05_SFX_cover.jpg&diff=32755File:2010-05 SFX cover.jpg2024-03-24T20:05:52Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Never_mind_the_Moroks&diff=32754Never mind the Moroks2024-03-24T20:04:42Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-05 SFX 0013.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 2010-05-01 | display date = May 2010 | author = Nick Setchfield | pages..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = 2010-05 SFX 0013.jpg<br />
| px = 250<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-05-01<br />
| display date = May 2010<br />
| author = Nick Setchfield <br />
| pages = <br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = video recordings<br />
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DOCTOR WHO THE SPACE MUSEUM/THE CHASE <br />
<br />
Never mind the Moroks <br />
<br />
1965 PG 241 mins £29.99 OUT NOW! Directors: Mervyn Pinfield, Richard Martin <br />
<br />
Cast: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Maureen O'Brien <br />
<br />
Smart marketing choice to let unloved Hartnell tale "[[broadwcast:The Space Museum|The Space Museum]]" ride shotgun with the Daleks. In many ways it's a story knee-capped by the inverse ratio between its title and its execution the very words The Space Museum promise something spooky and vast and intriguing, but it proves a killingly dull environment in which to stage an unengaging take on Who's eternal rebels vs despots formula. Yes, episode one offers some lovely fourth-dimensional weirdness, and clown-haired bad guys the Moroks have a refreshing, Douglas Adamsy sense of middle-management blues, but not even some spiffy remastering can polish this particular turgid tale. <br />
<br />
"[[broadwcast:The Chase|The Chase]]" is better, if only because it's powered by a demented, ramshackle energy that never allows for boredom - or much in the way of logic or good taste. The Daleks are pursuing the Doctor through eternity, and Terry Nation's scribble of a plotline hurls the TARDIS into ever weirder set-pieces. On and on we tumble, crashing from the Mary Celeste (and yes, that's Mary, not Marie) to the Empire State Building to the world of Mechanus, home of rubbish Dalek rivals the Mechanoids. There are cameos by everyone from Frankenstein's Monster to The Beatles, and if you can switch off your forebrain there's tacky entertainment to be had, but its crushing to realise that this is the show that gave us the masterly "[[broadwcast:An Unearthly Child|An Unearthly Child]]" a mere two years before. <br />
<br />
Extras: There are cast and crew commentaries - nabbing the reclusive Maureen O'Brien is a coup. New series scribe Rob Shearman provides a persuasive, perspective-shifting take on "The Space Museum" in "Defending The Museum". "My Grandfather, The Doctor" is a recollection by Hartnell's real-life granddaughter, illustrated with some lovely rare pics. "Cusick In Cardiff" sees original Dalek designer Ray Cusick meet the new series design team. In "The Thrill Of The Chase" director Richard Martin recalls helming the pepperpot epic, branding his time on Doctor Who "a baptism in blood". "Last Stop White City" is a tribute to pioneer companions Ian and Barbara, while "Daleks Conquer And Destroy" is a comprehensive tribute to the Dalek phenomenon, including some hardcore ring modulator talk from Dalek voice man Nicholas Briggs. "Daleks Beyond The Screen" explores the universe of Dalek merchandise. There's also a look back at '60s modelmakers Shawcraft, complete with some gorgeously rare 8mm colour film of monochrome monsters. Daft comedy skit "A Holiday For The Doctor", slides from the '60s Give A Show toy projector set, photo galleries, Radio Times listings and information text complete the package. <br />
<br />
The Beatles only appear in clip form, but originally wanted to appear as aged curators of a Beatles museum in a futuristic Liverpool.<br />
<br />
<br />
"Remember your lines or we'll shoot you."<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-05_SFX_0013.jpg&diff=32753File:2010-05 SFX 0013.jpg2024-03-24T20:03:24Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=The_First_Eleven&diff=32752The First Eleven2024-03-24T20:02:38Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/File:2010-05_SFX.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2010-05-01 | display date = May 2010..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/File:2010-05_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-05-01<br />
| display date = May 2010<br />
| author = Nick Setchfield<br />
| pages = 50<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
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Back for its first full series in two years, Doctor Who is returning with two new leads and a new head writer. Nick Setchfield talks to Moffat, Smith and Gillan, the people who'll make your Saturday nights<br />
<br />
One of the eternal struggles of the cosmos is playing out in a cigar factory in Cardiff. <br />
<br />
As ever, Doctor Who is hiding the unearthly in plain sight, like a timeship concealed in a phone box. It's a bright Welsh autumn day and a corner of this anonymous building has been drafted by the BBC to double for the interior of an alien craft. Outside lies the industrial emptiness of Penarth Road with its oblivious sweep of morning traffic. Inside, the bemused; boilersuited workforce of J R Freeman & Son stand and watch as a gleaming swarm of Daleks emerge to confront their perennial nemesis.<br />
<br />
"Behold the restoration of the ii Daleks!" bark the tyrants of Skaro, as pyrotechnics flash and dazzle.<br />
<br />
But it's a stranger's face that opposes them, filling the monitor before us. A face not so much loved by the camera as one that intrigues, enchants and perplexes it. Does it belong to an indie kid scenester or a dashing English air ace? A Bletchley Park boffin or a punch-nosed Walthamstow boxer? It belongs to all of them and more. The camera probes and prowls, uncovering new and contradictory facets with each change of angle. It's a face that's simultaneously handsome, strange, haunted, mischievous, innocent and ancient. A paradox of a face, beneath a Brideshead flop of a fringe.<br />
<br />
Then the eyes meet the blank gaze of a Dalek eyestalk and give a familiar look of wary defiance. And as they lock into the lens you realise that this is a defining TV moment, one that time-ripples all the way back to William Hartnell standing in Lime Grove studios in smokily distant 1963.<br />
<br />
It's Doctor Who. And he's fighting the Daleks, as he always must.<br />
<br />
The director cuts. The workforce chatters again. The cigar machine returns to life with an antiquated chug. The real world is back in the room.<br />
<br />
"Get this," says Matt Smith, strolling over to greet SFX. "The new Dalek eyestalks are designed to meet the level of my own eyes. They made them from my measurements. That's a bit of trivia for you!" <br />
<br />
Stick-lean and charming, he's dressed like a Hoxton Quatermass in tweeds, jeans and bow-tie. He's also obssessively tossing a small, circular prop in the air. Closer inspection reveals that it's a plastic Jammie Dodger. Well, naturally.<br />
<br />
"Tom Baker had his jelly babies. And I've got Jammie Dodgers!" Again the Dodger spins.<br />
<br />
You could be the new face of Jammie Dodgers, we suggest.<br />
<br />
"What, like this?" he smiles, slapping the prop to his forehead. "I'm all about the Jammie Dodger. I just imagine the Doctor in the TARDIS with Amy. Cup of tea and a Jammie Dodger!"<br />
<br />
He twirls it again, higher still. "I'm getting good at this," he shares, just before it escapes his catch and rolls into the far shadows. SFX is witness to the precious sight of an embarrassed Time Lord chasing after a makebelieve biscuit. We like him already.<br />
<br />
"There's just something about him," says new Doctor Who tsar Steven Moffat, whose retooled, Smith-fronted vision of the show launches this Easter. "I don't think it's very hard to see, to be honest. You just think 'Yes, he's going to be one of the people that get to play Doctor Who, isn't he?' I always think he's a kind of Bo' Selecta caricature of a handsome man..."<br />
<br />
Can we quote him on that?<br />
<br />
"We insult each other all the time, it's fine! He's strikingly handsome but he's like a cartoon of handsome with his big sweep of hair! The first time he came in, that's what he looked like, and you just think 'You're the Doctor, you are.'<br />
<br />
"Matt famously on set is the clumsiest human being you will ever meet," adds the briskly witty, Paisley-born writer. "He just knocks things over the entire time, falls over, permanently. You veer away from him if you see him carrying a coffee, because you're going to wear it. He's quite an athlete, though. He was a great footballer when he was young so he can do the action stuff, but there's something quite shambling about him, with his bandy legs — sorry, Matt — and his wee short jacket. He can go from being quite a cool action hero to being really quite Stan Laurel, which is adorable."<br />
<br />
GOOD PEDIGREE<br />
<br />
As the writer of such New Who touchstones as "The Empty Child", "The Girl In The Fireplace" and the spooksome, generation-scarring "Blink", Moffat was always heir apparent to the show's creative hotseat. But inheriting the key to the TARDIS wasn't the obvious act of destiny you might imagine. In fact Moffat gnawed at the decision.<br />
<br />
"I took a long time to say yes," he reveals. "I've got things I will now never, ever write because Doctor Who is such a blizzard. I think it would have been a very, very difficult thing to say no to, and you would worry when you were an old man, wouldn't you? You might think that you'd accidentally lived somebody else's life if you'd said no. I remember my dad phoned me and asked me what I was up to, and I said 'Oh, I've just been offered Doctor Who.' And he said 'Well, of course you have!' said, don't know what I'm going to do...' He said, 'You're going to do it! Of course you are! Everyone knows you're going to do it!' And I suppose at that point I said yeah, I probably am..."<br />
<br />
Moffat knows he's in a different position to when Russell T Davies resurrected the show in 2005. Then it was an abandoned, antique brand, left to gather dust and fond mockery. Now it's an ITV-slamming colossus. Just how radical can he be with the BBC's flagship Saturday night show?<br />
<br />
"What, as radical as recasting it and changing all the music and all the other things?" he counters. "What else could we do? We could change him into a woman, I suppose... well, we haven't done that! You have to be radical. Doctor Who demands it of you. When Doctor Who changes it changes completely. Not only do you recast the lead, you change the lead character a bit too. That's a total no-brainer and it doesn't make me nervous at all. It really, properly doesn't. You have to make good Doctor Who. And that's not the same thing as making the same Doctor Who.<br />
<br />
"It's just Doctor Who as I always saw it. It's not nostalgic, it's not backward looking, but it is reproducing the thrill that I always got from Who. I think I've got a very good ear for what's Who and what's not Who."<br />
<br />
The choice of 26-year-old Smith as the Eleventh Doctor remains Moffat's most conspicuous creative choice. Did he have a particular kind of actor in mind for a particular kind of Doctor, or was he prepared to be surprised?<br />
<br />
"You're always prepared to be surprised," he maintains. "If you've done this before you realise you will be. But I said, and I said it repeatedly, and I've kept emails of me saying it, 'I think he'll be between 35 and 45, and I think most of the actors who can play this part are in that age group.' I was getting quite irritable at one point, saying, 'Everyone on this list is in their twenties, and there aren't enough people in their twenties who can play this part!' And I stand by that. It's absolutely true. It's just not always true, and it wasn't true in the case of Matt. Matt was pretty much the exact opposite of who I thought we would cast as Doctor Who. Except he's not. He plays the Doctor the way I saw it. He is the man. And he happened to be 26 at the time, which makes no difference.<br />
<br />
"It seemed so effortless for him, even though he didn't really know the show at the time. We were auditioning people at a very, very high level, and in a way you can't get it wrong because everyone who comes through the door is brilliant. Tonally, he has never ever been wrong. Even on his worst day he can't be — he absolutely gets the playfulness, the nuttiness, the loveableness. He's note perfect. Born that way, hardwired that way, about how Doctor Who should be. Even though, of all the people who came through the door he knew it the least well."<br />
<br />
It's a brave thing to take on, isn't it?<br />
<br />
"I think brave should be saved for abseiling," smiles Moffat. "Is it brave? What are you going to do, once you're offered it? Say no? Is that what you became an actor to do? Get offered a really, really big part to say no? Yes, it's nerve-wracking, but this is the thing that you wanted, so you do it. Of course you do."<br />
<br />
COSTUME DRAMA<br />
<br />
Smith's fogeyish togs may be the latest in fourth-dimensional chic — expect an influx of tweedy wannabes at the next convention — but as Moffat reveals, the Eleventh Doctor almost made some radically different fashion choices.<br />
<br />
"We were way, way, way down a different road with the costume, and I was very much driving it, saying he should be sort of piratey and a little bit Captain Jack Sparrow, wilder and with big coats and all that. And we had stuff made and Matt wore it, and I was absolutely ready to sign off on it. But Matt hated it! I've still got photos of him standing there, chewing his lip. And he looks fantastic, because frankly Matt would look good in a nightie. But he didn't like it. And the line he came up with was, 'I think this is how other people would dress the Doctor, I don't think the Doctor would ever dress like this himself, because that's not who he thinks he is.' He actually is an adventurer and a swashbuckler, but he thinks he's a really, really clever bloke on his way to a museum or a concert or something, somewhere he can show off... he's always getting distracted by fighting monsters.<br />
<br />
"And we're talking 20 minutes before the end of the day," Moffat continues, "on the final day before we had to unveil something. And he asked if he could put his braces on, so he put the braces on, and I think the jacket is either one of his or one very like his, with the elbow patches, and I was thinking, Well, it's alright [not convinced]...' And then he said — and I knew this was coming, because he'd become so obsessed with Patrick Troughton and "Tomb Of The Cybermen" when he'd seen it... he spent 20 minutes on the phone to me... — he said, 'Can I try a bow tie?' And I said, 'No, no, that's just the most ridiculously retro, child's eye view of what Doctor Who wears!' But still he put on the bow tie he'd brought with him, and he did look really good."<br />
<br />
Moffat gives a wry smile at the memory. "And without a song in my heart, we signed off on it, mainly because Matt was now leaping around the room with a pen, pretending it was a sonic screwdriver, saying, 'I'm Doctor Who!' In a way it's so wrong that costume — it's made of wrong! — but then you see him standing there and you think well, that's the point. The Doctor is the man who dressed wrongly. It almost says it's the Doctor — a totally inappropriately dressed man who probably thinks he's a bit cooler than he is. I think that's him!"<br />
<br />
Pick-pocketing every historical strand of British fantasy, the show's genetic mix has embraced everything from Quatermass to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. What inspired Moffat's vision of Doctor Who?<br />
<br />
"Principally Doctor Who, I imagine! Because I mainly came to things like Quatermass and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe through Doctor Who. We just nick stuff all the time. It's an absolute feature of the show that if you see a good idea that someone else has had then you just steal it and put it in Doctor Who. And there's nothing wrong with that. If it's good enough for Hamlet then it's good enough for us. But even if you imitate something else then you make it Doctor Who style, whatever that is. You're kind of doing Hammer Horror in the Generation Game slot, you're doing thrillers opposite Ant and Dec... it's a weird, almost unique flavour. It's a little bit Hammer Horror, it's a little bit showbiz, too, a little bit gameshow, a little bit Strictly. Early evening on a Saturday, that's where it belongs. And part of what makes it belong there is that still to this day it's slightly surprising that we kill all those people and have monsters attacking at 7 o'clock in the evening!"<br />
<br />
DON'T BLINK<br />
<br />
Moffat's previous tales have famously traded in intricate, time-tangling plots but that won't be the case every Saturday, he says.<br />
<br />
"If you did every episode like 'Blink' then you'd go mad. But at the same time I think it's a central part of the show that he not only travels in time but he actually lives inside in a time machine. That's where he lives, so the whole world, the whole universe, is alive to him. It's a very different perspective. The thing I keep banging on about is that he doesn't know what age he is. He's lying. How could he know, unless he's marking it on a wall? He could be 8,000 years old, he could be a million. He has no clue. The calendar will give him no clues. So yes, intricately plotted is good, and something I can bring to it. We've got some intricate shows but also some that are quite simple and epic and big.<br />
<br />
They're not all the same — they're not all written by me! 'Blink' is still probably the most complicated one that I've done but then intricate is what I default to if I haven't got time, and that was in a hurry. Since I've been permanently in a hurry this series then obviously all the episodes will be as good as 'Blink'!"<br />
<br />
He laughs, but there's an uneasy truth in there. Doctor Who does tend to trigger a giddy level of expectation. And often an ego-savaging amount of post-match analysis, too. Moffat tasted fan love for the likes of "Blink" but swore off online forums when he won the showrunner's role. Surely he'll crack once his first episode is broadcast?<br />
<br />
"No, I won't," he insists. "Nobody can avoid it completely — I see bits and people send me things, usually vicious things. I'm not swearing off the forums because I think they're stupid — I actually don't — or because they're vicious, because for the most part they're not. They're mostly wildly positive, with a few lonely people kicking up a stink. That's the absolute reality. It's just that I don't need any more of that fan voice in my head than I was born with. It's going on in here all the time anyway, like a fire alarm. I have to drown that out and make the show for the other 100% of the audience, because they're a statistically negligible amount, just a few people whose mysterious hobby is to decry endlessly a series they've ceased to enjoy watching. Whereas the correct response to ceasing to enjoy watching a series — which is fine — is to stop watching it."<br />
<br />
Moffat knows who he's making this show for. And here, perhaps, is his mission statement.<br />
<br />
"I think children will always need a hero who fights monsters but never becomes one," he tells us. "I think that's such an important story for children. And when I say children I mean children of 48. That's very central. As a myth, that's really important."<br />
<br />
SFX takes a final peep behind the black drapes that surround the makeshift spaceship interior. We see a jacketless Matt Smith, rehearsing with the men who will soon step inside the Dalek casings. They block their moves with easy laughter, trading lines about cosmic domination and death, for all the world like eternal kids at breaktime, playing Doctor Who and The Daleks.<br />
<br />
Best job in the universe, really, isn't it? SFX<br />
<br />
Doctor Who returns to BBC One on Saturday 3 April.<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
Showrunner Steven Moffat - the man with the best job in TV?<br />
<br />
Ones Moffat made earlier "The Empty Child".<br />
<br />
The Hugo-winning "The Girl In The Fireplace".<br />
<br />
And "Blink", which also won a Hugo. <br />
<br />
The Doctor meets Rory (Arthur Darvill), but what's his connection to Amy?<br />
<br />
Still dressed as his morning and wears the new Doctor crashlands on Earth.<br />
<br />
Only a few more weeks till we find out about that uniform...<br />
<br />
The Doctor is hungry, so very hungry...<br />
<br />
10 October 2009: filming continues on season opener "The Eleventh Hour". <br />
<br />
On set for episodes 4 and 5, which see the Weeping Angels return.<br />
<br />
Scenes from the fantastic series trailer, shown in 3D in cinemas.<br />
<br />
Mysterious children from the series opener - could be spooky...<br />
<br />
Amy and Rory check out a strange new patient In the hospital.<br />
<br />
Behind the scenes at the shoot, and Jon Coates' original cover sketch. <br />
----<br />
HE'S CHANGING EVERY DAY FOR ME..."<br />
<br />
Matt Smith<br />
<br />
So what sort of Doctor will you give us?<br />
<br />
The fact that I'm younger, the fact that my soul is different, my energy's different, my history's different, will all add to a different sort of Doctor. It's a part that allows for everything, every facet of you to be revealed. I hope it'll be rich and plentiful, but it's not something that I have analysed enough to have a definitive "He's this or that or the other". Because he's changing every day for me.<br />
<br />
<br />
Are you enjoying it?<br />
<br />
God, yeah. It's thrilling. It's hard work - he says so much! I can't really tell you what I was doing yesterday but it was brilliant, just brilliant - it involved a monster and me and... something brilliant. And you go, "God, this is my job, this is what I do!" You see the TARDIS there and it's just the most beautiful thing to look at. You can place it in any location and it looks like it's been painted by Picasso or Van Gogh. I'm constantly aware that it's a privilege and I feel very fortunate to have such great scripts and such a brilliant show.<br />
<br />
<br />
Did you have much of a say in the costume?<br />
<br />
I did actually, yeah. What's interesting about this particular ono Doctor's look is that it's going to constantly evolve. Steven is very keen that he's a man who gets up in the morning and wears clothes because it's cold. He's not only defined by one thing. If you look at every Doctor, every Doctor has something, and I have a bow tie. As always with this show you're dealing with history, and you go, "Oh, I can't have a scarf because Tom Baker had a scarf, I can't have a pair of Converse..." But I'm pleased, because the costume has come out of my personality, and it feels right on my body and my frame.<br />
<br />
<br />
So what's the Doctor's relationship like with Amy?<br />
<br />
Steven, in my opinion, has written the best companion. I think she's brilliant. She's a real challenge for the Doctor. The way they meet is just rather magical.<br />
<br />
<br />
Is there any hint of a romance between them?<br />
<br />
I don't know... I've only read six episodes. There might be!<br />
<br />
<br />
What can you tell us about your first story?<br />
<br />
I think there's a magic to it. Steven has written a rather brilliant fairytale, in such a magical way. The Doctor's getting to know his new body, which is just brilliant, all the great stuff that Steven's done with that. What's interesting about this particular series is that it has a thread twining through it. And you learn about that in episode one. And the Doctor's scoping it out. It's quite important for the rest of the tale.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's your birthday tomorrow!<br />
<br />
It is! 27! Oh, cracking on, aren't I! Blimey. God, another 900 years and I'm there...<br />
----<br />
"I SHOULDN'T GOOGLE MYSELF... IT'S TOO WEIRD FOR THE HEAD!'<br />
<br />
Karen Gillan<br />
<br />
<br />
What can you tell us about Amy?<br />
<br />
Amy is an incredibly sassy young lady. She's not just the Doctor's companion, she's a person in her own right. She's Amy Pond, and she doesn't always take the Doctor's word as gospel. She's very sceptical of him and doesn't trust everything he says. She's kind of this alpha female and the Doctor's the ultimate alpha male, so together they have this interesting dynamic where they're on a par and they really bounce off each other. So yeah, it's an interesting pairing.<br />
<br />
He likes feisty redheads, doesn't he? Yeah! There's a bit of a theme...<br />
<br />
<br />
We can't help but notice that you're wearing a microscopic skirt in your first episode. Is that conventional policewoman's uniform, then?<br />
<br />
Probably not, no! The thing about Amy and the Doctor's companions in general is that they have to do things in order to ensure that they're successful in their missions. And that possibly may have been one of the things she had to do...<br />
<br />
<br />
Did you Google yourself when you were first announced as the new companion?<br />
<br />
Yes, I totally did! I just started to read a few things, like articles that people had written, and then I started to read a couple of the comments and thought, "Right, I shouldn't do this, it's too weird for the head!" And then I stopped! People talking about you and projecting all these things on you... it was like, "Whoa, okay!" It's also really nice, on the other hand, because people care, and they're interested.<br />
<br />
<br />
Does it help that you and Matt are new to the show at the same time?<br />
<br />
Yeah, I feel really lucky to be going through this with someone who's also going through it at the same time. And we've kind of got this bond now, because we're sharing this amazing experience together, and hopefully that shows on screen with the characters we're playing. We're good friends.<br />
<br />
<br />
What was it like stepping into the TARDIS for the first time?<br />
<br />
The first time I walked into the inside of the TARDIS I was actually like, "Whoa...!" It was just incredible, it really was, the scale of it. And it's beautiful. I thought, "Right, this is a bit of what Amy must feel when she first walks onto it." So I just tried to call on that, really, and just exaggerate it a little bit.<br />
<br />
<br />
You've done comedy with The Kevin Bishop Show. Is Amy going to be funny?<br />
<br />
Amy is very, very witty. I think that's one of the big things about her, actually. And Steven is a really incredibly funny writer and he's given her some great one-liners, and she can really reel them off.<br />
<br />
<br />
And are you anxious about how it's all going to be received?<br />
<br />
I'm trying not to think about that, but obviously I can't help but think that the show is under so much scrutiny because it's so loved, and it's done so well before, been loved by so many. I can't help but think, "God, I hope this goes well." But we're doing our best, and I really believe that the show is good. And I hope other people do.<br />
----<br />
BEHIND THE COVER!<br />
<br />
Wondering how we scored this issue's exclusive reality-warping 3D cover? SFX art bods Jon and Catherine headed to BBC Wales In Cardiff for a very special photoshoot with new Doctor Who stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.<br />
<br />
"It's the first 3D Doctor Who cover," Jon tells us. "It's new technology, and the new Doctor seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out."<br />
<br />
"Matt bounced in," adds Catherine. "He really got into it. So much energy. He wouldn't stop moving. He kept fencing with the Sonic into the lens and shouting!"<br />
<br />
And Karen? "There was a trampoline at the side, and between shots she couldn't resist having a bit of a bounce!"<br />
<br />
Now there's an idea for our next 3D cover...<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-05_SFX.pdf&diff=32751File:2010-05 SFX.pdf2024-03-24T20:00:53Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Not_Your_Average_Jo&diff=32750Not Your Average Jo2024-03-17T20:03:23Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/0/01/2010-11_SFX_p76.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = Ian Berriman<br />
| pages = 76<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = Sarah Jane Adventures<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Sarah Jane Smith is back, and this time she's teaming up with another classic companion... and the Eleventh Doctor! Ian Berriman reports<br />
<br />
<br />
The date is 19 April 2010, and Britain is under a cloud — a cloud of volcanic ash, drifting in from Iceland. Remember that? It's all brightness and light at Upper Boat studios, home of The Sarah Jane Adventures, though, and much of it's radiating from two much-loved Doctor Who actresses. SFX is here for a read-through of a script which not only sees Sarah Jane (Lis Sladen) meet Matt Smith's Doctor but, just as excitingly, sees the return of Jon Pertwee-era companion Jo Grant to our screens after a 37-year gap. As Katy Manning (resplendent in denim dress, red scarf and towering heels) and Lis (Cheshire Cat t-shirt!) share a hug, your moment of Who history. It's a shame Matt Smith couldn't share it — flights grounded, he's stranded in the US.<br />
<br />
"Death Of The Doctor" is the title of this third of six two-parters in SIA's fourth series. Ponder that title and the presence of the Shansheeth — vulture-like intergalactic undertakers — and you can probably guess what brings together two of the Doctor's former companions in a secret UNIT base underneath Mount Snowdon...<br />
<br />
Once the reading gets underway, we discover it's a great script, both moving and uproariously funny. There are echoes of Sarah Jane's return in 2006 Who "School Reunion", and treats aplenty for old-school fans, with<br />
energy to the planet Karfel. As for Jo, the 2010 model is grown up, but certainly not grown old, a hippy nomad who's spent her life battling injustice in her own way. Afterwards, we ask Katy Manning how it feels to be back.<br />
<br />
"When I walked in I was nervous as..." she confesses. "Then everybody was so very lovely, and made me feel very welcome. And when I was reading the script and I got to that scene with the Doctor, even in just a read-through where everybody's sitting around, I felt that me nose started to run!<br />
<br />
"I've been so homesick for so many years," explains Manning, who recently returned to the UK after many years spent living in Australia, "and I don't think that anything nicer could have been offered to me. It's the best gift anybody could give somebody!"<br />
<br />
The man who wrapped that gift is the show's creator, Russell T Davies. We catch up with him several months later, once the episodes are in the can, and ask how he went about bringing back Jo. <br />
<br />
"For the first time ever, I went and watched old stuff," Davies confesses. "We used to bring back monsters and I didn't actually go and watch the old tapes, partly because I think the way you remember them is just as powerful as what they actually were. But I did go back and watch the end of '[[broadwcast:The Green Death|The Green Death]]' [Jo Grant's final story]. And I think it's really important to preserve the absolute beauty of what [producer] Barry Letts and [script editor] Terrance Dicks did there."<br />
<br />
Back in 1973, Jo left the Doctor to marry idealistic ecologist Professor Jones, joining him on a trip up the Amazon in search of a fungus that could end world hunger. In spin-off adventures, her life took a different path, but Davies was determined to remain faithful to her TV last hurrah. <br />
<br />
"We talked about it a lot beforehand," says Davies. "I know there's a feeling that she'd have got divorced, and there was a theory that she'd be living on her own in Wales in a little cottage-some of the novels did this - and you think, 'Nice idea, but actually that's absolutely betraying the way we left her'. We left her with the promise of happiness, of adventure, of love and joy, and you can't be cynical and undercut that by saying, 'Oh, she's a drug addict now! Her husband left her, she's lonely, her life is bitter'. That's just interfering with classic Doctor Who and rewriting what 'were promised. So I was absolutely t that. I wasn't supposed to write this story first of all - Phil Ford <br />
was. So when we were setting it up I said, 'You cannot make this a cynical story, and you cannot reduce her character by getting this adult draft undercutting all the beautiful memories that she left us with.' So I think I've honoured the past and got it right."<br />
<br />
People can change a lot over the course of 37 years, of course. So how did they go about deciding how Jo would have changed, and what qualities must be retained?<br />
<br />
"Well, Katy Manning is absolutely marvellous in it," says Davies. "What's so lovely about her performance is that absolute lack of cynicism — there's a real bright, sparky optimism. There are some scenes that are quite sad, and one or two lines you could play as bitter or slightly angry, and she never plays it like that; she plays it with a smile every time, and a really forgiving heart. The fact that the Doctor hasn't seen her again in all these years doesn't make her pissed off. It's lovely — there is a genuine innocence and wide-eyedness. And of course, Jo's someone who's travelled. She went off to live in the Amazon — not many people do that! She has to have got a certain amount of perspective from that — she's seen amazing things that most of us never will. You can travel in the TARDIS with the Doctor and see different planets but Jo, on Earth, has seen more amazing things than possibly any of the Doctor's other companions have."<br />
<br />
Katy's entrance is classic Jo. She enters babbling good-naturedly, tripping over, and dropping a vase full of flowers.<br />
<br />
"Well, that's famously supposed to be the way that Katy Manning auditioned — she'd forgotten her glasses and she walked in, fell over and Barry Letts said, 'Oh my god, that's the girl!' So it's riffing off that. There's all sorts of memories built into it — not just Jo Grant memories, but Doctor Who mythology memories of what people are like. As a fan, you inherit a lot of Katy Manning as well, so there are lines about her wearing glasses because of her famous short-sightedness and that sort of clumsiness, and that's actually Katy, not Jo."<br />
<br />
As a Who fan himself, how does it feel to see these two immensely popular companions meet for the first time?<br />
<br />
"The funny thing is, when you see Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith in the same scene together it's weird, because it's not as shocking as I thought it would be!" Davies admits. "I thought that'd he a real culture shock, like two eras meeting, and as a fanboy my hairs would he standing on end. But actually you watch it and it just feels right. Even though I know the history of Doctor Who very well, I sit there going, 'Good lord, have they not met before?' Then you see the two of them sitting with Matt Smith, and it all seems completely natural. And you think, 'What a good, open and reflexive mythology this is - it really absorbs anything."<br />
<br />
WHAT ABOUT WHO?<br />
<br />
This story also sees the former Who showrunner writing for the Eleventh Doctor. When Davies ruled out writing more scripts for the series, we never thought we'd see that happen.<br />
<br />
"I know!" chuckles Davies, clearly fearful our line of questioning is heading somewhere painfully obvious... "I wasn't meant to write this story, and when they phoned and said, 'You've got to write it,' literally the first thing I said was, 'I refuse to be interviewed and asked what's the difference between writing for David Tennant and Matt Smith! I refuse!'"<br />
<br />
Er, we didn't ask, actually! But now you bring it up, what's the answer?<br />
<br />
"What I did was take all my old lines of dialogue from David Tennant, and I cut them up, on laminated paper, and made them like those poetry fridge magnets! Then I took all David Tennant's words and stuck them on the fridge, and I rearranged them so Matt Smith never says a word that David Tennant didn't say — oh, except I took two lines of Patrick Troughton from '[[broadwcast:The Tomb of the Cybermen|Tomb Of The Cybermen]]' to jazz it up a bit! So that's how T wrote it, just desperately parasiting off the past!"<br />
<br />
Okay — ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. But writing for the Doctor one more time must have felt a bit weird, surely?<br />
<br />
"Thing is, it didn't really feel like writing proper Doctor Who. Also, I invented The Sarah Jane Adventures, and I haven't had a chance to write it since the pilot, and it's so nice to get a chance to. I loved writing for Clyde and Rani, and there's a really nice couple of scenes for Rani's dad, Haresh, in there that balance Haresh a bit and give him a bit of wisdom, which I think is a little bit lacking sometimes. So it's my chance to do a little bit of fine-tuning, and I really loved that. I'm so glad we did this. I'm so pleased with it, I can't begin to tell you!"<br />
<br />
The Sarah Jane Adventures series four starts on BBC One in the week commencing 11 October. "Death Of The Doctor" airs in the week commencing 25 October. Set the Sky + now, eh?<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions:<br />
<br />
Lis and Katy pose together, on the day of the read-through. <br />
<br />
In 1973's "The Green Death", Jo left to marry Professor Jones.<br />
<br />
Hang on, why Isn't Luke in school uniform? Is he bunking off?<br />
<br />
There are big changes ahead for Luke (Tommy Knight) this year...<br />
<br />
"No-one will possibly spot us if we hide behind these barrels!"<br />
<br />
The episode with the mysterious floating arm is particularly chilling.<br />
<br />
Exploding Slitheen? just a really bad cold? <br />
----<br />
"I WAS IN THE PRESENCE OF DOCTOR WHO ROYALTY!"<br />
<br />
Matt Smith talks SJA<br />
<br />
How does the Doctor get Involved with Sarah Jane and Jo? <br />
<br />
>> There are rumours of the Doctor's demise, which obviously cause Sarah Jane a great deal of concern and an understandable need to try and help by rushing to his side. Even if it may be a trap... It's drama on a grand scale, with some tense scenes inside a secret base beneath Mount Snowdon. We see the involvement of a formidable set of vulture aliens, the Shansheeth. They are known as galactic coffin bearers, so make of their presence what you will!<br />
<br />
<br />
How did you feel about taking the Doctor into one of Who's sister shows?<br />
<br />
>> Very excited! Even more so when I knew that Russell T Davies would be penning the episodes. I filmed The Sarah Jane Adventures after a period of time away from playing the Doctor and I'd really missed him. So going back to the role was fantastic.<br />
<br />
<br />
Does it give you particular pleasure to have filmed a programme aimed primarily at children?<br />
<br />
>> It does, because I think youngsters get a particular kick out of Doctor Who. They're the members of the audience who really believe what they are seeing, who literally watch episodes open-mouthed! I've got a picture on my phone of a couple of youngsters, children of somebody closely involved with Doctor Who, hiding behind a sofa while watching an episode. And that's the classic child's response to the programme - has been for generations!<br />
<br />
You're not only starring with long-time Doctor Who icon Lis Sladen but Katy Manning as well. Was that daunting? <br />
<br />
>> Well, I did feel I was in the presence of Doctor Who royalty! Both they, and their characters, go back a long way, and occasionally I'd be reminded of the show's long and glorious past. There's a scene where Sarah Jane makes reference to being stuck in a ventilation shaft, as she was during an adventure with a previous incarnation of the Doctor, and my character says, 'That takes me back - or maybe it takes me forward!' You never lose sight of the fact that you're part of a programme which has been around for a very long time and will doubtless go on for a very long time in the future, long after I've stopped playing the Doctor. Tim Oglethorpe<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Not_Your_Average_Jo&diff=32749Not Your Average Jo2024-03-17T20:02:22Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/0/01/2010-11_SFX_p76.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2010-11-01 | display date = Nov. 201..."</p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/0/01/2010-11_SFX_p76.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = Ian Berriman<br />
| pages = 76<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = The Sarah Jane Adventures<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Sarah Jane Smith is back, and this time she's teaming up with another classic companion... and the Eleventh Doctor! Ian Berriman reports<br />
<br />
<br />
The date is 19 April 2010, and Britain is under a cloud — a cloud of volcanic ash, drifting in from Iceland. Remember that? It's all brightness and light at Upper Boat studios, home of The Sarah Jane Adventures, though, and much of it's radiating from two much-loved Doctor Who actresses. SFX is here for a read-through of a script which not only sees Sarah Jane (Lis Sladen) meet Matt Smith's Doctor but, just as excitingly, sees the return of Jon Pertwee-era companion Jo Grant to our screens after a 37-year gap. As Katy Manning (resplendent in denim dress, red scarf and towering heels) and Lis (Cheshire Cat t-shirt!) share a hug, your moment of Who history. It's a shame Matt Smith couldn't share it — flights grounded, he's stranded in the US.<br />
<br />
"Death Of The Doctor" is the title of this third of six two-parters in SIA's fourth series. Ponder that title and the presence of the Shansheeth — vulture-like intergalactic undertakers — and you can probably guess what brings together two of the Doctor's former companions in a secret UNIT base underneath Mount Snowdon...<br />
<br />
Once the reading gets underway, we discover it's a great script, both moving and uproariously funny. There are echoes of Sarah Jane's return in 2006 Who "School Reunion", and treats aplenty for old-school fans, with<br />
energy to the planet Karfel. As for Jo, the 2010 model is grown up, but certainly not grown old, a hippy nomad who's spent her life battling injustice in her own way. Afterwards, we ask Katy Manning how it feels to be back.<br />
<br />
"When I walked in I was nervous as..." she confesses. "Then everybody was so very lovely, and made me feel very welcome. And when I was reading the script and I got to that scene with the Doctor, even in just a read-through where everybody's sitting around, I felt that me nose started to run!<br />
<br />
"I've been so homesick for so many years," explains Manning, who recently returned to the UK after many years spent living in Australia, "and I don't think that anything nicer could have been offered to me. It's the best gift anybody could give somebody!"<br />
<br />
The man who wrapped that gift is the show's creator, Russell T Davies. We catch up with him several months later, once the episodes are in the can, and ask how he went about bringing back Jo. <br />
<br />
"For the first time ever, I went and watched old stuff," Davies confesses. "We used to bring back monsters and I didn't actually go and watch the old tapes, partly because I think the way you remember them is just as powerful as what they actually were. But I did go back and watch the end of '[[broadwcast:The Green Death|The Green Death]]' [Jo Grant's final story]. And I think it's really important to preserve the absolute beauty of what [producer] Barry Letts and [script editor] Terrance Dicks did there."<br />
<br />
Back in 1973, Jo left the Doctor to marry idealistic ecologist Professor Jones, joining him on a trip up the Amazon in search of a fungus that could end world hunger. In spin-off adventures, her life took a different path, but Davies was determined to remain faithful to her TV last hurrah. <br />
<br />
"We talked about it a lot beforehand," says Davies. "I know there's a feeling that she'd have got divorced, and there was a theory that she'd be living on her own in Wales in a little cottage-some of the novels did this - and you think, 'Nice idea, but actually that's absolutely betraying the way we left her'. We left her with the promise of happiness, of adventure, of love and joy, and you can't be cynical and undercut that by saying, 'Oh, she's a drug addict now! Her husband left her, she's lonely, her life is bitter'. That's just interfering with classic Doctor Who and rewriting what 'were promised. So I was absolutely t that. I wasn't supposed to write this story first of all - Phil Ford <br />
was. So when we were setting it up I said, 'You cannot make this a cynical story, and you cannot reduce her character by getting this adult draft undercutting all the beautiful memories that she left us with.' So I think I've honoured the past and got it right."<br />
<br />
People can change a lot over the course of 37 years, of course. So how did they go about deciding how Jo would have changed, and what qualities must be retained?<br />
<br />
"Well, Katy Manning is absolutely marvellous in it," says Davies. "What's so lovely about her performance is that absolute lack of cynicism — there's a real bright, sparky optimism. There are some scenes that are quite sad, and one or two lines you could play as bitter or slightly angry, and she never plays it like that; she plays it with a smile every time, and a really forgiving heart. The fact that the Doctor hasn't seen her again in all these years doesn't make her pissed off. It's lovely — there is a genuine innocence and wide-eyedness. And of course, Jo's someone who's travelled. She went off to live in the Amazon — not many people do that! She has to have got a certain amount of perspective from that — she's seen amazing things that most of us never will. You can travel in the TARDIS with the Doctor and see different planets but Jo, on Earth, has seen more amazing things than possibly any of the Doctor's other companions have."<br />
<br />
Katy's entrance is classic Jo. She enters babbling good-naturedly, tripping over, and dropping a vase full of flowers.<br />
<br />
"Well, that's famously supposed to be the way that Katy Manning auditioned — she'd forgotten her glasses and she walked in, fell over and Barry Letts said, 'Oh my god, that's the girl!' So it's riffing off that. There's all sorts of memories built into it — not just Jo Grant memories, but Doctor Who mythology memories of what people are like. As a fan, you inherit a lot of Katy Manning as well, so there are lines about her wearing glasses because of her famous short-sightedness and that sort of clumsiness, and that's actually Katy, not Jo."<br />
<br />
As a Who fan himself, how does it feel to see these two immensely popular companions meet for the first time?<br />
<br />
"The funny thing is, when you see Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith in the same scene together it's weird, because it's not as shocking as I thought it would be!" Davies admits. "I thought that'd he a real culture shock, like two eras meeting, and as a fanboy my hairs would he standing on end. But actually you watch it and it just feels right. Even though I know the history of Doctor Who very well, I sit there going, 'Good lord, have they not met before?' Then you see the two of them sitting with Matt Smith, and it all seems completely natural. And you think, 'What a good, open and reflexive mythology this is - it really absorbs anything."<br />
<br />
WHAT ABOUT WHO?<br />
<br />
This story also sees the former Who showrunner writing for the Eleventh Doctor. When Davies ruled out writing more scripts for the series, we never thought we'd see that happen.<br />
<br />
"I know!" chuckles Davies, clearly fearful our line of questioning is heading somewhere painfully obvious... "I wasn't meant to write this story, and when they phoned and said, 'You've got to write it,' literally the first thing I said was, 'I refuse to be interviewed and asked what's the difference between writing for David Tennant and Matt Smith! I refuse!'"<br />
<br />
Er, we didn't ask, actually! But now you bring it up, what's the answer?<br />
<br />
"What I did was take all my old lines of dialogue from David Tennant, and I cut them up, on laminated paper, and made them like those poetry fridge magnets! Then I took all David Tennant's words and stuck them on the fridge, and I rearranged them so Matt Smith never says a word that David Tennant didn't say — oh, except I took two lines of Patrick Troughton from '[[broadwcast:Tomb of the Cybermen|Tomb Of The Cybermen]]' to jazz it up a bit! So that's how T wrote it, just desperately parasiting off the past!"<br />
<br />
Okay — ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. But writing for the Doctor one more time must have felt a bit weird, surely?<br />
<br />
"Thing is, it didn't really feel like writing proper Doctor Who. Also, I invented The Sarah Jane Adventures, and I haven't had a chance to write it since the pilot, and it's so nice to get a chance to. I loved writing for Clyde and Rani, and there's a really nice couple of scenes for Rani's dad, Haresh, in there that balance Haresh a bit and give him a bit of wisdom, which I think is a little bit lacking sometimes. So it's my chance to do a little bit of fine-tuning, and I really loved that. I'm so glad we did this. I'm so pleased with it, I can't begin to tell you!"<br />
<br />
The Sarah Jane Adventures series four starts on BBC One in the week commencing 11 October. "Death Of The Doctor" airs in the week commencing 25 October. Set the Sky + now, eh?<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions:<br />
<br />
Lis and Katy pose together, on the day of the read-through. <br />
<br />
In 1973's "The Green Death", Jo left to marry Professor Jones.<br />
<br />
Hang on, why Isn't Luke in school uniform? Is he bunking off?<br />
<br />
There are big changes ahead for Luke (Tommy Knight) this year...<br />
<br />
"No-one will possibly spot us if we hide behind these barrels!"<br />
<br />
The episode with the mysterious floating arm is particularly chilling.<br />
<br />
Exploding Slitheen? just a really bad cold? <br />
----<br />
"I WAS IN THE PRESENCE OF DOCTOR WHO ROYALTY!"<br />
<br />
Matt Smith talks SJA<br />
<br />
How does the Doctor get Involved with Sarah Jane and Jo? <br />
<br />
>> There are rumours of the Doctor's demise, which obviously cause Sarah Jane a great deal of concern and an understandable need to try and help by rushing to his side. Even if it may be a trap... It's drama on a grand scale, with some tense scenes inside a secret base beneath Mount Snowdon. We see the involvement of a formidable set of vulture aliens, the Shansheeth. They are known as galactic coffin bearers, so make of their presence what you will!<br />
<br />
<br />
How did you feel about taking the Doctor into one of Who's sister shows?<br />
<br />
>> Very excited! Even more so when I knew that Russell T Davies would be penning the episodes. I filmed The Sarah Jane Adventures after a period of time away from playing the Doctor and I'd really missed him. So going back to the role was fantastic.<br />
<br />
<br />
Does it give you particular pleasure to have filmed a programme aimed primarily at children?<br />
<br />
>> It does, because I think youngsters get a particular kick out of Doctor Who. They're the members of the audience who really believe what they are seeing, who literally watch episodes open-mouthed! I've got a picture on my phone of a couple of youngsters, children of somebody closely involved with Doctor Who, hiding behind a sofa while watching an episode. And that's the classic child's response to the programme - has been for generations!<br />
<br />
You're not only starring with long-time Doctor Who icon Lis Sladen but Katy Manning as well. Was that daunting? <br />
<br />
>> Well, I did feel I was in the presence of Doctor Who royalty! Both they, and their characters, go back a long way, and occasionally I'd be reminded of the show's long and glorious past. There's a scene where Sarah Jane makes reference to being stuck in a ventilation shaft, as she was during an adventure with a previous incarnation of the Doctor, and my character says, 'That takes me back - or maybe it takes me forward!' You never lose sight of the fact that you're part of a programme which has been around for a very long time and will doubtless go on for a very long time in the future, long after I've stopped playing the Doctor. Tim Oglethorpe<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-11_SFX_p76.pdf&diff=32748File:2010-11 SFX p76.pdf2024-03-17T20:01:08Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Mystery_diseases,_black_cats_and_the_return_of_Mad_Tom&diff=32747Mystery diseases, black cats and the return of Mad Tom2024-03-17T20:00:33Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = 2010-11 SFX p132.jpg<br />
| px = 400<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = Saxon Bullock<br />
| pages = 132<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = sound recordings<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
THE RELICS OF TIME<br />
<br />
<br />
The Mad Old Uncle of the Doctor Who universe is back and after last year's BBC series Hornet's Nest, we're getting another five-part dose of full-on eccentricity starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Demon Quest once again feels like it's been deliberately tailored to suit its one-of-a-kind leading man, as we follow the Doctor and his middle-aged housekeeper Mrs Wibbsey (Susan Jameson) on a quest through time to track down a missing component of the TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Their first stop is ancient Britain, where they get caught up in the dealings of a mysterious wizard, but while Paul Magrs's story certainly gives Baker every opportunity to be entertainingly peculiar, it's too aimless, rambling and whimsical for its own good. Even Baker's most shamelessly eccentric moments on the show weren't quite as self-indulgent as this, and while there are some fun highlights, it's more like listening to a cover version of the Fourth Doctor than the genuine article.<br />
<br />
Over at Big Finish, the latest trilogy continues with The Whispering Forest, as the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough arrive on a jungle planet where a settlement of humans are trapped in superstitious beliefs, while being preyed on by enigmatic figures called "Takers". Again, the tricky prospect of an overcrowded TARDIS actually plays rather well, as the script gives all the leads a fair share of the action, and there are excellent performances across the board, especially from the ever-reliable Peter Davison. An emotive piece of old-school Who storytelling, The Whispering Forest's various twists may not be blisteringly original but they do fit the early-'80s Who vibe extremely well, and it all leads to a doozy of a cliffhanger.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, the new run of Paul McGann adventures continues with Nevermore, as the Eighth Doctor and his new companion arrive in a bizarre prison seemingly dedicated to recreating the works of Edgar Allen Poe. They soon discover that this is all linked to an alien war criminal and an unusual black cat. There are effective twists and enjoyably arch literary in-jokes in this fast-paced and entertaining tale. Once again, this new run of Eighth Doctor stories is shaping up very nicely.<br />
<br />
Finally, the Companion Chronicles reaches back into the '60s once again, with another appearance from Second Doctor assistant Zoe Herriot (Wendy Padbury). Echoes Of Grey once again plays with the fact that Zoe's memories of the Doctor were wiped by the Time Lords, as a mysterious girl takes her on a trip into her stolen memories, to discover the secret of a sinister medical research establishment she visited with the Doctor and Jamie. Padbury gives an excellent reading, and while the story is a little too dark for the Troughton era, it's still a gripping tale with a very powerful conclusion. <br />
<br />
<br />
Out on 7 October part two of Demon Quest, new Eleventh Doctor reading The Jade Pyramid, and The Runaway Train. <br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=The_Only_Good_Dalek&diff=32746The Only Good Dalek2024-03-17T19:59:39Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = 2010-11 SFX p128.jpg<br />
| px = 400<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2020<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 128<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = books<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Action station<br />
<br />
Writer: Justin Richards<br />
<br />
Artist: Mike Collins<br />
<br />
Publisher. BBC Books 128 pages £12.99<br />
<br />
ISBN: 978-1-84607-984-9 OUT NOW!<br />
<br />
{{stars|3|3}}<br />
<br />
Given that the history of Doctor Who comics stretches back 46 years, it's rather staggering to realise that this is only the second stab at an original graphic novel (the first, fact fans, was 1994's The Age Of Chaos, published by Marvel UK and co-written by one Colin Baker). The storyline sees the Eleventh Doctor and Amy arriving at a space station, where, in the hope of gaining an edge in a century-old human/ Dalek war, researchers are striving to unlock the secrets of Dalek technology...<br />
<br />
It's something of a strange hybrid. The TARDIS lands in a recreation of a petrified forest from the Daleks' home planet (shades of "The Time Of Angels"), there are appearances by Skaro's deadly Varga plants, the Daleks' Robomen slaves and their monstrous pet the Slyther, and the Earth forces are decked out in Space Security Agent uniforms - all references to the William Hartnell era. But the tone is very much of the '80s. This is Doctor Who as script editor Eric Saward envisioned it: action-orientated fare crammed with shoot-outs and explosions, and boasting a high body count. There's little room for humour, emotion (other than anger) or, for that matter, female supporting characters.<br />
<br />
As in 1966's "[[broadwcast:The Power of the Daleks|The Power Of The Daleks]]" and last year's "Victory Of The Daleks", the tale features pepperpots who appear to have been tamed, but can't really be trusted. But the most intriguing plot element is the creation of a non-aggressive "good Dalek" through genetic engineering, a concept with echoes of not only Eccleston encounter "Dalek" and Troughton tale "[[broadwcast:The Evil of the Daleks|The Evil Of The Daleks]]", but the Fourth Doctor's mission in "[[broadwcast:Genesis of the Daleks|Genesis Of The Daleks]]". Sadly, this winning idea feels under-used, with the Doctor never forced into difficult ethical territory.<br />
<br />
As for the art by Mike Collins (a regular on Doctor Who Magazine's strip), it's a little hit-and-miss. Likenesses tend to be strong in close-up (perhaps when they correspond to publicity images?) and a little iffy elsewhere, and the overall quality is puzzlingly inconsistent, with some panels looking slick and others more like rough sketches. All in all, this debut effort from BBC Books doesn't quite live up to its landmark Status. <br />
<br />
<br />
DNA SCAN<br />
<br />
*Action! - 45% <br />
*Hartnell references - 30% <br />
*Dalek deviousness - 20% <br />
*Ogrons - 5% <br />
*Laughs - 0%<br />
<br />
The station Commander is named Tranter, possibly in homage to Jane Tranter, responsible for bringing back Who in 2005.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=The_Only_Good_Dalek&diff=32745The Only Good Dalek2024-03-17T19:59:06Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-11 SFX p128.jpg | px = 400 | height = | width = | date = 2010-11-01 | display date = Nov. 2020 | author = | pages = 128 | langua..."</p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = 2010-11 SFX p128.jpg<br />
| px = 400<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2020<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 128<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = <br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Action station<br />
<br />
Writer: Justin Richards<br />
<br />
Artist: Mike Collins<br />
<br />
Publisher. BBC Books 128 pages £12.99<br />
<br />
ISBN: 978-1-84607-984-9 OUT NOW!<br />
<br />
{{stars|3|3}}<br />
<br />
Given that the history of Doctor Who comics stretches back 46 years, it's rather staggering to realise that this is only the second stab at an original graphic novel (the first, fact fans, was 1994's The Age Of Chaos, published by Marvel UK and co-written by one Colin Baker). The storyline sees the Eleventh Doctor and Amy arriving at a space station, where, in the hope of gaining an edge in a century-old human/ Dalek war, researchers are striving to unlock the secrets of Dalek technology...<br />
<br />
It's something of a strange hybrid. The TARDIS lands in a recreation of a petrified forest from the Daleks' home planet (shades of "The Time Of Angels"), there are appearances by Skaro's deadly Varga plants, the Daleks' Robomen slaves and their monstrous pet the Slyther, and the Earth forces are decked out in Space Security Agent uniforms - all references to the William Hartnell era. But the tone is very much of the '80s. This is Doctor Who as script editor Eric Saward envisioned it: action-orientated fare crammed with shoot-outs and explosions, and boasting a high body count. There's little room for humour, emotion (other than anger) or, for that matter, female supporting characters.<br />
<br />
As in 1966's "[[broadwcast:The Power of the Daleks|The Power Of The Daleks]]" and last year's "Victory Of The Daleks", the tale features pepperpots who appear to have been tamed, but can't really be trusted. But the most intriguing plot element is the creation of a non-aggressive "good Dalek" through genetic engineering, a concept with echoes of not only Eccleston encounter "Dalek" and Troughton tale "[[broadwcast:The Evil of the Daleks|The Evil Of The Daleks]]", but the Fourth Doctor's mission in "[[broadwcast:Genesis of the Daleks|Genesis Of The Daleks]]". Sadly, this winning idea feels under-used, with the Doctor never forced into difficult ethical territory.<br />
<br />
As for the art by Mike Collins (a regular on Doctor Who Magazine's strip), it's a little hit-and-miss. Likenesses tend to be strong in close-up (perhaps when they correspond to publicity images?) and a little iffy elsewhere, and the overall quality is puzzlingly inconsistent, with some panels looking slick and others more like rough sketches. All in all, this debut effort from BBC Books doesn't quite live up to its landmark Status. <br />
<br />
<br />
DNA SCAN<br />
<br />
*Action! - 45% <br />
*Hartnell references - 30% <br />
*Dalek deviousness - 20% <br />
*Ogrons - 5% <br />
*Laughs - 0%<br />
<br />
The station Commander is named Tranter, possibly in homage to Jane Tranter, responsible for bringing back Who in 2005.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-11_SFX_p128.jpg&diff=32744File:2010-11 SFX p128.jpg2024-03-17T19:57:54Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Mystery_diseases,_black_cats_and_the_return_of_Mad_Tom&diff=32743Mystery diseases, black cats and the return of Mad Tom2024-03-17T19:56:12Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-11 SFX p132.jpg | px = 400 | height = | width = | date = 2010-11-01 | display date = Nov. 2010 | author = | pages = 132 | langua..."</p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = 2010-11 SFX p132.jpg<br />
| px = 400<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 132<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = sound recordings<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
THE RELICS OF TIME<br />
<br />
<br />
The Mad Old Uncle of the Doctor Who universe is back and after last year's BBC series Hornet's Nest, we're getting another five-part dose of full-on eccentricity starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Demon Quest once again feels like it's been deliberately tailored to suit its one-of-a-kind leading man, as we follow the Doctor and his middle-aged housekeeper Mrs Wibbsey (Susan Jameson) on a quest through time to track down a missing component of the TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Their first stop is ancient Britain, where they get caught up in the dealings of a mysterious wizard, but while Paul Magrs's story certainly gives Baker every opportunity to be entertainingly peculiar, it's too aimless, rambling and whimsical for its own good. Even Baker's most shamelessly eccentric moments on the show weren't quite as self-indulgent as this, and while there are some fun highlights, it's more like listening to a cover version of the Fourth Doctor than the genuine article.<br />
<br />
Over at Big Finish, the latest trilogy continues with The Whispering Forest, as the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough arrive on a jungle planet where a settlement of humans are trapped in superstitious beliefs, while being preyed on by enigmatic figures called "Takers". Again, the tricky prospect of an overcrowded TARDIS actually plays rather well, as the script gives all the leads a fair share of the action, and there are excellent performances across the board, especially from the ever-reliable Peter Davison. An emotive piece of old-school Who storytelling, The Whispering Forest's various twists may not be blisteringly original but they do fit the early-'80s Who vibe extremely well, and it all leads to a doozy of a cliffhanger.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, the new run of Paul McGann adventures continues with Nevermore, as the Eighth Doctor and his new companion arrive in a bizarre prison seemingly dedicated to recreating the works of Edgar Allen Poe. They soon discover that this is all linked to an alien war criminal and an unusual black cat. There are effective twists and enjoyably arch literary in-jokes in this fast-paced and entertaining tale. Once again, this new run of Eighth Doctor stories is shaping up very nicely.<br />
<br />
Finally, the Companion Chronicles reaches back into the '60s once again, with another appearance from Second Doctor assistant Zoe Herriot (Wendy Padbury). Echoes Of Grey once again plays with the fact that Zoe's memories of the Doctor were wiped by the Time Lords, as a mysterious girl takes her on a trip into her stolen memories, to discover the secret of a sinister medical research establishment she visited with the Doctor and Jamie. Padbury gives an excellent reading, and while the story is a little too dark for the Troughton era, it's still a gripping tale with a very powerful conclusion. <br />
<br />
<br />
Out on 7 October part two of Demon Quest, new Eleventh Doctor reading The Jade Pyramid, and The Runaway Train. <br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-11_SFX_p132.jpg&diff=32742File:2010-11 SFX p132.jpg2024-03-17T19:53:36Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Objects_of_Desire_(2010)&diff=32741Objects of Desire (2010)2024-03-17T19:52:52Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX <br />
| file = 2010-11 SFX p134-135.jpg<br />
| px = 550<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 134<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = merchandise<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Monsters and wotnot to tickle your fancy<br />
<br />
<br />
1 REMOTE-CONTROL DALEK<br />
<br />
Character Options Height:13cm £19.99<br />
<br />
This "Ironside" from "Victory Of The Daleks" is just one of three new remote-control models - there's also a red Drone and a blue Strategist. No doubt a white Supreme, orange Scientist and yellow Eternal are on the way why flog one Dalek when you can flog five, eh? Not that base commercial imperatives enter into the creative process, obviously.<br />
<br />
<br />
2 DOCTOR WHO KEYFOB<br />
<br />
Wow! Stuff Length: 8.5cm £5.99 <br />
<br />
Press the buttons and this emits six sound effects: the sonic; K-9 barking "Affirmative!"; a TARDIS materialisation; five Cyber-stomps, a Dalek extermination; and, bafflingly, some kind of Hath noise (huh?). Neat, although expect rapid and regular embarrassment if you actually stick your keys on it.<br />
<br />
<br />
3 DOCTOR WHO COASTERS<br />
<br />
Half Moon Bay Width:10cm £5.95 for set of four<br />
<br />
Available from: www.pulpshop.co.uk<br />
<br />
These brightly-coloured coasters feature old-school Who images: Tom Baker in "talk to the hand, girlfriend" pose, a Voc from "[[broadwcast:The Robots of Death|The Robots Of Death]]", three Daleks and the TARDIS flying past a psychedelic purple blob. That's the only one we're not loving - it's like having an acid flashback every time you reach for a cuppa.<br />
<br />
<br />
4 DOCTOR WHO FIGURES<br />
<br />
Character Options Height: 13.5cm-16cm £24.99 (double sets)/£14.99 <br />
<br />
Collecting these is becoming an expensive habit, thanks to a flood of Comic-Con exclusives. Here's a "[[broadwcast:The Claws of Axos|The Claws Of Axos]]" Axon monster/Master set, a "[[broadwcast:Planet of Fire|Planet Of Fire]]" Fifth Doctor/Master set, and a newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor. Best: the Anthony Ainley Master - it's the glaring eyes! Worst: the gutlord Axon, which seems to be wearing John McCririck-sized pants.<br />
<br />
<br />
5 ADIPOSE STRESS TOY<br />
<br />
Wow! Stuff Height:11cm 512.99<br />
<br />
There's something wrong about this, and it's not just that it feels sticky, or smells oddly like hair wax. The little fat-creatures from "Partners In Crime" are just too cute for a stress toy. It feels positively wicked to be crushing its blobby little body in your palm - like standing on a kitten, or squeezing a foetus.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Objects_of_Desire_(2010)&diff=32740Objects of Desire (2010)2024-03-17T19:52:20Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-11 SFX p134-135.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2010-11-01 | display date = Nov. 2010 | author = | pages = 134 | l..."</p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX <br />
| file = 2010-11 SFX p134-135.jpg<br />
| px = 550<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 134<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = merchandise<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Monsters and wotnot to tickle your fancy<br />
<br />
<br />
1 REMOTE-CONTROL DALEK<br />
<br />
Character Options Height:13cm £19.99<br />
<br />
This "Ironside" from "Victory Of The Daleks" is just one of three new remote-control models - there's also a red Drone and a blue Strategist. No doubt a white Supreme, orange Scientist and yellow Eternal are on the way why flog one Dalek when you can flog five, eh? Not that base commercial imperatives enter into the creative process, obviously.<br />
<br />
<br />
2 DOCTOR WHO KEYFOB<br />
<br />
Wow! Stuff Length: 8.5cm £5.99 <br />
<br />
Press the buttons and this emits six sound effects: the sonic; K-9 barking "Affirmative!"; a TARDIS materialisation; five Cyber-stomps, a Dalek extermination; and, bafflingly, some kind of Hath noise (huh?). Neat, although expect rapid and regular embarrassment if you actually stick your keys on it.<br />
<br />
<br />
3 DOCTOR WHO COASTERS<br />
<br />
Half Moon Bay Width:10cm £5.95 for set of four<br />
<br />
Available from: www.pulpshop.co.uk<br />
<br />
These brightly-coloured coasters feature old-school Who images: Tom Baker in "talk to the hand, girlfriend" pose, a Voc from "[[broadwcast:Robots of Death|The Robots Of Death]]", three Daleks and the TARDIS flying past a psychedelic purple blob. That's the only one we're not loving - it's like having an acid flashback every time you reach for a cuppa.<br />
<br />
<br />
4 DOCTOR WHO FIGURES<br />
<br />
Character Options Height: 13.5cm-16cm £24.99 (double sets)/£14.99 <br />
<br />
Collecting these is becoming an expensive habit, thanks to a flood of Comic-Con exclusives. Here's a "[[broadwcast:The Claws of Axos|The Claws Of Axos]]" Axon monster/Master set, a "[[broadwcast:Planet of Fire|Planet Of Fire]]" Fifth Doctor/Master set, and a newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor. Best: the Anthony Ainley Master - it's the glaring eyes! Worst: the gutlord Axon, which seems to be wearing John McCririck-sized pants.<br />
<br />
<br />
5 ADIPOSE STRESS TOY<br />
<br />
Wow! Stuff Height:11cm 512.99<br />
<br />
There's something wrong about this, and it's not just that it feels sticky, or smells oddly like hair wax. The little fat-creatures from "Partners In Crime" are just too cute for a stress toy. It feels positively wicked to be crushing its blobby little body in your palm - like standing on a kitten, or squeezing a foetus.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2010-11_SFX_p134-135.jpg&diff=32739File:2010-11 SFX p134-135.jpg2024-03-17T19:50:04Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Articles_by_year&diff=32738Articles by year2024-03-09T15:01:08Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div><div>Articles by year:<br />
<ul style="overflow:hidden; width:50%"><li style="width:33%;>{{#loop: yr<br />
| 1963<br />
| {{#expr: {{LOCALYEAR}} - 1963 }}<br />
| [[:Category:Articles published in {{#var:yr}}|{{#var:yr}}]] - {{#ask:[[Category:Articles published in {{#var: yr}}]] | format=count | limit=500 }}</li><li style="width:33%;><br />
}}</li></ul></div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=The_Daily_News_of_Johnson_County&diff=32737The Daily News of Johnson County2024-03-09T14:50:56Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1962<br />
|lastPublished=1985<br />
|location=Olathe, KS<br />
|website=<br />
|notes=<br />
}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=The_Daily_News_of_Johnson_County&diff=32736The Daily News of Johnson County2024-03-09T14:50:47Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{Publisher |firstPublished=1962 |lastPublished=1985 |location=Olathe, KS |website=&nbsp; |notes=&nbsp; }} {{Publication|United States}}"</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1962<br />
|lastPublished=1985<br />
|location=Olathe, KS<br />
|website=&nbsp;<br />
|notes=&nbsp;<br />
}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Help_save_%27Dr._Who%27&diff=32735Help save 'Dr. Who'2024-03-09T14:50:15Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = The Daily News of Johnson County<br />
| file = 1984-02-25 Daily News of Johnson County.jpg<br />
| px = 350<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1984-02-25<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 4A<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = letters to the editor<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Fans of one of the best science fiction T.V. shows of all time — Dr. Who — may not be able to see this very inventive show on [[broadwcast:KTWU|KTWU]] or [[broadwcast:KCPT|KCPT]] because of lack of funds. All of us who enjoy Dr. Who must write to the stations to let them know how much Dr. Who means to us, and if possible, send in a contribution. Contributions are so very important to the survival of the show.<br />
<br />
Dr. Who is a show for people of all ages and nationalities and profession. It makes you feel young. It has adventure and comedy and good special effects. The main character of the show is a true hero and humanitarian who is outraged by injustice and believes all should be free. It even takes on some of the social issues of our time. There are so many T.V. shows that insult our intelligence but Dr. Who doesn't. It stimulates our imagination about traveling thru time and space with our hero.<br />
<br />
Whenever there is a Dr. Who convention in the U. S., it is a sell-out. The stars of the show care so much for their fans and they truly enjoy meeting with them.<br />
<br />
We, as fans, must do everything we can to keep Dr. Who on KTWU and KCPT, so please write and send a contribution.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, Mary Lou Schmidt 1124 Medford Topeka, Kansas 66604<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Help_save_%27Dr._Who%27&diff=32734Help save 'Dr. Who'2024-03-09T14:49:07Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Daily News of Johnson County | file = 1984-02-25 Daily News of Johnson County.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = | date = 1984-02-25 | author = |..."</p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Daily News of Johnson County<br />
| file = 1984-02-25 Daily News of Johnson County.jpg<br />
| px = 350<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1984-02-25<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 4A<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = letters to theeditor<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
Fans of one of the best science fiction T.V. shows of all time — Dr. Who — may not be able to see this very inventive show on [[broadwcast:KTWU|KTWU]] or [[broadwcast:KCPT|KCPT]] because of lack of funds. All of us who enjoy Dr. Who must write to the stations to let them know how much Dr. Who means to us, and if possible, send in a contribution. Contributions are so very important to the survival of the show.<br />
<br />
Dr. Who is a show for people of all ages and nationalities and profession. It makes you feel young. It has adventure and comedy and good special effects. The main character of the show is a true hero and humanitarian who is outraged by injustice and believes all should be free. It even takes on some of the social issues of our time. There are so many T.V. shows that insult our intelligence but Dr. Who doesn't. It stimulates our imagination about traveling thru time and space with our hero.<br />
<br />
Whenever there is a Dr. Who convention in the U. S., it is a sell-out. The stars of the show care so much for their fans and they truly enjoy meeting with them.<br />
<br />
We, as fans, must do everything we can to keep Dr. Who on KTWU and KCPT, so please write and send a contribution.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, Mary Lou Schmidt 1124 Medford Topeka, Kansas 66604<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1984-02-25_Daily_News_of_Johnson_County.jpg&diff=32733File:1984-02-25 Daily News of Johnson County.jpg2024-03-09T14:47:49Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Bi_and_proud_with_Pearl_Mackie&diff=32732Bi and proud with Pearl Mackie2024-03-09T14:43:08Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Diva | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/6/6f/2021-11_Diva.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2021-11-01 | display date = Nov. 2021..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Diva<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/6/6f/2021-11_Diva.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2021-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2021<br />
| author = Nic Crosara<br />
| pages = 38<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = <br />
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THE STAR OF DOCTOR WHO AND THE LONG CALL OPENS UP ABOUT BI REPRESENTATION, THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND HER COMING OUT JOURNEY WORDS NIC CROSARA<br />
<br />
Pearl Mackie made our queer hearts swoon when she came out as bisexual last year. This is the first time Pearl has been interviewed by a queer magazine since that awesome day and our conversation falls on the perfect date, Bi Visibility Day. Pearl joins the Zoom call and her smile lights up the screen. She's surrounded by art, my favourite being a portrait of another bicon, Frida Kahlo.<br />
<br />
Throughout her career, Pearl has helped many of us see ourselves represented. We bond over the fact that neither of us can recall the first time we saw a bi character on TV. "There's a lot of negativity that surrounds bisexuality. We're seen as overtly sexual, that we'll sleep with anyone. Just because I'm attracted to all genders doesn't mean I'll sleep with anyone... As a whole, we are doing a lot better with queer representation, but things that don't fit into the bracket of gay or lesbian are underrepresented. I think there is room for more. Not just so that people can understand us, but so the stereotypes are shattered, because they're bullshit."<br />
<br />
When Pearl was 10, she was excited to be playing Nancy in a school production of Oliver! The Musical. Her mum took her to see it in the West End because there was a mixed race woman playing Nancy. "I was blown away and thought, 'Maybe I can actually do this for real'."<br />
<br />
Since then, Pearl has made her way into our lives through both stage and screen. Her latest on-screen role is single mum of two, DS Jen Rafferty in ITV drama The Long Call. On TV, Black single mothers are often depicted in ways that can be damaging, but Pearl's portrayal of Jen is refreshingly multidimensional. "I wanted the relationship between Jen and her kids to be realistic and loving, but nuanced. I wanted it to not be stereotyped in any way."<br />
<br />
And of course, we all loved Pearl as Bill Potts, Doctor Who's first openly gay companion. I'm curious if the role helped Pearl navigate her own sexuality. "I was more focused on the character and people's reactions to her being out and proud. The reception was overwhelmingly positive. If<br />
<br />
I was going through that and trying to navigate my sexuality, I think that would have been overwhelming." She looks back fondly on how excited young people of colour were about her character. She tells me about a Comic Con in Berlin. "One young girl came up to me. She was quite emotional. I gave her a hug. She said, 'Without you I wouldn't have been able to come out to my family'." Pearl becomes tearful. "I was able to represent myself as a queer brown woman without even knowing it. Which is surreal."<br />
<br />
When Pearl came out during Pride month, it was inspiring to see her embrace being Black, bi and proud. I ask if she can remember the events leading up to her post. "The Black Lives Matter movement had erupted, and the murder of George Floyd." Pearl describes her experiences of attending the London marches. As well as being her first time in a crowd since lockdown started, it was also "the first time I'd seen a majority Black and ethnically diverse crowd on a march ever, which was really powerful". Like many, the pandemic forced Pearl to reflect. "Social media was our means of communication. That's how the movement spread globally. I felt it was my duty to share as much as possible." Pearl eventually burnt out and took some time away from her phone. We both get choked up as she continues to tell me how this allowed her to process past experiences of racism that had happened in both her professional and personal life. "It was the first time I explored a lot of those and was honest about how they had affected me. It was cathartic, but painful. It made me think, 'I'm being so honest about so many elements of my life, I'm not being honest about my sexuality. There is so much oppression [of] Black people and queer people. There is so much to fight against, why am I fighting against myself?' I didn't want to post something for Pride as an ally. I'm a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and I want everyone to know it."<br />
<br />
Pearl tells me the relief she felt through coming out. "So then I changed my Hinge profile to girls and guys. Big up Hinge for having that, because not many do. A bit later I met my girlfriend, which was great." Pearl often posts pictures with her girlfriend, being bi and visible. It's brilliant for LGBTQI people of colour to see public figures who look like us and love like us, but I wonder how Pearl decides how much to share and what to keep private. "I'm happy to post pictures of us. I mean, we look great together. I think it's important for us to take things slowly, as slowly as you can in a relationship between two women. We are very happy."<br />
<br />
Later on that day after our call, I see Pearl share a Bi Visibility post on Instagram showing her and her girlfriend serving up Black and brown queer joy. As I read the caption, I am reminded of the potency of Pearl's visibility to our community: "Happy #bivisibilityday from your favourite fine-ass bi queens, to all of our bisexual brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings."<br />
<br />
The Long Cal is available to stream on the ITV Hub and BritBox now<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2021-11_Diva.pdf&diff=32731File:2021-11 Diva.pdf2024-03-09T14:41:26Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Whozat,_Doctor%3F&diff=32730Whozat, Doctor?2024-03-09T14:37:30Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Radio Times | file = 2023-02-25 Radio Times.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2023-02-25 | author = Huw Fullerton & Louise Griffin | pag..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Radio Times<br />
| file = 2023-02-25 Radio Times.jpg<br />
| px = 550<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2023-02-25<br />
| author = Huw Fullerton & Louise Griffin<br />
| pages = 6<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = <br />
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September 2023 marks Radio Times's 100th birthday — and in preparation for that milestone, we've been delving into our archive, unearthing a trove of unseen images. A prime example? These exclusive never-before-published photos of Doctor Who's Peter Davison in 1981, before his first episode aired the following year. Back then, he was the fresh-faced 30-year-old fifth Doctor — and now, he's a beloved part of the show's own long history.<br />
<br />
"This year is the 60th anniversary [of Doctor Who] so that's very exciting," Davison, 71, tells RT. "Now the people who grew up watching the programme when I did it are making the show, and presumably the same thing will happen in the future. The lunatics are running the asylum!"<br />
<br />
Davison's Doctor made a surprise return in Jodie Whittaker's swansong last year. "Although the programme looks much better with all the special effects on the screen, it's still made with the same degree of chaos and panic," he says, "Nobody knew what the heck they were doing. So nothing really ever changes!"<br />
<br />
Caption: BATTING CLEVER Peter Davison's incarnation of the Time Lord had a passion for cricket. He was photographed by Radio Times in 1981 during filming at Buckhurst Park in East Sussex<br />
<br />
Caption: DOCTOR NOW Peter Davison at this year's Radio Times Covers Party<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2023-02-25_Radio_Times.jpg&diff=32729File:2023-02-25 Radio Times.jpg2024-03-09T14:36:25Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=All_Change&diff=32728All Change2024-03-03T22:04:03Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/5a/1996-06_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1996-06-01<br />
| display date = June 1996<br />
| author = Garry Jenkins, Paul Cornell<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = TV movie<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
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| text = <br />
DOCTOR WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH A FEW REGENERATIONS IN ITS TIME, BUT NEVER ONE AS SIGNIFICANT AS THIS. AS FANS WAIT BREATHLESS FOR THE NEW US TV MOVIE , GARRY JENKINS TALKS TO CAST AND CREW, INCLUDING THE NEW WHO HIMSELF, PAUL MCGANN, ABOUT THE TRIALS OF BEING A TIME LORD... <br />
<br />
The good citizens of Vancouver are used to the weird [[broadwcast:Canada|Canada]]'s West Coast capital is, after all, the spiritual home of Mulder and Scully. But on a brutally cold January night, in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alleyway in the heart of the city's bustling Chinatown, the semi-lit silhouette of a blue, London police box is drawing curious glances from the locals... <br />
<br />
The faces of the few who stop to investigate grow even more perplexed when they're filled in on the news that their city is playing host to a series that pre-dates The X-Files - currently filming a few miles away - by a good 30 years. You can imagine the ensuing conversation, an exchange straight out of a bad Benny Hill dream...<br />
<br />
"It's called Doctor Who."<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who?"<br />
<br />
"That's its name, Doctor Who..." etc. etc.<br />
<br />
In the third of a century since he first materialised on our television screens, the Doctor's oddball, sonic screwdriver-wielding magic may have cast its spell in some of the farthest flung corners of our planet - he's <br />
big in [[broadwcast:Brazil|Brazil]] and [[broadwcast:Zimbabwe|Zimbabwe]], for example - but to the inhabitants of this particular corner of Canada, many of whom are recent arrivals from [[broadwcast:Hong Kong|Hong Kong]], he's still a distinct nonentity compared to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the martial arts heroes on the window posters of the neighbourhood video stores.<br />
<br />
Not for much longer, however. At least if the group of well-insulated figures pacing up and down at the other end of this windy alleyway have anything to do with it. If producers Philip Segal and Pete Ware, and English director Geoffrey , Sax, can pull it off, Doctor Who will soon not only be big in this part of Vancouver, but the world over, familiar to everyone from Eskimos to Red Indians. Global domination, like it was back in many of the episodes in the original series, is the name of the game. Soon, everyone will be humming that old, electronic theme tune: du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb...<br />
<br />
Perhaps. If things go to plan. At the moment, they're certainly not going to budget...<br />
<br />
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, DOCTOR Who has been one of the UK's great institutions, as quintessentially English as leaves on the line and Lady Penelope, cricket and Commander James Bond. But just like Bond, the famous Time Lord's been out of commission for most of the '90s, where he was once considered to have run out of steam in the age of the World Wide Web.<br />
<br />
Now, however, he's back. Vancouver is the setting for a $5 million new Doctor Who adventure being made as a co-production between Universal Television and BBC Worldwide. And just as Bond returned at the wheel of a German BMW, equipped with an Irish accent, so the Doctor has rematerialised, complete with a new set of multinational modifications.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor in a line begun so memorably by the late William Hartnell, is an Englishman, albeit one with the unmistakable glint of Emerald Isle mischief in his darting green eyes. But there's a distinctly American flavour to the rest of the cast, hardly surprising given that the first story of the decade is set in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999. Eric Roberts, the brother of Hollywood star Julia, is portraying the Doctor's nemesis The Master, while Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Daphne Ashbrook is Dr Grace Holloway, the latest "companion" to hitch a ride in the Time Lord's TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Those of you fretting already at the Americanisation of our best-loved science fiction series need not lose too much sleep, though. As executive producer Phil Segal is at pains to point out, this is definitely not an American Doctor Who. "We have to protect the integrity of the franchise," he explains. "That's why the BBC was so unhappy with the show in its later years because it was written down to; it became silly. If you do cross that line then you shouldn't do it. We are not crossing that line."<br />
<br />
In Segal, it seems, Doctor Who has found as safe and protective a pair of hands as it could have found anywhere in Hollywood. Born in Southend, the former casting director and literary agent has a passion for The Doctor and an encyclopaedic grasp of the series' history that would shame the most devoted of Whovians. You suspect he probably knows the Gallifreyan for "franchise." He certainly seems to have a "Seal of Rassilon" fixation, as the famous swirly pattern from the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey is, at Segal's request, plastered just about everywhere in the new TARDIS, from the walls to the ornate feet at the bottom of the new central control column.<br />
<br />
But, bizarrely, Segal may not stay on board as producer if the TV movie does spawn a series. Even as writers, allegedly including Terrance Dicks (script editor on the original Doctor Who during the Pertwee years), are in preliminary talks about further scripts, Segal has admitted that a series would probably be overseen by another producer. It might have something to do with his perfectionism pushing the pilot over budget by $1 million. He's refusing to be drawn on the subject.<br />
<br />
Which is a shame, because if anyone could pull off the high-wire act of blending the traditional values of Doctor Who with the Hollywoodesque elements vital for success on network American television it was Segal.<br />
<br />
The casting of Paul McGann is yet further evidence of his intent to remain as faithful as possible to the feel of the original series. At 36, McGann is younger than any of the previous Doctors, admittedly, but his features are also more familiar to international audiences, thanks to successful parts in the likes of booze-sodden classic Withnail and I, Alan Bleasdale's Establishment-rattling TV series The Monocled Mutineer and the curiously creepy medical thriller Paper Mask, McGann will also bring a touch of the scallywag Scouse into the TARDIS; he'll be more John Lennon than Jon Pertwee.<br />
<br />
"I thought it was important to have a hero that was a little more accessible to a broader audience," explains Segal. Strangely enough, it was one of McGann's less successful roles, in the City yuppie drama Dealers, that persuaded the producer that this was his Time Lord. "There was an incredible sparkle in his eyes," remembers Segal. "I've seen mad scientist looks and celebrity looks, and I've seen a lot of talented people who wanted to do this show. But McGann had something else...<br />
<br />
"To me he's a cross between Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Those two for me solidified the alien quality of the character, with a lot of whimsy and humour. And a lot of fun," he says. "1 think that Paul really is the epitome of those two characters. And I think this is going to make him a big star in the United States."<br />
<br />
IN THE WARMTH OF A HOTEL ROOM THE NEXT MORNING, PAUL McGANN is behaving more like the down-to-earth guy he is than a megastar-in-waiting. He's deep in thought about where he would venture in time and space if he were given the keys to the TARDIS... Suddenly, he snaps into life, eyes as bright as Anfield on a wet Wednesday night. "I would like to go back to 1959, which is when I was born, and when Shankly took over at Liverpool," he says excitedly.<br />
<br />
"I would like to go back and shake his hand. He came in and it all started. He told everybody what was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't the Messiah, maybe he was John The Baptist. Let's get Biblical! Do you know he was offered the job at Anfield in 1952 and he turned it down?"<br />
<br />
He goes on, the bit between his teeth, determined not to be knocked off the ball, a conversational Ian Callaghan: "Guess why? They wouldn't let him pick the team! The board picked the team in those days. But he was offered the job again seven years later — and he took it. The first thing he did was sort out the toilets at the Oakfield Road end. The second thing he did was make us the world's best football team. Good old Bill."<br />
<br />
McGann has been in Vancouver now for over a month. He admits he was lost at first, slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of playing a character he grew up with in Liverpool in the '60s and '70s. "Doctor Who is like the BBC equivalent of Ambassador to the United States. It's big. It's I, a big thing," he enthuses.<br />
<br />
The fact that he's so full of beans this morning can probably be attributed to three factors — the copious amounts of coffee he's been drinking, the news I've just imparted about Liverpool's midweek win over Aston Villa, and the fact he's now feeling completely at ease with a role that could transform his life.<br />
<br />
"When it was first mooted last year and I went over to see the casting agent in Los Angeles, I kept saying to myself, 'I don't want to do this — I thought Eric Idle was going to do it.' And I turned it down. I said, 'This is daft; I can't do it.' That must have been a year ago," he explains. "You can't imagine yourself saying those things, doing those things, wearing that costume... I kept saying, 'There's no way, no way. I am going to look like a tosser. And I am going to feel like a tosser.' I was being honest!"<br />
<br />
By the time he'd agreed to take the role, he'd just finished making the SAS movie, The One that Got Away for ITV and was playing a rather different kind of role on stage. "The last character I played before this was Jesus. The characters you're doing tend to dictate the kind of mood you're in," he explains.<br />
<br />
That other-worldliness only made Philip Segal and his producer Peter Ware even more convinced they had the right man for the role. "Philip kept saying, 'I know you don't think it's something you might entertain, but...,'" he laughs. McGann, however, stuck to his guns. "There was no pressure. It's easy to say no to something. Easy."<br />
<br />
The producers' master-stroke, however, was showing McGann the "bible" they'd put together for the production, a directory of Doctor Who from his origins to his enemies, his previous incarnations — as well as the adventures they envisioned for his future. "He said, 'Look at this.' They gave me the bible. It looked like some monks had done it in Dunstan in about 890AD. It gives you the whole story about where Doctor Who comes from and about his father on Gallifrey..."<br />
<br />
By now, Segal's enthusiasm for the project was becoming infectious —and McGann was hooked. For the first time he began to realise that he may actually enjoy playing the part. "As far as Phil is concerned," he explains, "there is no greater character, in its myriad possibilities. This is a go-anywhere, come-from-anywhere figure."<br />
<br />
"It was then I began to think, 'I suppose it is right.' And I generally tend to work on the principle, 'Will I have a laugh doing it?' Will I be able to do it in the right spirit?' There are actors who can manufacture to perfection — that's a gift — but I can't do it. I've got to believe in what I'm doing, and have a hoot doing it. If I don't believe in it, it looks ropey. So I decided, in the end, it would be a hoot... And it is a hoot!"<br />
<br />
SEVERAL STORYLINES WERE CONSIDERED FOR THE FIRST ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
"I think Phil Segal wanted to do one where the Doctor goes off in search of his father," explains director Geoffrey Sax. "He lands in the middle of World War II, goes to the British Museum and finds a message in a sarcophagus. He then goes back to Egypt in the time of Ramases and ends up chasing his father all over the world in different time zones. His father is a Time Lord too. I think that would be a great one to do."<br />
<br />
There was also talk of pitting The Doctor against the Daleks. "The problem with the Daleks is that they have to be able to do things that they couldn't do when we were kids. We had some drawings of new Daleks done, but it was financial in the end. If the franchise is successful I'm sure they'll feature," explains Segal.<br />
<br />
In the end, writer Matthew Jacobs came up with a story involving The Doctor and his auld enemy The Master. While transporting his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey, The Master slips loose and forces the TARDIS down to Earth, San Francisco, on the edge of the millennium, 31 December 1999.<br />
<br />
Fans should have no problems with the storyline. Nor should they complain about the sfx, which will finally bring The Doctor screaming and kicking into the age of computer-generated graphics and matte-paintings.<br />
<br />
Of course, there will be no escaping the wrath of the hardcore Whovians at some point. "We are not going to make everyone happy."<br />
<br />
Segal concedes with a shrug. But if there's one element guaranteed to set the crustier members foaming at the mouth it's the revelation that — shock, horror! — the Doctor enjoys his first serious screen kiss. Yes, McGann and Ashbrook will be seen in not just one, but several screen clinches.<br />
<br />
"I think it's part of the '90s. Yes, the Doctor is a bachelor, but he's a creature of habit, and of love and passion. He is passionate about what he is and what he does," Segal protests. And anyhow, he adds, sex is not an entirely new addition to the series. Remember the Amazonian, chamois-leather clad Leela (Louise Jameson) during Tom Baker's reign? "There was lots of sex appeal there," he offers...<br />
<br />
PAUL MCGANN WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS FIRST<br />
<br />
broadcast on 23 November 1963. William Hartnell will always remain the definitive Doctor as far as McGann is concerned; he reminded him of two terrifying figures in his childhood. "We had this cruel but fair master at<br />
<br />
Ir school with white hair. He was an enormous man. Seddon his name was. He was desperate that we would never forget him. Everyone loved to hate him. He was the one who used to dish out the cane," he recalls.<br />
<br />
"His hair looked premature. We used to ask, 'Sir, how did you get your white hair?' And he would say: 'Because I was a rear turret gunner.' He looked like Bill Hartnell — he was scary. That was partly down to the fact that, to me, he was part Seddon and part the Hack's man."<br />
<br />
The Hack's man?<br />
<br />
"Remember the cough sweets Hack's? Bill looked like the bloke on the wrapper who was about to explode into the world's biggest sneeze," he says, laughing.<br />
<br />
More importantly, McGann reckons Hartnell had the air of a master of the universe, a genius who could float through time and space at will. "He has hung out with Mozart. He's a genius. But where he comes from he's a bit of a young upstart, a maverick. He left and slammed the door. With Hartnell you believed it all."<br />
<br />
Other Doctors paled in comparison. "They were not high church," hi. says, once more lapsing into another of his religious metaphors. The Catholic imagery continues as the actor goes on to explain why the Yeti were the creatures most likely to send him diving behind the McGann living room sofa. "I wasn't scared of Daleks. Go on, show us a Dalek that ran upstairs," he explains. "But the Yetis scared me. What it might have been, looking back, was that we were — are — Catholic boys and at that time in the mid-'60s we were in church almost every day. There was one of these sacred heart statues there. His shirt or robe is drawn back and there, exposed, is his heart. It's the size of a heart and it's quite graphic. Sometimes it might have a crown of thorns around it. And the top of the heart is made to look like Golgotha with a crucifix in it. Scary stuff for a seven year old..."<br />
<br />
But the worst is yet to come. "I remember kneeling there, looking at the beating heart of Jesus, and the next thing, the Yetis are on," he remembers. "And what happens? The Yeti's chest opens up and there's this beating heart. A red throbbing heart! fit's actually a silver ball, but wiry point that out while McGann's in full flow? — Ed] It comes out and goes down the hall. That did it for me. I was going, 'Aaahh!'"<br />
<br />
It's an image that never quite left him. "Even ten years ago, when I finally ended up going to the Himalayas, I was lying there on the first night and thinking, 'Ooooh Yetis!'" McGann leans forward, an extra twinkle in his eye, and drops his voice to a whisper. "It was probably a semi-religious experience."<br />
<br />
His humour is infectious and natural, so too is his down-to-earth demeanour. He often self-censors any lapses into the language of "luvviedom" by apologising for sounding like "a desperate thesp."<br />
<br />
Ever since he burst on the scene in the wonderful Withnail and I —recently re-released — he's been one of the more interesting actors at work in this country. In films from The Monocled Mutineer and Paper Mask to Ken Russell's The Rainbow, he's conjured up an air of appealing edginess and dangerous energy. As Doctor Who, you sense he might take greater risks than any of his seven small-screen predecessors.<br />
<br />
To a certain section of the population, he'll always remain one of the McGann brothers — his brothers Mark, Steve and Joe are all successful actors — but Paul himself has done nothing to dissuade that view, and recently starred with his siblings in The Hanging Gale, the BBC drama set in famine-ravaged Ireland in the mid-19th century.<br />
<br />
Predictably, there'll be two sides to the celebrity Doctor Who will bestow on him. The price of fame he's not looking forward to is the one dished out by the tabloids. "For someone who is awkwardly private like me it will be difficult," he admits. But coping with the series' vast legions of fans will be something he'll grow into, he suspects.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sylvester McCoy, the previous Doctor, is offering plenty of support. He's already terrified his long-time friend with tales of his experiences amid the most obsessive of Whovians — "McCoy was at a convention in Texas once and someone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of being shot?' laughs McGann — but he's equally aware of the affection fans have for the character. "A couple of days after I was given this gig, this guy wrote to The Independent, a top Whovian. He was saying you are going to have to brush up on your so-and-so-calculus and astrophysics because you are going to have to waffle on about this for years to come!'<br />
<br />
He admits, however; that playing the Doctor full-time will not be easy. "For me, McCoy is really gifted — he can go to these things and act soft and give them what they want," he confesses. "He's an entertainer. I'm not like that. Still, I'm sure you'll find me doing readings soon enough!"<br />
<br />
However, he's unsure how long he might want to play the role: "They've got me on a contract to do this movie, then everything is contingent on whether it gets picked up," he says. "Everyone's chuffed that it is going well, but the viewers might hate it. Who knows?<br />
<br />
"I am only just realising now the depths of people's feelings about the show," he adds, another rapscallion grin spreading across his face. "Some people will love me; some will hate me. It's like being an MP or Stan Collymore. Which is fair play..."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is being released on video in this country soon after it airs in America on 14 May. The BBC are mooting the last weekend in May as a possible UK airdate, though this is subject to change at the 11Ith hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
----<br />
The Director Geoffrey Sax<br />
<br />
ACCLAIMED BRITISH TV DIRECTOR GEOFFREY SAX REVEALS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DOCTOR'S BOLDEST TV MOVIE.<br />
<br />
One of the most respected film-makers in British television, Sax has an impressive CV, from ITV comedies like The New Statesman (for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy) to popular BBC dramas like Lovejoy and Bergerac.<br />
<br />
So his Doctor Who is clearly going to be flavoured with a healthy pinch of ingredients drawn from his earlier work. In fact, Sax is convinced that blending humour with high-tech action is the key to resurrecting The Doctor.<br />
<br />
"I hope it's something that will keep people on the edge of their seats but also make them laugh," he explains.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, who plays his companion, Dr Grace Holloway, have been a major asset in Sax's search for comic subtlety. "The first thing we shot was in Grace's apartment. I rehearsed it a day or two before and I knew as soon as I got up to the set with them that the chemistry between the two was extraordinary. She has got this great comic timing."<br />
<br />
And Sax knew from the beginning that the most difficult element would be making audiences on both sides of the Atlantic happy.<br />
<br />
"We have to assume the majority of the audience has not seen this character before," he explains. "You have to keep to the traditions, but also set some new rules. When I worked on the script that's what I worked on, making sure it worked for both audiences without it being a mid-Atlantic compromise and a mess."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the script is filled with moments that will be familiar to Who fans — the voice of the Daleks at the very beginning, for instance. "To those who know, it will raise a smile," he says, "to those that don't it's simply some alien being. But it still makes sense dramatically to both audiences."<br />
<br />
For all the gentle comedy Sax hopes to evoke, there's no escaping the fact that for many the film will stand or fall on the quality of its action and special effects. The director admits he's had most fun working on the film's more spectacular scenes... "It's important it's fast-paced. So I always try to keep the camera moving," he says.<br />
<br />
There are many ambitious set-pieces too, from shoot-outs and car chases to the apocalyptic showdown between The Doctor and The Master too. Sax makes no secrets where he draws his inspiration from: "I often think, 'How would James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do this?' They are the sort of people who weave magic into films... If I had $50 million to make this, how would I do it? Then it's a case of how can I make it look like I had $50 million!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: British director Geoffrey Sax regarded the TV movie as a kind of "comedy thriller."<br />
----<br />
The Designer Richard Hudolin<br />
<br />
AMERICAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD HUDOLIN REVEALS HOW HE'S BRINGING WHO INTO THE '90S.<br />
<br />
<br />
You start doing your research," bemoans designer Richard Hudolin, "and you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God, they've handed you the Crown Jewels and expect you to do something with it!'"<br />
<br />
But if giving the new Who movie a distinctive, futuristic look by dressing up Vancouver locations was a hard task, designing a new version of the series' trademark TARDIS was an even bigger challenge...<br />
<br />
Viewed from the outside, the famous time machine is an authentic replica of the original, recreated from original BBC blueprints.<br />
<br />
But the cozy familiarity presents a stark contrast to what lies inside...<br />
<br />
On a cavernous sound stage, Hudolin has created a set that's part Jules Verne, part HG Wells and part Bram Stoker. The interior is a Victorian gentleman's reading room and a monument to the magpie habits of a time traveller. Next door, the cloister room - home of the Eye of Destiny has the appearance of a vast, sinister Gothic cathedral.<br />
<br />
Hudolin's previous credits offer plenty of clues to his influences. As well as being art director on an impressive range of movies (TimeCop, K2, Stakeout and Little Women), Hudolin has also worked on television series, including Sherlock Holmes Returns for CBS and Dracula for the Famous Players TV station in Canada.<br />
<br />
At the heart of the room stands the familiar control console, with Its distinctive crystal column. But the chamber itself has been re-designed to convey the idea of infinity. "Between the cloister and the control room, the idea was to have a 'MObius strip,' with no inside, no outside, and lots of things going on," explains Hudolin.<br />
<br />
"The producer Phil Segal said we could do anything we wanted. He told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted. If you want to create a feeling of space and infinity then you don't need walls or rooms; you need areas, with all Tie Doctor's things around him:"<br />
<br />
His previous experience on science fiction movies helped with some of his ideas. "I did a film years ago called HyperSapien, with Harry Lange, the production designer who worked on 2001," explains Hudolin. "That fell into the sphere where you're mixing reality with what is the future."<br />
<br />
The sheer size of the set is also reminiscent of the work Hudolin did on Superman Ill, where he assisted award-winning designer Terry Ackland Snow. "When you work with those kind of people you get a sense of scale. The TARDIS has got a 24-foot ceiling, because Pete Ware [one of the show's producers] asked how big we could make it, and I said I'll take it as high as it will go. Because you need grandness. You can't put The Doctor into a cubby hole."<br />
<br />
He was encouraged by English director Geoffrey Sax. "He wanted it to be very theatrical," reveals Hudolin. But he also designed the set so it would complement Sax's plans to use atmospheric lighting. "A lot of the set is designed to help the director of photography. As the rotor starts to work on the console there's this blue light that casts a glow," he explains.<br />
<br />
Hudolin admits reinventing the TARDIS has been one of the most enjoyable challenges of his career. He's well aware, however, how critical Who fans will be about his work. "I was not scared by that," he says. "That's part of the fun of it. In the end it's design. There's no right or wrong."<br />
<br />
"Producer Phil Segal said we could do anythinq we wanted. he told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Richard Hudolin's sets were designed with the director's ideas for lighting in mind.<br />
----<br />
The Master Eric Roberts<br />
<br />
<br />
PLAYING THE DOCTOR'S ARCH ENEMY IS A RIGHT LAUGH, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO ACTOR ERIC ROBERTS...<br />
<br />
Eric Roberts was just a typical 18 year old RADA student slumming it in London when, in 1973, he first cast eyes on Doctor Who...<br />
<br />
"I just loved it. It was really fun, really cheesy," he recalls. When, late last year, word got to him that Universal Television were working on a new movie version of the same show, he told his agent to move — and fast.<br />
<br />
"I offered my services," he explains. The Oscar-nominated actor, whose stormy black looks have never left him short of bad guy offers, had never forgotten the most sinister of all the Doctor's enemies. "The first time I saw the Master, he was a big, black, glob with eyes," he laughs. "He was the all-foreboding evil force. I said: 'If you're doing Doctor Who, I would love to play somebody crazy. I would love to play the Master."'<br />
<br />
Fulfilling his wish in Vancouver has, he admits been "a blast." In Matthew Jacobs' screenplay, The Master has materialised in America on New Year's Eve, 1999 and plans to wreak a little millennium mischief...<br />
<br />
Roberts confesses that his first two weeks in his latest evil guise has once more reminded him of the old truism about the bad guys being more fun.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely more fun. You get to carry weapons, you get to wear great suits. And you've always got a way with the babes," he admits.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, the Atlanta, Georgia raised Roberts and the Liverpudlian McGann don't appear to have much in common. But in fact, both actors went to the same drama school. "It turned out we'd had all of the same teachers!" says Roberts.<br />
<br />
Since he graduated from RADA, Roberts' career has been a roller-coaster ride. His debut movie, King of the Gypsies, alerted Hollywood and in the mid-'80s Runaway Train, with Jon Voight, won him an Oscar nomination. But in latter years he has had to live in the shadow of his little sister, Julia.<br />
<br />
His latest movie, an AIDS drama called It's My Party, has once more pushed him back into the limelight. However, his main priority at present is to have fun on set. "In my 20s, even my early 30s, I was always in a hurry to find that good script. But there's no hurry. I'll keep looking and when it shows up I'll be thrilled," he says.<br />
<br />
Roberts is understandably reluctant to reveal The Master's fate at the end of the movie. But he says he'd love to appear in a new series: "I like Paul's work so much that if he wanted me back on it I'd show up in a minute."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Julia Roberts' brother Eric takes over from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley in the role of the Doctor's nemesis, The Master.<br />
----<br />
Grace Holloway<br />
<br />
Daphne Ashbrook<br />
<br />
ACTRESS DAPHNE ASHBROOK, ALIAS THE DOCTOR'S NEW ASSISTANT, ON WHY SNOGGING A TIME LORD ISN'T EASY...<br />
<br />
Science fiction is not a line of work alien to Daphne Ashbrook.<br />
<br />
Among her many TV credits is the pilot of CBS television's UFO-abduction series intruders back in 1992 and an appearance in Deep Space Nine. Intruders even stimulated a real-life interest in the unexplained. "During Intruders, I got into the whole thing and met a lot of people who claim to be abductees," she explains. "I started collecting clips of film. But I don't believe it is fiction. I believe it's real." One thing Ashbrook did have a problem believing, however, was the existence of an incredibly successful genre TV series which she'd never even heard of.<br />
<br />
"I wasn't familiar with it at all," she admits, feigning embarrassment. But then she found herself cast as The Doctor's new assistant, Dr Grace Holloway — and with only two days to prepare herself to join the Who production in Vancouver!<br />
<br />
"I still haven't seen any [of the old series].To know about all that other stuff — for an actress I'm not sure that would actually help me."<br />
<br />
The relationship between the two Doctors is set to generate the hottest debate when the film airs on this side of the Atlantic. Grace stirs up feelings that have remained dormant in the Time Lord for hundreds of years. In fact, their first romantic moment came almost as soon as she arrived on set in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
"It was right at the beginning and we were a little shy of each other," she remembers. "I would like to have been a little more comfortable, I just didn't know him. It was weird — 'Hello, nice to meet you... Let's kiss!'"<br />
<br />
She knew McGann through Withnail and I. "But I haven't seen much else of his," she says. She is convinced, however, that he will win Doctor Who a completely new set of followers:. "Women will go crazy for him."<br />
<br />
For Ashbrook, the daughter of theatrical parents, working with McGann has made a pleasant change from the formula froth of American shows like Falcon Crest, all talking heads and pouting close-ups: "I'm not used to having an opportunity to work with an actor. It's all about the camera in America." And of the Who experience, she enthuses: "I'm having the best time I have ever had."<br />
<br />
The prospect of being a part of another science fiction production also fascinates her ("This is all up my alley") — and now she is fully aware of Doctor Who and its infinite appeal, Ashbrook is adamant she would have no hesitation in accepting an invitation to voyage inside the new TARDIS: "I would be a perfect companion." Ask her which moment in time and history she'd like him to transport her to and her reply comes quick-as-a-flash: "I want to be here when the aliens arrive..."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Daphne Ashbrook plays the Doctor's latest companion, Dr Grace Holloway.<br />
<br />
Caption: Holloway doesn't follow the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of the story, but could return, says Ashbrook. She does a mean Dana Scully impression, too.<br />
----<br />
Caption: A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
Caption: The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
---- ONE ELEMENT OF THE ORIGINAL SERIES I'HE NEW DOCTOR WHO MOVIE WON'T BE ABLE TO EMULATE IS THE CLIFFHANGER EPISODE ENDINGS. SO HERE'S SFX'S TRIBUTE TO THE BEST AND WORST OF 26 SEASONS OF SUDDEN CLOSE-UPS, COLLATED BY PAUL CORNELL...<br />
<br />
THE BEST...<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Daleks|THE DALEKS]] (1963), episode one<br />
<br />
Original companion Barbara has some sort of orgasm at the approach of what appears to be a rubber sink plunger.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Dalek Invasion of Earth|THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH]] (1964), episode one<br />
<br />
A Dalek rises out of the Thames and induces a fit of overacting in William Hartnell. But what was it doing there?<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Tomb of the Cybermen|THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN]] (1967), episode two<br />
<br />
The Cyberleader points to the humans and says: "You belong to us, you will be like us," which sounds like the opening line of a Village People song.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Mind Robber|THE MIND ROBBER]] (1968), episode one<br />
<br />
The TARDIS explodes, and the console, (and Zoe's bottom), spin off into space, with Zoe and Jamie clutching onto it.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Invasion|THE INVASION]] (1968), episode six<br />
<br />
The Cybermen march down the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. Those steps lead to the Thames. Is there something down there we should know about?<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Green Death|THE GREEN DEATH]] (1973), episode three <br />
<br />
A Freudian giant maggot creeps up on Jo Grant as she considers her sexual feelings for Professor Jones.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Deadly Assassin|THE DEADLY ASSASSIN]] (1976), episode three<br />
<br />
Goth holds Tom Baker's head underwater. And holds it. And holds it. And Mary Whitehouse gets in a tizz.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Curse of Fenric|THE CURSE OF FENRIC]] (1989), episode three: Professor Judson has been possessed by Fenric. "We play the contest again, Time Lord!" he growls. Villains still say "Time Lord" like we would say "Bum Face."<br />
<br />
<br />
AND THE WORST...<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Moonbase|THE MOONBASE]] (1967), episode two<br />
<br />
A cyberman stumbles to his feet off a bed where he's pretending to be a sick crewman. And they expect us to believe nobody noticed?<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Underwater Menace|THE UNDERWATER MENACE]] (1967), episode three<br />
<br />
Professor Zaroff throws his head back like something out of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and cries: "Nothing in ze vorld can stop me now!"<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Invasion of the Dinosaurs|INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS]] (1974), most of them <br />
<br />
Episodes one, two, and five end with a rubber T-Rex appearing in front of the Doctor and roaring badly.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Planet of the Spiders|PLANET OF THE SPIDERS]] (1974), episode two At the end of a dull chase, our heroes catch up with Lupton's craft, only to discover that, er, he's not in it. Ho hum.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Stones of Blood|THE STONES OF BLOOD]] (1978), episode one<br />
<br />
Romana's walking across a large, flat, moor, with no cliffs in sight, then suddenly falls down a vertiginous cliff-face above a boiling sea. Serves her right for walking backwards, really.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Five Doctors|THE FIVE DOCTORS]] (1983), episodic version, episode three <br />
<br />
The Master walks down a flight of stairs. Roll credits!<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Trial of a Time Lord|THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD]] (1986), episodes one, four to eight and 11 to 13 <br />
<br />
Colin Baker pulls a funny face as he's threatened with something slight and incomprehensible.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Dragonfire|DRAGONFIRE]] (1987), episode one<br />
<br />
The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), for no adequately explained reason (except that no other cliffhanger seems imminent), climbs off the edge of a cliff and hangs there. Is this an in-joke?<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=All_Change&diff=32727All Change2024-03-03T21:54:35Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/5a/1996-06_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1996-06-01<br />
| display date = June 1996<br />
| author = Garry Jenkins, Paul Cornell<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = TV movie<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
DOCTOR WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH A FEW REGENERATIONS IN ITS TIME, BUT NEVER ONE AS SIGNIFICANT AS THIS. AS FANS WAIT BREATHLESS FOR THE NEW US TV MOVIE , GARRY JENKINS TALKS TO CAST AND CREW, INCLUDING THE NEW WHO HIMSELF, PAUL MCGANN, ABOUT THE TRIALS OF BEING A TIME LORD... <br />
<br />
The good citizens of Vancouver are used to the weird [[broadwcast:Canada|Canada]]'s West Coast capital is, after all, the spiritual home of Mulder and Scully. But on a brutally cold January night, in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alleyway in the heart of the city's bustling Chinatown, the semi-lit silhouette of a blue, London police box is drawing curious glances from the locals... <br />
<br />
The faces of the few who stop to investigate grow even more perplexed when they're filled in on the news that their city is playing host to a series that pre-dates The X-Files - currently filming a few miles away - by a good 30 years. You can imagine the ensuing conversation, an exchange straight out of a bad Benny Hill dream...<br />
<br />
"It's called Doctor Who."<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who?"<br />
<br />
"That's its name, Doctor Who..." etc. etc.<br />
<br />
In the third of a century since he first materialised on our television screens, the Doctor's oddball, sonic screwdriver-wielding magic may have cast its spell in some of the farthest flung corners of our planet - he's <br />
big in [[broadwcast:Brazil|Brazil]] and [[broadwcast:Zimbabwe|Zimbabwe]], for example - but to the inhabitants of this particular corner of Canada, many of whom are recent arrivals from [[broadwcast:Hong Kong|Hong Kong]], he's still a distinct nonentity compared to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the martial arts heroes on the window posters of the neighbourhood video stores.<br />
<br />
Not for much longer, however. At least if the group of well-insulated figures pacing up and down at the other end of this windy alleyway have anything to do with it. If producers Philip Segal and Pete Ware, and English director Geoffrey , Sax, can pull it off, Doctor Who will soon not only be big in this part of Vancouver, but the world over, familiar to everyone from Eskimos to Red Indians. Global domination, like it was back in many of the episodes in the original series, is the name of the game. Soon, everyone will be humming that old, electronic theme tune: du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb...<br />
<br />
Perhaps. If things go to plan. At the moment, they're certainly not going to budget...<br />
<br />
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, DOCTOR Who has been one of the UK's great institutions, as quintessentially English as leaves on the line and Lady Penelope, cricket and Commander James Bond. But just like Bond, the famous Time Lord's been out of commission for most of the '90s, where he was once considered to have run out of steam in the age of the World Wide Web.<br />
<br />
Now, however, he's back. Vancouver is the setting for a $5 million new Doctor Who adventure being made as a co-production between Universal Television and BBC Worldwide. And just as Bond returned at the wheel of a German BMW, equipped with an Irish accent, so the Doctor has rematerialised, complete with a new set of multinational modifications.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor in a line begun so memorably by the late William Hartnell, is an Englishman, albeit one with the unmistakable glint of Emerald Isle mischief in his darting green eyes. But there's a distinctly American flavour to the rest of the cast, hardly surprising given that the first story of the decade is set in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999. Eric Roberts, the brother of Hollywood star Julia, is portraying the Doctor's nemesis The Master, while Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Daphne Ashbrook is Dr Grace Holloway, the latest "companion" to hitch a ride in the Time Lord's TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Those of you fretting already at the Americanisation of our best-loved science fiction series need not lose too much sleep, though. As executive producer Phil Segal is at pains to point out, this is definitely not an American Doctor Who. "We have to protect the integrity of the franchise," he explains. "That's why the BBC was so unhappy with the show in its later years because it was written down to; it became silly. If you do cross that line then you shouldn't do it. We are not crossing that line."<br />
<br />
In Segal, it seems, Doctor Who has found as safe and protective a pair of hands as it could have found anywhere in Hollywood. Born in Southend, the former casting director and literary agent has a passion for The Doctor and an encyclopaedic grasp of the series' history that would shame the most devoted of Whovians. You suspect he probably knows the Gallifreyan for "franchise." He certainly seems to have a "Seal of Rassilon" fixation, as the famous swirly pattern from the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey is, at Segal's request, plastered just about everywhere in the new TARDIS, from the walls to the ornate feet at the bottom of the new central control column.<br />
<br />
But, bizarrely, Segal may not stay on board as producer if the TV movie does spawn a series. Even as writers, allegedly including Terrance Dicks (script editor on the original Doctor Who during the Pertwee years), are in preliminary talks about further scripts, Segal has admitted that a series would probably be overseen by another producer. It might have something to do with his perfectionism pushing the pilot over budget by $1 million. He's refusing to be drawn on the subject.<br />
<br />
Which is a shame, because if anyone could pull off the high-wire act of blending the traditional values of Doctor Who with the Hollywoodesque elements vital for success on network American television it was Segal.<br />
<br />
The casting of Paul McGann is yet further evidence of his intent to remain as faithful as possible to the feel of the original series. At 36, McGann is younger than any of the previous Doctors, admittedly, but his features are also more familiar to international audiences, thanks to successful parts in the likes of booze-sodden classic Withnail and I, Alan Bleasdale's Establishment-rattling TV series The Monocled Mutineer and the curiously creepy medical thriller Paper Mask, McGann will also bring a touch of the scallywag Scouse into the TARDIS; he'll be more John Lennon than Jon Pertwee.<br />
<br />
"I thought it was important to have a hero that was a little more accessible to a broader audience," explains Segal. Strangely enough, it was one of McGann's less successful roles, in the City yuppie drama Dealers, that persuaded the producer that this was his Time Lord. "There was an incredible sparkle in his eyes," remembers Segal. "I've seen mad scientist looks and celebrity looks, and I've seen a lot of talented people who wanted to do this show. But McGann had something else...<br />
<br />
"To me he's a cross between Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Those two for me solidified the alien quality of the character, with a lot of whimsy and humour. And a lot of fun," he says. "1 think that Paul really is the epitome of those two characters. And I think this is going to make him a big star in the United States."<br />
<br />
IN THE WARMTH OF A HOTEL ROOM THE NEXT MORNING, PAUL McGANN is behaving more like the down-to-earth guy he is than a megastar-in-waiting. He's deep in thought about where he would venture in time and space if he were given the keys to the TARDIS... Suddenly, he snaps into life, eyes as bright as Anfield on a wet Wednesday night. "I would like to go back to 1959, which is when I was born, and when Shankly took over at Liverpool," he says excitedly.<br />
<br />
"I would like to go back and shake his hand. He came in and it all started. He told everybody what was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't the Messiah, maybe he was John The Baptist. Let's get Biblical! Do you know he was offered the job at Anfield in 1952 and he turned it down?"<br />
<br />
He goes on, the bit between his teeth, determined not to be knocked off the ball, a conversational Ian Callaghan: "Guess why? They wouldn't let him pick the team! The board picked the team in those days. But he was offered the job again seven years later — and he took it. The first thing he did was sort out the toilets at the Oakfield Road end. The second thing he did was make us the world's best football team. Good old Bill."<br />
<br />
McGann has been in Vancouver now for over a month. He admits he was lost at first, slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of playing a character he grew up with in Liverpool in the '60s and '70s. "Doctor Who is like the BBC equivalent of Ambassador to the United States. It's big. It's I, a big thing," he enthuses.<br />
<br />
The fact that he's so full of beans this morning can probably be attributed to three factors — the copious amounts of coffee he's been drinking, the news I've just imparted about Liverpool's midweek win over Aston Villa, and the fact he's now feeling completely at ease with a role that could transform his life.<br />
<br />
"When it was first mooted last year and I went over to see the casting agent in Los Angeles, I kept saying to myself, 'I don't want to do this — I thought Eric Idle was going to do it.' And I turned it down. I said, 'This is daft; I can't do it.' That must have been a year ago," he explains. "You can't imagine yourself saying those things, doing those things, wearing that costume... I kept saying, 'There's no way, no way. I am going to look like a tosser. And I am going to feel like a tosser.' I was being honest!"<br />
<br />
By the time he'd agreed to take the role, he'd just finished making the SAS movie, The One that Got Away for ITV and was playing a rather different kind of role on stage. "The last character I played before this was Jesus. The characters you're doing tend to dictate the kind of mood you're in," he explains.<br />
<br />
That other-worldliness only made Philip Segal and his producer Peter Ware even more convinced they had the right man for the role. "Philip kept saying, 'I know you don't think it's something you might entertain, but...,'" he laughs. McGann, however, stuck to his guns. "There was no pressure. It's easy to say no to something. Easy."<br />
<br />
The producers' master-stroke, however, was showing McGann the "bible" they'd put together for the production, a directory of Doctor Who from his origins to his enemies, his previous incarnations — as well as the adventures they envisioned for his future. "He said, 'Look at this.' They gave me the bible. It looked like some monks had done it in Dunstan in about 890AD. It gives you the whole story about where Doctor Who comes from and about his father on Gallifrey..."<br />
<br />
By now, Segal's enthusiasm for the project was becoming infectious —and McGann was hooked. For the first time he began to realise that he may actually enjoy playing the part. "As far as Phil is concerned," he explains, "there is no greater character, in its myriad possibilities. This is a go-anywhere, come-from-anywhere figure."<br />
<br />
"It was then I began to think, 'I suppose it is right.' And I generally tend to work on the principle, 'Will I have a laugh doing it?' Will I be able to do it in the right spirit?' There are actors who can manufacture to perfection — that's a gift — but I can't do it. I've got to believe in what I'm doing, and have a hoot doing it. If I don't believe in it, it looks ropey. So I decided, in the end, it would be a hoot... And it is a hoot!"<br />
<br />
SEVERAL STORYLINES WERE CONSIDERED FOR THE FIRST ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
"I think Phil Segal wanted to do one where the Doctor goes off in search of his father," explains director Geoffrey Sax. "He lands in the middle of World War II, goes to the British Museum and finds a message in a sarcophagus. He then goes back to Egypt in the time of Ramases and ends up chasing his father all over the world in different time zones. His father is a Time Lord too. I think that would be a great one to do."<br />
<br />
There was also talk of pitting The Doctor against the Daleks. "The problem with the Daleks is that they have to be able to do things that they couldn't do when we were kids. We had some drawings of new Daleks done, but it was financial in the end. If the franchise is successful I'm sure they'll feature," explains Segal.<br />
<br />
In the end, writer Matthew Jacobs came up with a story involving The Doctor and his auld enemy The Master. While transporting his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey, The Master slips loose and forces the TARDIS down to Earth, San Francisco, on the edge of the millennium, 31 December 1999.<br />
<br />
Fans should have no problems with the storyline. Nor should they complain about the sfx, which will finally bring The Doctor screaming and kicking into the age of computer-generated graphics and matte-paintings.<br />
<br />
Of course, there will be no escaping the wrath of the hardcore Whovians at some point. "We are not going to make everyone happy."<br />
<br />
Segal concedes with a shrug. But if there's one element guaranteed to set the crustier members foaming at the mouth it's the revelation that — shock, horror! — the Doctor enjoys his first serious screen kiss. Yes, McGann and Ashbrook will be seen in not just one, but several screen clinches.<br />
<br />
"I think it's part of the '90s. Yes, the Doctor is a bachelor, but he's a creature of habit, and of love and passion. He is passionate about what he is and what he does," Segal protests. And anyhow, he adds, sex is not an entirely new addition to the series. Remember the Amazonian, chamois-leather clad Leela (Louise Jameson) during Tom Baker's reign? "There was lots of sex appeal there," he offers...<br />
<br />
PAUL MCGANN WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS FIRST<br />
<br />
broadcast on 23 November 1963. William Hartnell will always remain the definitive Doctor as far as McGann is concerned; he reminded him of two terrifying figures in his childhood. "We had this cruel but fair master at<br />
<br />
Ir school with white hair. He was an enormous man. Seddon his name was. He was desperate that we would never forget him. Everyone loved to hate him. He was the one who used to dish out the cane," he recalls.<br />
<br />
"His hair looked premature. We used to ask, 'Sir, how did you get your white hair?' And he would say: 'Because I was a rear turret gunner.' He looked like Bill Hartnell — he was scary. That was partly down to the fact that, to me, he was part Seddon and part the Hack's man."<br />
<br />
The Hack's man?<br />
<br />
"Remember the cough sweets Hack's? Bill looked like the bloke on the wrapper who was about to explode into the world's biggest sneeze," he says, laughing.<br />
<br />
More importantly, McGann reckons Hartnell had the air of a master of the universe, a genius who could float through time and space at will. "He has hung out with Mozart. He's a genius. But where he comes from he's a bit of a young upstart, a maverick. He left and slammed the door. With Hartnell you believed it all."<br />
<br />
Other Doctors paled in comparison. "They were not high church," hi. says, once more lapsing into another of his religious metaphors. The Catholic imagery continues as the actor goes on to explain why the Yeti were the creatures most likely to send him diving behind the McGann living room sofa. "I wasn't scared of Daleks. Go on, show us a Dalek that ran upstairs," he explains. "But the Yetis scared me. What it might have been, looking back, was that we were — are — Catholic boys and at that time in the mid-'60s we were in church almost every day. There was one of these sacred heart statues there. His shirt or robe is drawn back and there, exposed, is his heart. It's the size of a heart and it's quite graphic. Sometimes it might have a crown of thorns around it. And the top of the heart is made to look like Golgotha with a crucifix in it. Scary stuff for a seven year old..."<br />
<br />
But the worst is yet to come. "I remember kneeling there, looking at the beating heart of Jesus, and the next thing, the Yetis are on," he remembers. "And what happens? The Yeti's chest opens up and there's this beating heart. A red throbbing heart! fit's actually a silver ball, but wiry point that out while McGann's in full flow? — Ed] It comes out and goes down the hall. That did it for me. I was going, 'Aaahh!'"<br />
<br />
It's an image that never quite left him. "Even ten years ago, when I finally ended up going to the Himalayas, I was lying there on the first night and thinking, 'Ooooh Yetis!'" McGann leans forward, an extra twinkle in his eye, and drops his voice to a whisper. "It was probably a semi-religious experience."<br />
<br />
His humour is infectious and natural, so too is his down-to-earth demeanour. He often self-censors any lapses into the language of "luvviedom" by apologising for sounding like "a desperate thesp."<br />
<br />
Ever since he burst on the scene in the wonderful Withnail and I —recently re-released — he's been one of the more interesting actors at work in this country. In films from The Monocled Mutineer and Paper Mask to Ken Russell's The Rainbow, he's conjured up an air of appealing edginess and dangerous energy. As Doctor Who, you sense he might take greater risks than any of his seven small-screen predecessors.<br />
<br />
To a certain section of the population, he'll always remain one of the McGann brothers — his brothers Mark, Steve and Joe are all successful actors — but Paul himself has done nothing to dissuade that view, and recently starred with his siblings in The Hanging Gale, the BBC drama set in famine-ravaged Ireland in the mid-19th century.<br />
<br />
Predictably, there'll be two sides to the celebrity Doctor Who will bestow on him. The price of fame he's not looking forward to is the one dished out by the tabloids. "For someone who is awkwardly private like me it will be difficult," he admits. But coping with the series' vast legions of fans will be something he'll grow into, he suspects.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sylvester McCoy, the previous Doctor, is offering plenty of support. He's already terrified his long-time friend with tales of his experiences amid the most obsessive of Whovians — "McCoy was at a convention in Texas once and someone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of being shot?' laughs McGann — but he's equally aware of the affection fans have for the character. "A couple of days after I was given this gig, this guy wrote to The Independent, a top Whovian. He was saying you are going to have to brush up on your so-and-so-calculus and astrophysics because you are going to have to waffle on about this for years to come!'<br />
<br />
He admits, however; that playing the Doctor full-time will not be easy. "For me, McCoy is really gifted — he can go to these things and act soft and give them what they want," he confesses. "He's an entertainer. I'm not like that. Still, I'm sure you'll find me doing readings soon enough!"<br />
<br />
However, he's unsure how long he might want to play the role: "They've got me on a contract to do this movie, then everything is contingent on whether it gets picked up," he says. "Everyone's chuffed that it is going well, but the viewers might hate it. Who knows?<br />
<br />
"I am only just realising now the depths of people's feelings about the show," he adds, another rapscallion grin spreading across his face. "Some people will love me; some will hate me. It's like being an MP or Stan Collymore. Which is fair play..."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is being released on video in this country soon after it airs in America on 14 May. The BBC are mooting the last weekend in May as a possible UK airdate, though this is subject to change at the 11Ith hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
----<br />
The Director Geoffrey Sax<br />
<br />
ACCLAIMED BRITISH TV DIRECTOR GEOFFREY SAX REVEALS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DOCTOR'S BOLDEST TV MOVIE.<br />
<br />
One of the most respected film-makers in British television, Sax has an impressive CV, from ITV comedies like The New Statesman (for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy) to popular BBC dramas like Lovejoy and Bergerac.<br />
<br />
So his Doctor Who is clearly going to be flavoured with a healthy pinch of ingredients drawn from his earlier work. In fact, Sax is convinced that blending humour with high-tech action is the key to resurrecting The Doctor.<br />
<br />
"I hope it's something that will keep people on the edge of their seats but also make them laugh," he explains.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, who plays his companion, Dr Grace Holloway, have been a major asset in Sax's search for comic subtlety. "The first thing we shot was in Grace's apartment. I rehearsed it a day or two before and I knew as soon as I got up to the set with them that the chemistry between the two was extraordinary. She has got this great comic timing."<br />
<br />
And Sax knew from the beginning that the most difficult element would be making audiences on both sides of the Atlantic happy.<br />
<br />
"We have to assume the majority of the audience has not seen this character before," he explains. "You have to keep to the traditions, but also set some new rules. When I worked on the script that's what I worked on, making sure it worked for both audiences without it being a mid-Atlantic compromise and a mess."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the script is filled with moments that will be familiar to Who fans — the voice of the Daleks at the very beginning, for instance. "To those who know, it will raise a smile," he says, "to those that don't it's simply some alien being. But it still makes sense dramatically to both audiences."<br />
<br />
For all the gentle comedy Sax hopes to evoke, there's no escaping the fact that for many the film will stand or fall on the quality of its action and special effects. The director admits he's had most fun working on the film's more spectacular scenes... "It's important it's fast-paced. So I always try to keep the camera moving," he says.<br />
<br />
There are many ambitious set-pieces too, from shoot-outs and car chases to the apocalyptic showdown between The Doctor and The Master too. Sax makes no secrets where he draws his inspiration from: "I often think, 'How would James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do this?' They are the sort of people who weave magic into films... If I had $50 million to make this, how would I do it? Then it's a case of how can I make it look like I had $50 million!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: British director Geoffrey Sax regarded the TV movie as a kind of "comedy thriller."<br />
----<br />
The Designer Richard Hudolin<br />
<br />
AMERICAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD HUDOLIN REVEALS HOW HE'S BRINGING WHO INTO THE '90S.<br />
<br />
<br />
You start doing your research," bemoans designer Richard Hudolin, "and you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God, they've handed you the Crown Jewels and expect you to do something with it!'"<br />
<br />
But if giving the new Who movie a distinctive, futuristic look by dressing up Vancouver locations was a hard task, designing a new version of the series' trademark TARDIS was an even bigger challenge...<br />
<br />
Viewed from the outside, the famous time machine is an authentic replica of the original, recreated from original BBC blueprints.<br />
<br />
But the cozy familiarity presents a stark contrast to what lies inside...<br />
<br />
On a cavernous sound stage, Hudolin has created a set that's part Jules Verne, part HG Wells and part Bram Stoker. The interior is a Victorian gentleman's reading room and a monument to the magpie habits of a time traveller. Next door, the cloister room - home of the Eye of Destiny has the appearance of a vast, sinister Gothic cathedral.<br />
<br />
Hudolin's previous credits offer plenty of clues to his influences. As well as being art director on an impressive range of movies (TimeCop, K2, Stakeout and Little Women), Hudolin has also worked on television series, including Sherlock Holmes Returns for CBS and Dracula for the Famous Players TV station in Canada.<br />
<br />
At the heart of the room stands the familiar control console, with Its distinctive crystal column. But the chamber itself has been re-designed to convey the idea of infinity. "Between the cloister and the control room, the idea was to have a 'MObius strip,' with no inside, no outside, and lots of things going on," explains Hudolin.<br />
<br />
"The producer Phil Segal said we could do anything we wanted. He told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted. If you want to create a feeling of space and infinity then you don't need walls or rooms; you need areas, with all Tie Doctor's things around him:"<br />
<br />
His previous experience on science fiction movies helped with some of his ideas. "I did a film years ago called HyperSapien, with Harry Lange, the production designer who worked on 2001," explains Hudolin. "That fell into the sphere where you're mixing reality with what is the future."<br />
<br />
The sheer size of the set is also reminiscent of the work Hudolin did on Superman Ill, where he assisted award-winning designer Terry Ackland Snow. "When you work with those kind of people you get a sense of scale. The TARDIS has got a 24-foot ceiling, because Pete Ware [one of the show's producers] asked how big we could make it, and I said I'll take it as high as it will go. Because you need grandness. You can't put The Doctor into a cubby hole."<br />
<br />
He was encouraged by English director Geoffrey Sax. "He wanted it to be very theatrical," reveals Hudolin. But he also designed the set so it would complement Sax's plans to use atmospheric lighting. "A lot of the set is designed to help the director of photography. As the rotor starts to work on the console there's this blue light that casts a glow," he explains.<br />
<br />
Hudolin admits reinventing the TARDIS has been one of the most enjoyable challenges of his career. He's well aware, however, how critical Who fans will be about his work. "I was not scared by that," he says. "That's part of the fun of it. In the end it's design. There's no right or wrong."<br />
<br />
"Producer Phil Segal said we could do anythinq we wanted. he told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Richard Hudolin's sets were designed with the director's ideas for lighting in mind.<br />
----<br />
The Master Eric Roberts<br />
<br />
<br />
PLAYING THE DOCTOR'S ARCH ENEMY IS A RIGHT LAUGH, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO ACTOR ERIC ROBERTS...<br />
<br />
Eric Roberts was just a typical 18 year old RADA student slumming it in London when, in 1973, he first cast eyes on Doctor Who...<br />
<br />
"I just loved it. It was really fun, really cheesy," he recalls. When, late last year, word got to him that Universal Television were working on a new movie version of the same show, he told his agent to move — and fast.<br />
<br />
"I offered my services," he explains. The Oscar-nominated actor, whose stormy black looks have never left him short of bad guy offers, had never forgotten the most sinister of all the Doctor's enemies. "The first time I saw the Master, he was a big, black, glob with eyes," he laughs. "He was the all-foreboding evil force. I said: 'If you're doing Doctor Who, I would love to play somebody crazy. I would love to play the Master."'<br />
<br />
Fulfilling his wish in Vancouver has, he admits been "a blast." In Matthew Jacobs' screenplay, The Master has materialised in America on New Year's Eve, 1999 and plans to wreak a little millennium mischief...<br />
<br />
Roberts confesses that his first two weeks in his latest evil guise has once more reminded him of the old truism about the bad guys being more fun.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely more fun. You get to carry weapons, you get to wear great suits. And you've always got a way with the babes," he admits.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, the Atlanta, Georgia raised Roberts and the Liverpudlian McGann don't appear to have much in common. But in fact, both actors went to the same drama school. "It turned out we'd had all of the same teachers!" says Roberts.<br />
<br />
Since he graduated from RADA, Roberts' career has been a roller-coaster ride. His debut movie, King of the Gypsies, alerted Hollywood and in the mid-'80s Runaway Train, with Jon Voight, won him an Oscar nomination. But in latter years he has had to live in the shadow of his little sister, Julia.<br />
<br />
His latest movie, an AIDS drama called It's My Party, has once more pushed him back into the limelight. However, his main priority at present is to have fun on set. "In my 20s, even my early 30s, I was always in a hurry to find that good script. But there's no hurry. I'll keep looking and when it shows up I'll be thrilled," he says.<br />
<br />
Roberts is understandably reluctant to reveal The Master's fate at the end of the movie. But he says he'd love to appear in a new series: "I like Paul's work so much that if he wanted me back on it I'd show up in a minute."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Julia Roberts' brother Eric takes over from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley in the role of the Doctor's nemesis, The Master.<br />
----<br />
Grace Holloway<br />
<br />
Daphne Ashbrook<br />
<br />
ACTRESS DAPHNE ASHBROOK, ALIAS THE DOCTOR'S NEW ASSISTANT, ON WHY SNOGGING A TIME LORD ISN'T EASY...<br />
<br />
Science fiction is not a line of work alien to Daphne Ashbrook.<br />
<br />
Among her many TV credits is the pilot of CBS television's UFO-abduction series intruders back in 1992 and an appearance in Deep Space Nine. Intruders even stimulated a real-life interest in the unexplained. "During Intruders, I got into the whole thing and met a lot of people who claim to be abductees," she explains. "I started collecting clips of film. But I don't believe it is fiction. I believe it's real." One thing Ashbrook did have a problem believing, however, was the existence of an incredibly successful genre TV series which she'd never even heard of.<br />
<br />
"I wasn't familiar with it at all," she admits, feigning embarrassment. But then she found herself cast as The Doctor's new assistant, Dr Grace Holloway — and with only two days to prepare herself to join the Who production in Vancouver!<br />
<br />
"I still haven't seen any [of the old series].To know about all that other stuff — for an actress I'm not sure that would actually help me."<br />
<br />
The relationship between the two Doctors is set to generate the hottest debate when the film airs on this side of the Atlantic. Grace stirs up feelings that have remained dormant in the Time Lord for hundreds of years. In fact, their first romantic moment came almost as soon as she arrived on set in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
"It was right at the beginning and we were a little shy of each other," she remembers. "I would like to have been a little more comfortable, I just didn't know him. It was weird — 'Hello, nice to meet you... Let's kiss!'"<br />
<br />
She knew McGann through Withnail and I. "But I haven't seen much else of his," she says. She is convinced, however, that he will win Doctor Who a completely new set of followers:. "Women will go crazy for him."<br />
<br />
For Ashbrook, the daughter of theatrical parents, working with McGann has made a pleasant change from the formula froth of American shows like Falcon Crest, all talking heads and pouting close-ups: "I'm not used to having an opportunity to work with an actor. It's all about the camera in America." And of the Who experience, she enthuses: "I'm having the best time I have ever had."<br />
<br />
The prospect of being a part of another science fiction production also fascinates her ("This is all up my alley") — and now she is fully aware of Doctor Who and its infinite appeal, Ashbrook is adamant she would have no hesitation in accepting an invitation to voyage inside the new TARDIS: "I would be a perfect companion." Ask her which moment in time and history she'd like him to transport her to and her reply comes quick-as-a-flash: "I want to be here when the aliens arrive..."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Daphne Ashbrook plays the Doctor's latest companion, Dr Grace Holloway.<br />
<br />
Caption: Holloway doesn't follow the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of the story, but could return, says Ashbrook. She does a mean Dana Scully impression, too.<br />
----<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
Caption: The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=All_Change&diff=32726All Change2024-03-03T21:54:18Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
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| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/5a/1996-06_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1996-06-01<br />
| display date = June 1996<br />
| author = Garry Jenkins, Paul Cornell<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = TV movie<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
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| text = <br />
DOCTOR WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH A FEW REGENERATIONS IN ITS TIME, BUT NEVER ONE AS SIGNIFICANT AS THIS. AS FANS WAIT BREATHLESS FOR THE NEW US TV MOVIE , GARRY JENKINS TALKS TO CAST AND CREW, INCLUDING THE NEW WHO HIMSELF, PAUL MCGANN, ABOUT THE TRIALS OF BEING A TIME LORD... <br />
<br />
The good citizens of Vancouver are used to the weird [[broadwcast:Canada||]]'s West Coast capital is, after all, the spiritual home of Mulder and Scully. But on a brutally cold January night, in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alleyway in the heart of the city's bustling Chinatown, the semi-lit silhouette of a blue, London police box is drawing curious glances from the locals... <br />
<br />
The faces of the few who stop to investigate grow even more perplexed when they're filled in on the news that their city is playing host to a series that pre-dates The X-Files - currently filming a few miles away - by a good 30 years. You can imagine the ensuing conversation, an exchange straight out of a bad Benny Hill dream...<br />
<br />
"It's called Doctor Who."<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who?"<br />
<br />
"That's its name, Doctor Who..." etc. etc.<br />
<br />
In the third of a century since he first materialised on our television screens, the Doctor's oddball, sonic screwdriver-wielding magic may have cast its spell in some of the farthest flung corners of our planet - he's <br />
big in [[broadwcast:Brazil|Brazil]] and [[broadwcast:Zimbabwe|Zimbabwe]], for example - but to the inhabitants of this particular corner of Canada, many of whom are recent arrivals from [[broadwcast:Hong Kong|Hong Kong]], he's still a distinct nonentity compared to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the martial arts heroes on the window posters of the neighbourhood video stores.<br />
<br />
Not for much longer, however. At least if the group of well-insulated figures pacing up and down at the other end of this windy alleyway have anything to do with it. If producers Philip Segal and Pete Ware, and English director Geoffrey , Sax, can pull it off, Doctor Who will soon not only be big in this part of Vancouver, but the world over, familiar to everyone from Eskimos to Red Indians. Global domination, like it was back in many of the episodes in the original series, is the name of the game. Soon, everyone will be humming that old, electronic theme tune: du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb...<br />
<br />
Perhaps. If things go to plan. At the moment, they're certainly not going to budget...<br />
<br />
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, DOCTOR Who has been one of the UK's great institutions, as quintessentially English as leaves on the line and Lady Penelope, cricket and Commander James Bond. But just like Bond, the famous Time Lord's been out of commission for most of the '90s, where he was once considered to have run out of steam in the age of the World Wide Web.<br />
<br />
Now, however, he's back. Vancouver is the setting for a $5 million new Doctor Who adventure being made as a co-production between Universal Television and BBC Worldwide. And just as Bond returned at the wheel of a German BMW, equipped with an Irish accent, so the Doctor has rematerialised, complete with a new set of multinational modifications.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor in a line begun so memorably by the late William Hartnell, is an Englishman, albeit one with the unmistakable glint of Emerald Isle mischief in his darting green eyes. But there's a distinctly American flavour to the rest of the cast, hardly surprising given that the first story of the decade is set in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999. Eric Roberts, the brother of Hollywood star Julia, is portraying the Doctor's nemesis The Master, while Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Daphne Ashbrook is Dr Grace Holloway, the latest "companion" to hitch a ride in the Time Lord's TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Those of you fretting already at the Americanisation of our best-loved science fiction series need not lose too much sleep, though. As executive producer Phil Segal is at pains to point out, this is definitely not an American Doctor Who. "We have to protect the integrity of the franchise," he explains. "That's why the BBC was so unhappy with the show in its later years because it was written down to; it became silly. If you do cross that line then you shouldn't do it. We are not crossing that line."<br />
<br />
In Segal, it seems, Doctor Who has found as safe and protective a pair of hands as it could have found anywhere in Hollywood. Born in Southend, the former casting director and literary agent has a passion for The Doctor and an encyclopaedic grasp of the series' history that would shame the most devoted of Whovians. You suspect he probably knows the Gallifreyan for "franchise." He certainly seems to have a "Seal of Rassilon" fixation, as the famous swirly pattern from the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey is, at Segal's request, plastered just about everywhere in the new TARDIS, from the walls to the ornate feet at the bottom of the new central control column.<br />
<br />
But, bizarrely, Segal may not stay on board as producer if the TV movie does spawn a series. Even as writers, allegedly including Terrance Dicks (script editor on the original Doctor Who during the Pertwee years), are in preliminary talks about further scripts, Segal has admitted that a series would probably be overseen by another producer. It might have something to do with his perfectionism pushing the pilot over budget by $1 million. He's refusing to be drawn on the subject.<br />
<br />
Which is a shame, because if anyone could pull off the high-wire act of blending the traditional values of Doctor Who with the Hollywoodesque elements vital for success on network American television it was Segal.<br />
<br />
The casting of Paul McGann is yet further evidence of his intent to remain as faithful as possible to the feel of the original series. At 36, McGann is younger than any of the previous Doctors, admittedly, but his features are also more familiar to international audiences, thanks to successful parts in the likes of booze-sodden classic Withnail and I, Alan Bleasdale's Establishment-rattling TV series The Monocled Mutineer and the curiously creepy medical thriller Paper Mask, McGann will also bring a touch of the scallywag Scouse into the TARDIS; he'll be more John Lennon than Jon Pertwee.<br />
<br />
"I thought it was important to have a hero that was a little more accessible to a broader audience," explains Segal. Strangely enough, it was one of McGann's less successful roles, in the City yuppie drama Dealers, that persuaded the producer that this was his Time Lord. "There was an incredible sparkle in his eyes," remembers Segal. "I've seen mad scientist looks and celebrity looks, and I've seen a lot of talented people who wanted to do this show. But McGann had something else...<br />
<br />
"To me he's a cross between Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Those two for me solidified the alien quality of the character, with a lot of whimsy and humour. And a lot of fun," he says. "1 think that Paul really is the epitome of those two characters. And I think this is going to make him a big star in the United States."<br />
<br />
IN THE WARMTH OF A HOTEL ROOM THE NEXT MORNING, PAUL McGANN is behaving more like the down-to-earth guy he is than a megastar-in-waiting. He's deep in thought about where he would venture in time and space if he were given the keys to the TARDIS... Suddenly, he snaps into life, eyes as bright as Anfield on a wet Wednesday night. "I would like to go back to 1959, which is when I was born, and when Shankly took over at Liverpool," he says excitedly.<br />
<br />
"I would like to go back and shake his hand. He came in and it all started. He told everybody what was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't the Messiah, maybe he was John The Baptist. Let's get Biblical! Do you know he was offered the job at Anfield in 1952 and he turned it down?"<br />
<br />
He goes on, the bit between his teeth, determined not to be knocked off the ball, a conversational Ian Callaghan: "Guess why? They wouldn't let him pick the team! The board picked the team in those days. But he was offered the job again seven years later — and he took it. The first thing he did was sort out the toilets at the Oakfield Road end. The second thing he did was make us the world's best football team. Good old Bill."<br />
<br />
McGann has been in Vancouver now for over a month. He admits he was lost at first, slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of playing a character he grew up with in Liverpool in the '60s and '70s. "Doctor Who is like the BBC equivalent of Ambassador to the United States. It's big. It's I, a big thing," he enthuses.<br />
<br />
The fact that he's so full of beans this morning can probably be attributed to three factors — the copious amounts of coffee he's been drinking, the news I've just imparted about Liverpool's midweek win over Aston Villa, and the fact he's now feeling completely at ease with a role that could transform his life.<br />
<br />
"When it was first mooted last year and I went over to see the casting agent in Los Angeles, I kept saying to myself, 'I don't want to do this — I thought Eric Idle was going to do it.' And I turned it down. I said, 'This is daft; I can't do it.' That must have been a year ago," he explains. "You can't imagine yourself saying those things, doing those things, wearing that costume... I kept saying, 'There's no way, no way. I am going to look like a tosser. And I am going to feel like a tosser.' I was being honest!"<br />
<br />
By the time he'd agreed to take the role, he'd just finished making the SAS movie, The One that Got Away for ITV and was playing a rather different kind of role on stage. "The last character I played before this was Jesus. The characters you're doing tend to dictate the kind of mood you're in," he explains.<br />
<br />
That other-worldliness only made Philip Segal and his producer Peter Ware even more convinced they had the right man for the role. "Philip kept saying, 'I know you don't think it's something you might entertain, but...,'" he laughs. McGann, however, stuck to his guns. "There was no pressure. It's easy to say no to something. Easy."<br />
<br />
The producers' master-stroke, however, was showing McGann the "bible" they'd put together for the production, a directory of Doctor Who from his origins to his enemies, his previous incarnations — as well as the adventures they envisioned for his future. "He said, 'Look at this.' They gave me the bible. It looked like some monks had done it in Dunstan in about 890AD. It gives you the whole story about where Doctor Who comes from and about his father on Gallifrey..."<br />
<br />
By now, Segal's enthusiasm for the project was becoming infectious —and McGann was hooked. For the first time he began to realise that he may actually enjoy playing the part. "As far as Phil is concerned," he explains, "there is no greater character, in its myriad possibilities. This is a go-anywhere, come-from-anywhere figure."<br />
<br />
"It was then I began to think, 'I suppose it is right.' And I generally tend to work on the principle, 'Will I have a laugh doing it?' Will I be able to do it in the right spirit?' There are actors who can manufacture to perfection — that's a gift — but I can't do it. I've got to believe in what I'm doing, and have a hoot doing it. If I don't believe in it, it looks ropey. So I decided, in the end, it would be a hoot... And it is a hoot!"<br />
<br />
SEVERAL STORYLINES WERE CONSIDERED FOR THE FIRST ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
"I think Phil Segal wanted to do one where the Doctor goes off in search of his father," explains director Geoffrey Sax. "He lands in the middle of World War II, goes to the British Museum and finds a message in a sarcophagus. He then goes back to Egypt in the time of Ramases and ends up chasing his father all over the world in different time zones. His father is a Time Lord too. I think that would be a great one to do."<br />
<br />
There was also talk of pitting The Doctor against the Daleks. "The problem with the Daleks is that they have to be able to do things that they couldn't do when we were kids. We had some drawings of new Daleks done, but it was financial in the end. If the franchise is successful I'm sure they'll feature," explains Segal.<br />
<br />
In the end, writer Matthew Jacobs came up with a story involving The Doctor and his auld enemy The Master. While transporting his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey, The Master slips loose and forces the TARDIS down to Earth, San Francisco, on the edge of the millennium, 31 December 1999.<br />
<br />
Fans should have no problems with the storyline. Nor should they complain about the sfx, which will finally bring The Doctor screaming and kicking into the age of computer-generated graphics and matte-paintings.<br />
<br />
Of course, there will be no escaping the wrath of the hardcore Whovians at some point. "We are not going to make everyone happy."<br />
<br />
Segal concedes with a shrug. But if there's one element guaranteed to set the crustier members foaming at the mouth it's the revelation that — shock, horror! — the Doctor enjoys his first serious screen kiss. Yes, McGann and Ashbrook will be seen in not just one, but several screen clinches.<br />
<br />
"I think it's part of the '90s. Yes, the Doctor is a bachelor, but he's a creature of habit, and of love and passion. He is passionate about what he is and what he does," Segal protests. And anyhow, he adds, sex is not an entirely new addition to the series. Remember the Amazonian, chamois-leather clad Leela (Louise Jameson) during Tom Baker's reign? "There was lots of sex appeal there," he offers...<br />
<br />
PAUL MCGANN WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS FIRST<br />
<br />
broadcast on 23 November 1963. William Hartnell will always remain the definitive Doctor as far as McGann is concerned; he reminded him of two terrifying figures in his childhood. "We had this cruel but fair master at<br />
<br />
Ir school with white hair. He was an enormous man. Seddon his name was. He was desperate that we would never forget him. Everyone loved to hate him. He was the one who used to dish out the cane," he recalls.<br />
<br />
"His hair looked premature. We used to ask, 'Sir, how did you get your white hair?' And he would say: 'Because I was a rear turret gunner.' He looked like Bill Hartnell — he was scary. That was partly down to the fact that, to me, he was part Seddon and part the Hack's man."<br />
<br />
The Hack's man?<br />
<br />
"Remember the cough sweets Hack's? Bill looked like the bloke on the wrapper who was about to explode into the world's biggest sneeze," he says, laughing.<br />
<br />
More importantly, McGann reckons Hartnell had the air of a master of the universe, a genius who could float through time and space at will. "He has hung out with Mozart. He's a genius. But where he comes from he's a bit of a young upstart, a maverick. He left and slammed the door. With Hartnell you believed it all."<br />
<br />
Other Doctors paled in comparison. "They were not high church," hi. says, once more lapsing into another of his religious metaphors. The Catholic imagery continues as the actor goes on to explain why the Yeti were the creatures most likely to send him diving behind the McGann living room sofa. "I wasn't scared of Daleks. Go on, show us a Dalek that ran upstairs," he explains. "But the Yetis scared me. What it might have been, looking back, was that we were — are — Catholic boys and at that time in the mid-'60s we were in church almost every day. There was one of these sacred heart statues there. His shirt or robe is drawn back and there, exposed, is his heart. It's the size of a heart and it's quite graphic. Sometimes it might have a crown of thorns around it. And the top of the heart is made to look like Golgotha with a crucifix in it. Scary stuff for a seven year old..."<br />
<br />
But the worst is yet to come. "I remember kneeling there, looking at the beating heart of Jesus, and the next thing, the Yetis are on," he remembers. "And what happens? The Yeti's chest opens up and there's this beating heart. A red throbbing heart! fit's actually a silver ball, but wiry point that out while McGann's in full flow? — Ed] It comes out and goes down the hall. That did it for me. I was going, 'Aaahh!'"<br />
<br />
It's an image that never quite left him. "Even ten years ago, when I finally ended up going to the Himalayas, I was lying there on the first night and thinking, 'Ooooh Yetis!'" McGann leans forward, an extra twinkle in his eye, and drops his voice to a whisper. "It was probably a semi-religious experience."<br />
<br />
His humour is infectious and natural, so too is his down-to-earth demeanour. He often self-censors any lapses into the language of "luvviedom" by apologising for sounding like "a desperate thesp."<br />
<br />
Ever since he burst on the scene in the wonderful Withnail and I —recently re-released — he's been one of the more interesting actors at work in this country. In films from The Monocled Mutineer and Paper Mask to Ken Russell's The Rainbow, he's conjured up an air of appealing edginess and dangerous energy. As Doctor Who, you sense he might take greater risks than any of his seven small-screen predecessors.<br />
<br />
To a certain section of the population, he'll always remain one of the McGann brothers — his brothers Mark, Steve and Joe are all successful actors — but Paul himself has done nothing to dissuade that view, and recently starred with his siblings in The Hanging Gale, the BBC drama set in famine-ravaged Ireland in the mid-19th century.<br />
<br />
Predictably, there'll be two sides to the celebrity Doctor Who will bestow on him. The price of fame he's not looking forward to is the one dished out by the tabloids. "For someone who is awkwardly private like me it will be difficult," he admits. But coping with the series' vast legions of fans will be something he'll grow into, he suspects.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sylvester McCoy, the previous Doctor, is offering plenty of support. He's already terrified his long-time friend with tales of his experiences amid the most obsessive of Whovians — "McCoy was at a convention in Texas once and someone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of being shot?' laughs McGann — but he's equally aware of the affection fans have for the character. "A couple of days after I was given this gig, this guy wrote to The Independent, a top Whovian. He was saying you are going to have to brush up on your so-and-so-calculus and astrophysics because you are going to have to waffle on about this for years to come!'<br />
<br />
He admits, however; that playing the Doctor full-time will not be easy. "For me, McCoy is really gifted — he can go to these things and act soft and give them what they want," he confesses. "He's an entertainer. I'm not like that. Still, I'm sure you'll find me doing readings soon enough!"<br />
<br />
However, he's unsure how long he might want to play the role: "They've got me on a contract to do this movie, then everything is contingent on whether it gets picked up," he says. "Everyone's chuffed that it is going well, but the viewers might hate it. Who knows?<br />
<br />
"I am only just realising now the depths of people's feelings about the show," he adds, another rapscallion grin spreading across his face. "Some people will love me; some will hate me. It's like being an MP or Stan Collymore. Which is fair play..."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is being released on video in this country soon after it airs in America on 14 May. The BBC are mooting the last weekend in May as a possible UK airdate, though this is subject to change at the 11Ith hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
----<br />
The Director Geoffrey Sax<br />
<br />
ACCLAIMED BRITISH TV DIRECTOR GEOFFREY SAX REVEALS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DOCTOR'S BOLDEST TV MOVIE.<br />
<br />
One of the most respected film-makers in British television, Sax has an impressive CV, from ITV comedies like The New Statesman (for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy) to popular BBC dramas like Lovejoy and Bergerac.<br />
<br />
So his Doctor Who is clearly going to be flavoured with a healthy pinch of ingredients drawn from his earlier work. In fact, Sax is convinced that blending humour with high-tech action is the key to resurrecting The Doctor.<br />
<br />
"I hope it's something that will keep people on the edge of their seats but also make them laugh," he explains.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, who plays his companion, Dr Grace Holloway, have been a major asset in Sax's search for comic subtlety. "The first thing we shot was in Grace's apartment. I rehearsed it a day or two before and I knew as soon as I got up to the set with them that the chemistry between the two was extraordinary. She has got this great comic timing."<br />
<br />
And Sax knew from the beginning that the most difficult element would be making audiences on both sides of the Atlantic happy.<br />
<br />
"We have to assume the majority of the audience has not seen this character before," he explains. "You have to keep to the traditions, but also set some new rules. When I worked on the script that's what I worked on, making sure it worked for both audiences without it being a mid-Atlantic compromise and a mess."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the script is filled with moments that will be familiar to Who fans — the voice of the Daleks at the very beginning, for instance. "To those who know, it will raise a smile," he says, "to those that don't it's simply some alien being. But it still makes sense dramatically to both audiences."<br />
<br />
For all the gentle comedy Sax hopes to evoke, there's no escaping the fact that for many the film will stand or fall on the quality of its action and special effects. The director admits he's had most fun working on the film's more spectacular scenes... "It's important it's fast-paced. So I always try to keep the camera moving," he says.<br />
<br />
There are many ambitious set-pieces too, from shoot-outs and car chases to the apocalyptic showdown between The Doctor and The Master too. Sax makes no secrets where he draws his inspiration from: "I often think, 'How would James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do this?' They are the sort of people who weave magic into films... If I had $50 million to make this, how would I do it? Then it's a case of how can I make it look like I had $50 million!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: British director Geoffrey Sax regarded the TV movie as a kind of "comedy thriller."<br />
----<br />
The Designer Richard Hudolin<br />
<br />
AMERICAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD HUDOLIN REVEALS HOW HE'S BRINGING WHO INTO THE '90S.<br />
<br />
<br />
You start doing your research," bemoans designer Richard Hudolin, "and you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God, they've handed you the Crown Jewels and expect you to do something with it!'"<br />
<br />
But if giving the new Who movie a distinctive, futuristic look by dressing up Vancouver locations was a hard task, designing a new version of the series' trademark TARDIS was an even bigger challenge...<br />
<br />
Viewed from the outside, the famous time machine is an authentic replica of the original, recreated from original BBC blueprints.<br />
<br />
But the cozy familiarity presents a stark contrast to what lies inside...<br />
<br />
On a cavernous sound stage, Hudolin has created a set that's part Jules Verne, part HG Wells and part Bram Stoker. The interior is a Victorian gentleman's reading room and a monument to the magpie habits of a time traveller. Next door, the cloister room - home of the Eye of Destiny has the appearance of a vast, sinister Gothic cathedral.<br />
<br />
Hudolin's previous credits offer plenty of clues to his influences. As well as being art director on an impressive range of movies (TimeCop, K2, Stakeout and Little Women), Hudolin has also worked on television series, including Sherlock Holmes Returns for CBS and Dracula for the Famous Players TV station in Canada.<br />
<br />
At the heart of the room stands the familiar control console, with Its distinctive crystal column. But the chamber itself has been re-designed to convey the idea of infinity. "Between the cloister and the control room, the idea was to have a 'MObius strip,' with no inside, no outside, and lots of things going on," explains Hudolin.<br />
<br />
"The producer Phil Segal said we could do anything we wanted. He told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted. If you want to create a feeling of space and infinity then you don't need walls or rooms; you need areas, with all Tie Doctor's things around him:"<br />
<br />
His previous experience on science fiction movies helped with some of his ideas. "I did a film years ago called HyperSapien, with Harry Lange, the production designer who worked on 2001," explains Hudolin. "That fell into the sphere where you're mixing reality with what is the future."<br />
<br />
The sheer size of the set is also reminiscent of the work Hudolin did on Superman Ill, where he assisted award-winning designer Terry Ackland Snow. "When you work with those kind of people you get a sense of scale. The TARDIS has got a 24-foot ceiling, because Pete Ware [one of the show's producers] asked how big we could make it, and I said I'll take it as high as it will go. Because you need grandness. You can't put The Doctor into a cubby hole."<br />
<br />
He was encouraged by English director Geoffrey Sax. "He wanted it to be very theatrical," reveals Hudolin. But he also designed the set so it would complement Sax's plans to use atmospheric lighting. "A lot of the set is designed to help the director of photography. As the rotor starts to work on the console there's this blue light that casts a glow," he explains.<br />
<br />
Hudolin admits reinventing the TARDIS has been one of the most enjoyable challenges of his career. He's well aware, however, how critical Who fans will be about his work. "I was not scared by that," he says. "That's part of the fun of it. In the end it's design. There's no right or wrong."<br />
<br />
"Producer Phil Segal said we could do anythinq we wanted. he told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Richard Hudolin's sets were designed with the director's ideas for lighting in mind.<br />
----<br />
The Master Eric Roberts<br />
<br />
<br />
PLAYING THE DOCTOR'S ARCH ENEMY IS A RIGHT LAUGH, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO ACTOR ERIC ROBERTS...<br />
<br />
Eric Roberts was just a typical 18 year old RADA student slumming it in London when, in 1973, he first cast eyes on Doctor Who...<br />
<br />
"I just loved it. It was really fun, really cheesy," he recalls. When, late last year, word got to him that Universal Television were working on a new movie version of the same show, he told his agent to move — and fast.<br />
<br />
"I offered my services," he explains. The Oscar-nominated actor, whose stormy black looks have never left him short of bad guy offers, had never forgotten the most sinister of all the Doctor's enemies. "The first time I saw the Master, he was a big, black, glob with eyes," he laughs. "He was the all-foreboding evil force. I said: 'If you're doing Doctor Who, I would love to play somebody crazy. I would love to play the Master."'<br />
<br />
Fulfilling his wish in Vancouver has, he admits been "a blast." In Matthew Jacobs' screenplay, The Master has materialised in America on New Year's Eve, 1999 and plans to wreak a little millennium mischief...<br />
<br />
Roberts confesses that his first two weeks in his latest evil guise has once more reminded him of the old truism about the bad guys being more fun.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely more fun. You get to carry weapons, you get to wear great suits. And you've always got a way with the babes," he admits.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, the Atlanta, Georgia raised Roberts and the Liverpudlian McGann don't appear to have much in common. But in fact, both actors went to the same drama school. "It turned out we'd had all of the same teachers!" says Roberts.<br />
<br />
Since he graduated from RADA, Roberts' career has been a roller-coaster ride. His debut movie, King of the Gypsies, alerted Hollywood and in the mid-'80s Runaway Train, with Jon Voight, won him an Oscar nomination. But in latter years he has had to live in the shadow of his little sister, Julia.<br />
<br />
His latest movie, an AIDS drama called It's My Party, has once more pushed him back into the limelight. However, his main priority at present is to have fun on set. "In my 20s, even my early 30s, I was always in a hurry to find that good script. But there's no hurry. I'll keep looking and when it shows up I'll be thrilled," he says.<br />
<br />
Roberts is understandably reluctant to reveal The Master's fate at the end of the movie. But he says he'd love to appear in a new series: "I like Paul's work so much that if he wanted me back on it I'd show up in a minute."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Julia Roberts' brother Eric takes over from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley in the role of the Doctor's nemesis, The Master.<br />
----<br />
Grace Holloway<br />
<br />
Daphne Ashbrook<br />
<br />
ACTRESS DAPHNE ASHBROOK, ALIAS THE DOCTOR'S NEW ASSISTANT, ON WHY SNOGGING A TIME LORD ISN'T EASY...<br />
<br />
Science fiction is not a line of work alien to Daphne Ashbrook.<br />
<br />
Among her many TV credits is the pilot of CBS television's UFO-abduction series intruders back in 1992 and an appearance in Deep Space Nine. Intruders even stimulated a real-life interest in the unexplained. "During Intruders, I got into the whole thing and met a lot of people who claim to be abductees," she explains. "I started collecting clips of film. But I don't believe it is fiction. I believe it's real." One thing Ashbrook did have a problem believing, however, was the existence of an incredibly successful genre TV series which she'd never even heard of.<br />
<br />
"I wasn't familiar with it at all," she admits, feigning embarrassment. But then she found herself cast as The Doctor's new assistant, Dr Grace Holloway — and with only two days to prepare herself to join the Who production in Vancouver!<br />
<br />
"I still haven't seen any [of the old series].To know about all that other stuff — for an actress I'm not sure that would actually help me."<br />
<br />
The relationship between the two Doctors is set to generate the hottest debate when the film airs on this side of the Atlantic. Grace stirs up feelings that have remained dormant in the Time Lord for hundreds of years. In fact, their first romantic moment came almost as soon as she arrived on set in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
"It was right at the beginning and we were a little shy of each other," she remembers. "I would like to have been a little more comfortable, I just didn't know him. It was weird — 'Hello, nice to meet you... Let's kiss!'"<br />
<br />
She knew McGann through Withnail and I. "But I haven't seen much else of his," she says. She is convinced, however, that he will win Doctor Who a completely new set of followers:. "Women will go crazy for him."<br />
<br />
For Ashbrook, the daughter of theatrical parents, working with McGann has made a pleasant change from the formula froth of American shows like Falcon Crest, all talking heads and pouting close-ups: "I'm not used to having an opportunity to work with an actor. It's all about the camera in America." And of the Who experience, she enthuses: "I'm having the best time I have ever had."<br />
<br />
The prospect of being a part of another science fiction production also fascinates her ("This is all up my alley") — and now she is fully aware of Doctor Who and its infinite appeal, Ashbrook is adamant she would have no hesitation in accepting an invitation to voyage inside the new TARDIS: "I would be a perfect companion." Ask her which moment in time and history she'd like him to transport her to and her reply comes quick-as-a-flash: "I want to be here when the aliens arrive..."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Daphne Ashbrook plays the Doctor's latest companion, Dr Grace Holloway.<br />
<br />
Caption: Holloway doesn't follow the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of the story, but could return, says Ashbrook. She does a mean Dana Scully impression, too.<br />
----<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
Caption: The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=All_Change&diff=32725All Change2024-03-03T21:53:23Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/5a/1996-06_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1996-06-01<br />
| display date = June 1996<br />
| author = Garry Jenkins, Paul Cornell<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = TV movie<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
| moreDates = <br />
| text = <br />
DOCTOR WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH A FEW REGENERATIONS IN ITS TIME, BUT NEVER ONE AS SIGNIFICANT AS THIS. AS FANS WAIT BREATHLESS FOR THE NEW US TV MOVIE , GARRY JENKINS TALKS TO CAST AND CREW, INCLUDING THE NEW WHO HIMSELF, PAUL MCGANN, ABOUT THE TRIALS OF BEING A TIME LORD... <br />
<br />
The good citizens of Vancouver are used to the weird [[Canada]]'s West Coast capital is, after all, the spiritual home of Mulder and Scully. But on a brutally cold January night, in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alleyway in the heart of the city's bustling Chinatown, the semi-lit silhouette of a blue, London police box is drawing curious glances from the locals... <br />
<br />
The faces of the few who stop to investigate grow even more perplexed when they're filled in on the news that their city is playing host to a series that pre-dates The X-Files - currently filming a few miles away - by a good 30 years. You can imagine the ensuing conversation, an exchange straight out of a bad Benny Hill dream...<br />
<br />
"It's called Doctor Who."<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who?"<br />
<br />
"That's its name, Doctor Who..." etc. etc.<br />
<br />
In the third of a century since he first materialised on our television screens, the Doctor's oddball, sonic screwdriver-wielding magic may have cast its spell in some of the farthest flung corners of our planet - he's <br />
big in [[Brazil]] and [[Zimbabwe]], for example - but to the inhabitants of this particular corner of Canada, many of whom are recent arrivals from [[Hong Kong]], he's still a distinct nonentity compared to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the martial arts heroes on the window posters of the neighbourhood video stores.<br />
<br />
Not for much longer, however. At least if the group of well-insulated figures pacing up and down at the other end of this windy alleyway have anything to do with it. If producers Philip Segal and Pete Ware, and English director Geoffrey , Sax, can pull it off, Doctor Who will soon not only be big in this part of Vancouver, but the world over, familiar to everyone from Eskimos to Red Indians. Global domination, like it was back in many of the episodes in the original series, is the name of the game. Soon, everyone will be humming that old, electronic theme tune: du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb...<br />
<br />
Perhaps. If things go to plan. At the moment, they're certainly not going to budget...<br />
<br />
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, DOCTOR Who has been one of the UK's great institutions, as quintessentially English as leaves on the line and Lady Penelope, cricket and Commander James Bond. But just like Bond, the famous Time Lord's been out of commission for most of the '90s, where he was once considered to have run out of steam in the age of the World Wide Web.<br />
<br />
Now, however, he's back. Vancouver is the setting for a $5 million new Doctor Who adventure being made as a co-production between Universal Television and BBC Worldwide. And just as Bond returned at the wheel of a German BMW, equipped with an Irish accent, so the Doctor has rematerialised, complete with a new set of multinational modifications.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor in a line begun so memorably by the late William Hartnell, is an Englishman, albeit one with the unmistakable glint of Emerald Isle mischief in his darting green eyes. But there's a distinctly American flavour to the rest of the cast, hardly surprising given that the first story of the decade is set in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999. Eric Roberts, the brother of Hollywood star Julia, is portraying the Doctor's nemesis The Master, while Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Daphne Ashbrook is Dr Grace Holloway, the latest "companion" to hitch a ride in the Time Lord's TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Those of you fretting already at the Americanisation of our best-loved science fiction series need not lose too much sleep, though. As executive producer Phil Segal is at pains to point out, this is definitely not an American Doctor Who. "We have to protect the integrity of the franchise," he explains. "That's why the BBC was so unhappy with the show in its later years because it was written down to; it became silly. If you do cross that line then you shouldn't do it. We are not crossing that line."<br />
<br />
In Segal, it seems, Doctor Who has found as safe and protective a pair of hands as it could have found anywhere in Hollywood. Born in Southend, the former casting director and literary agent has a passion for The Doctor and an encyclopaedic grasp of the series' history that would shame the most devoted of Whovians. You suspect he probably knows the Gallifreyan for "franchise." He certainly seems to have a "Seal of Rassilon" fixation, as the famous swirly pattern from the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey is, at Segal's request, plastered just about everywhere in the new TARDIS, from the walls to the ornate feet at the bottom of the new central control column.<br />
<br />
But, bizarrely, Segal may not stay on board as producer if the TV movie does spawn a series. Even as writers, allegedly including Terrance Dicks (script editor on the original Doctor Who during the Pertwee years), are in preliminary talks about further scripts, Segal has admitted that a series would probably be overseen by another producer. It might have something to do with his perfectionism pushing the pilot over budget by $1 million. He's refusing to be drawn on the subject.<br />
<br />
Which is a shame, because if anyone could pull off the high-wire act of blending the traditional values of Doctor Who with the Hollywoodesque elements vital for success on network American television it was Segal.<br />
<br />
The casting of Paul McGann is yet further evidence of his intent to remain as faithful as possible to the feel of the original series. At 36, McGann is younger than any of the previous Doctors, admittedly, but his features are also more familiar to international audiences, thanks to successful parts in the likes of booze-sodden classic Withnail and I, Alan Bleasdale's Establishment-rattling TV series The Monocled Mutineer and the curiously creepy medical thriller Paper Mask, McGann will also bring a touch of the scallywag Scouse into the TARDIS; he'll be more John Lennon than Jon Pertwee.<br />
<br />
"I thought it was important to have a hero that was a little more accessible to a broader audience," explains Segal. Strangely enough, it was one of McGann's less successful roles, in the City yuppie drama Dealers, that persuaded the producer that this was his Time Lord. "There was an incredible sparkle in his eyes," remembers Segal. "I've seen mad scientist looks and celebrity looks, and I've seen a lot of talented people who wanted to do this show. But McGann had something else...<br />
<br />
"To me he's a cross between Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Those two for me solidified the alien quality of the character, with a lot of whimsy and humour. And a lot of fun," he says. "1 think that Paul really is the epitome of those two characters. And I think this is going to make him a big star in the United States."<br />
<br />
IN THE WARMTH OF A HOTEL ROOM THE NEXT MORNING, PAUL McGANN is behaving more like the down-to-earth guy he is than a megastar-in-waiting. He's deep in thought about where he would venture in time and space if he were given the keys to the TARDIS... Suddenly, he snaps into life, eyes as bright as Anfield on a wet Wednesday night. "I would like to go back to 1959, which is when I was born, and when Shankly took over at Liverpool," he says excitedly.<br />
<br />
"I would like to go back and shake his hand. He came in and it all started. He told everybody what was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't the Messiah, maybe he was John The Baptist. Let's get Biblical! Do you know he was offered the job at Anfield in 1952 and he turned it down?"<br />
<br />
He goes on, the bit between his teeth, determined not to be knocked off the ball, a conversational Ian Callaghan: "Guess why? They wouldn't let him pick the team! The board picked the team in those days. But he was offered the job again seven years later — and he took it. The first thing he did was sort out the toilets at the Oakfield Road end. The second thing he did was make us the world's best football team. Good old Bill."<br />
<br />
McGann has been in Vancouver now for over a month. He admits he was lost at first, slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of playing a character he grew up with in Liverpool in the '60s and '70s. "Doctor Who is like the BBC equivalent of Ambassador to the United States. It's big. It's I, a big thing," he enthuses.<br />
<br />
The fact that he's so full of beans this morning can probably be attributed to three factors — the copious amounts of coffee he's been drinking, the news I've just imparted about Liverpool's midweek win over Aston Villa, and the fact he's now feeling completely at ease with a role that could transform his life.<br />
<br />
"When it was first mooted last year and I went over to see the casting agent in Los Angeles, I kept saying to myself, 'I don't want to do this — I thought Eric Idle was going to do it.' And I turned it down. I said, 'This is daft; I can't do it.' That must have been a year ago," he explains. "You can't imagine yourself saying those things, doing those things, wearing that costume... I kept saying, 'There's no way, no way. I am going to look like a tosser. And I am going to feel like a tosser.' I was being honest!"<br />
<br />
By the time he'd agreed to take the role, he'd just finished making the SAS movie, The One that Got Away for ITV and was playing a rather different kind of role on stage. "The last character I played before this was Jesus. The characters you're doing tend to dictate the kind of mood you're in," he explains.<br />
<br />
That other-worldliness only made Philip Segal and his producer Peter Ware even more convinced they had the right man for the role. "Philip kept saying, 'I know you don't think it's something you might entertain, but...,'" he laughs. McGann, however, stuck to his guns. "There was no pressure. It's easy to say no to something. Easy."<br />
<br />
The producers' master-stroke, however, was showing McGann the "bible" they'd put together for the production, a directory of Doctor Who from his origins to his enemies, his previous incarnations — as well as the adventures they envisioned for his future. "He said, 'Look at this.' They gave me the bible. It looked like some monks had done it in Dunstan in about 890AD. It gives you the whole story about where Doctor Who comes from and about his father on Gallifrey..."<br />
<br />
By now, Segal's enthusiasm for the project was becoming infectious —and McGann was hooked. For the first time he began to realise that he may actually enjoy playing the part. "As far as Phil is concerned," he explains, "there is no greater character, in its myriad possibilities. This is a go-anywhere, come-from-anywhere figure."<br />
<br />
"It was then I began to think, 'I suppose it is right.' And I generally tend to work on the principle, 'Will I have a laugh doing it?' Will I be able to do it in the right spirit?' There are actors who can manufacture to perfection — that's a gift — but I can't do it. I've got to believe in what I'm doing, and have a hoot doing it. If I don't believe in it, it looks ropey. So I decided, in the end, it would be a hoot... And it is a hoot!"<br />
<br />
SEVERAL STORYLINES WERE CONSIDERED FOR THE FIRST ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
"I think Phil Segal wanted to do one where the Doctor goes off in search of his father," explains director Geoffrey Sax. "He lands in the middle of World War II, goes to the British Museum and finds a message in a sarcophagus. He then goes back to Egypt in the time of Ramases and ends up chasing his father all over the world in different time zones. His father is a Time Lord too. I think that would be a great one to do."<br />
<br />
There was also talk of pitting The Doctor against the Daleks. "The problem with the Daleks is that they have to be able to do things that they couldn't do when we were kids. We had some drawings of new Daleks done, but it was financial in the end. If the franchise is successful I'm sure they'll feature," explains Segal.<br />
<br />
In the end, writer Matthew Jacobs came up with a story involving The Doctor and his auld enemy The Master. While transporting his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey, The Master slips loose and forces the TARDIS down to Earth, San Francisco, on the edge of the millennium, 31 December 1999.<br />
<br />
Fans should have no problems with the storyline. Nor should they complain about the sfx, which will finally bring The Doctor screaming and kicking into the age of computer-generated graphics and matte-paintings.<br />
<br />
Of course, there will be no escaping the wrath of the hardcore Whovians at some point. "We are not going to make everyone happy."<br />
<br />
Segal concedes with a shrug. But if there's one element guaranteed to set the crustier members foaming at the mouth it's the revelation that — shock, horror! — the Doctor enjoys his first serious screen kiss. Yes, McGann and Ashbrook will be seen in not just one, but several screen clinches.<br />
<br />
"I think it's part of the '90s. Yes, the Doctor is a bachelor, but he's a creature of habit, and of love and passion. He is passionate about what he is and what he does," Segal protests. And anyhow, he adds, sex is not an entirely new addition to the series. Remember the Amazonian, chamois-leather clad Leela (Louise Jameson) during Tom Baker's reign? "There was lots of sex appeal there," he offers...<br />
<br />
PAUL MCGANN WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS FIRST<br />
<br />
broadcast on 23 November 1963. William Hartnell will always remain the definitive Doctor as far as McGann is concerned; he reminded him of two terrifying figures in his childhood. "We had this cruel but fair master at<br />
<br />
Ir school with white hair. He was an enormous man. Seddon his name was. He was desperate that we would never forget him. Everyone loved to hate him. He was the one who used to dish out the cane," he recalls.<br />
<br />
"His hair looked premature. We used to ask, 'Sir, how did you get your white hair?' And he would say: 'Because I was a rear turret gunner.' He looked like Bill Hartnell — he was scary. That was partly down to the fact that, to me, he was part Seddon and part the Hack's man."<br />
<br />
The Hack's man?<br />
<br />
"Remember the cough sweets Hack's? Bill looked like the bloke on the wrapper who was about to explode into the world's biggest sneeze," he says, laughing.<br />
<br />
More importantly, McGann reckons Hartnell had the air of a master of the universe, a genius who could float through time and space at will. "He has hung out with Mozart. He's a genius. But where he comes from he's a bit of a young upstart, a maverick. He left and slammed the door. With Hartnell you believed it all."<br />
<br />
Other Doctors paled in comparison. "They were not high church," hi. says, once more lapsing into another of his religious metaphors. The Catholic imagery continues as the actor goes on to explain why the Yeti were the creatures most likely to send him diving behind the McGann living room sofa. "I wasn't scared of Daleks. Go on, show us a Dalek that ran upstairs," he explains. "But the Yetis scared me. What it might have been, looking back, was that we were — are — Catholic boys and at that time in the mid-'60s we were in church almost every day. There was one of these sacred heart statues there. His shirt or robe is drawn back and there, exposed, is his heart. It's the size of a heart and it's quite graphic. Sometimes it might have a crown of thorns around it. And the top of the heart is made to look like Golgotha with a crucifix in it. Scary stuff for a seven year old..."<br />
<br />
But the worst is yet to come. "I remember kneeling there, looking at the beating heart of Jesus, and the next thing, the Yetis are on," he remembers. "And what happens? The Yeti's chest opens up and there's this beating heart. A red throbbing heart! fit's actually a silver ball, but wiry point that out while McGann's in full flow? — Ed] It comes out and goes down the hall. That did it for me. I was going, 'Aaahh!'"<br />
<br />
It's an image that never quite left him. "Even ten years ago, when I finally ended up going to the Himalayas, I was lying there on the first night and thinking, 'Ooooh Yetis!'" McGann leans forward, an extra twinkle in his eye, and drops his voice to a whisper. "It was probably a semi-religious experience."<br />
<br />
His humour is infectious and natural, so too is his down-to-earth demeanour. He often self-censors any lapses into the language of "luvviedom" by apologising for sounding like "a desperate thesp."<br />
<br />
Ever since he burst on the scene in the wonderful Withnail and I —recently re-released — he's been one of the more interesting actors at work in this country. In films from The Monocled Mutineer and Paper Mask to Ken Russell's The Rainbow, he's conjured up an air of appealing edginess and dangerous energy. As Doctor Who, you sense he might take greater risks than any of his seven small-screen predecessors.<br />
<br />
To a certain section of the population, he'll always remain one of the McGann brothers — his brothers Mark, Steve and Joe are all successful actors — but Paul himself has done nothing to dissuade that view, and recently starred with his siblings in The Hanging Gale, the BBC drama set in famine-ravaged Ireland in the mid-19th century.<br />
<br />
Predictably, there'll be two sides to the celebrity Doctor Who will bestow on him. The price of fame he's not looking forward to is the one dished out by the tabloids. "For someone who is awkwardly private like me it will be difficult," he admits. But coping with the series' vast legions of fans will be something he'll grow into, he suspects.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sylvester McCoy, the previous Doctor, is offering plenty of support. He's already terrified his long-time friend with tales of his experiences amid the most obsessive of Whovians — "McCoy was at a convention in Texas once and someone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of being shot?' laughs McGann — but he's equally aware of the affection fans have for the character. "A couple of days after I was given this gig, this guy wrote to The Independent, a top Whovian. He was saying you are going to have to brush up on your so-and-so-calculus and astrophysics because you are going to have to waffle on about this for years to come!'<br />
<br />
He admits, however; that playing the Doctor full-time will not be easy. "For me, McCoy is really gifted — he can go to these things and act soft and give them what they want," he confesses. "He's an entertainer. I'm not like that. Still, I'm sure you'll find me doing readings soon enough!"<br />
<br />
However, he's unsure how long he might want to play the role: "They've got me on a contract to do this movie, then everything is contingent on whether it gets picked up," he says. "Everyone's chuffed that it is going well, but the viewers might hate it. Who knows?<br />
<br />
"I am only just realising now the depths of people's feelings about the show," he adds, another rapscallion grin spreading across his face. "Some people will love me; some will hate me. It's like being an MP or Stan Collymore. Which is fair play..."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is being released on video in this country soon after it airs in America on 14 May. The BBC are mooting the last weekend in May as a possible UK airdate, though this is subject to change at the 11Ith hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
----<br />
The Director Geoffrey Sax<br />
<br />
ACCLAIMED BRITISH TV DIRECTOR GEOFFREY SAX REVEALS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DOCTOR'S BOLDEST TV MOVIE.<br />
<br />
One of the most respected film-makers in British television, Sax has an impressive CV, from ITV comedies like The New Statesman (for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy) to popular BBC dramas like Lovejoy and Bergerac.<br />
<br />
So his Doctor Who is clearly going to be flavoured with a healthy pinch of ingredients drawn from his earlier work. In fact, Sax is convinced that blending humour with high-tech action is the key to resurrecting The Doctor.<br />
<br />
"I hope it's something that will keep people on the edge of their seats but also make them laugh," he explains.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, who plays his companion, Dr Grace Holloway, have been a major asset in Sax's search for comic subtlety. "The first thing we shot was in Grace's apartment. I rehearsed it a day or two before and I knew as soon as I got up to the set with them that the chemistry between the two was extraordinary. She has got this great comic timing."<br />
<br />
And Sax knew from the beginning that the most difficult element would be making audiences on both sides of the Atlantic happy.<br />
<br />
"We have to assume the majority of the audience has not seen this character before," he explains. "You have to keep to the traditions, but also set some new rules. When I worked on the script that's what I worked on, making sure it worked for both audiences without it being a mid-Atlantic compromise and a mess."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the script is filled with moments that will be familiar to Who fans — the voice of the Daleks at the very beginning, for instance. "To those who know, it will raise a smile," he says, "to those that don't it's simply some alien being. But it still makes sense dramatically to both audiences."<br />
<br />
For all the gentle comedy Sax hopes to evoke, there's no escaping the fact that for many the film will stand or fall on the quality of its action and special effects. The director admits he's had most fun working on the film's more spectacular scenes... "It's important it's fast-paced. So I always try to keep the camera moving," he says.<br />
<br />
There are many ambitious set-pieces too, from shoot-outs and car chases to the apocalyptic showdown between The Doctor and The Master too. Sax makes no secrets where he draws his inspiration from: "I often think, 'How would James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do this?' They are the sort of people who weave magic into films... If I had $50 million to make this, how would I do it? Then it's a case of how can I make it look like I had $50 million!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: British director Geoffrey Sax regarded the TV movie as a kind of "comedy thriller."<br />
----<br />
The Designer Richard Hudolin<br />
<br />
AMERICAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD HUDOLIN REVEALS HOW HE'S BRINGING WHO INTO THE '90S.<br />
<br />
<br />
You start doing your research," bemoans designer Richard Hudolin, "and you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God, they've handed you the Crown Jewels and expect you to do something with it!'"<br />
<br />
But if giving the new Who movie a distinctive, futuristic look by dressing up Vancouver locations was a hard task, designing a new version of the series' trademark TARDIS was an even bigger challenge...<br />
<br />
Viewed from the outside, the famous time machine is an authentic replica of the original, recreated from original BBC blueprints.<br />
<br />
But the cozy familiarity presents a stark contrast to what lies inside...<br />
<br />
On a cavernous sound stage, Hudolin has created a set that's part Jules Verne, part HG Wells and part Bram Stoker. The interior is a Victorian gentleman's reading room and a monument to the magpie habits of a time traveller. Next door, the cloister room - home of the Eye of Destiny has the appearance of a vast, sinister Gothic cathedral.<br />
<br />
Hudolin's previous credits offer plenty of clues to his influences. As well as being art director on an impressive range of movies (TimeCop, K2, Stakeout and Little Women), Hudolin has also worked on television series, including Sherlock Holmes Returns for CBS and Dracula for the Famous Players TV station in Canada.<br />
<br />
At the heart of the room stands the familiar control console, with Its distinctive crystal column. But the chamber itself has been re-designed to convey the idea of infinity. "Between the cloister and the control room, the idea was to have a 'MObius strip,' with no inside, no outside, and lots of things going on," explains Hudolin.<br />
<br />
"The producer Phil Segal said we could do anything we wanted. He told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted. If you want to create a feeling of space and infinity then you don't need walls or rooms; you need areas, with all Tie Doctor's things around him:"<br />
<br />
His previous experience on science fiction movies helped with some of his ideas. "I did a film years ago called HyperSapien, with Harry Lange, the production designer who worked on 2001," explains Hudolin. "That fell into the sphere where you're mixing reality with what is the future."<br />
<br />
The sheer size of the set is also reminiscent of the work Hudolin did on Superman Ill, where he assisted award-winning designer Terry Ackland Snow. "When you work with those kind of people you get a sense of scale. The TARDIS has got a 24-foot ceiling, because Pete Ware [one of the show's producers] asked how big we could make it, and I said I'll take it as high as it will go. Because you need grandness. You can't put The Doctor into a cubby hole."<br />
<br />
He was encouraged by English director Geoffrey Sax. "He wanted it to be very theatrical," reveals Hudolin. But he also designed the set so it would complement Sax's plans to use atmospheric lighting. "A lot of the set is designed to help the director of photography. As the rotor starts to work on the console there's this blue light that casts a glow," he explains.<br />
<br />
Hudolin admits reinventing the TARDIS has been one of the most enjoyable challenges of his career. He's well aware, however, how critical Who fans will be about his work. "I was not scared by that," he says. "That's part of the fun of it. In the end it's design. There's no right or wrong."<br />
<br />
"Producer Phil Segal said we could do anythinq we wanted. he told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Richard Hudolin's sets were designed with the director's ideas for lighting in mind.<br />
----<br />
The Master Eric Roberts<br />
<br />
<br />
PLAYING THE DOCTOR'S ARCH ENEMY IS A RIGHT LAUGH, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO ACTOR ERIC ROBERTS...<br />
<br />
Eric Roberts was just a typical 18 year old RADA student slumming it in London when, in 1973, he first cast eyes on Doctor Who...<br />
<br />
"I just loved it. It was really fun, really cheesy," he recalls. When, late last year, word got to him that Universal Television were working on a new movie version of the same show, he told his agent to move — and fast.<br />
<br />
"I offered my services," he explains. The Oscar-nominated actor, whose stormy black looks have never left him short of bad guy offers, had never forgotten the most sinister of all the Doctor's enemies. "The first time I saw the Master, he was a big, black, glob with eyes," he laughs. "He was the all-foreboding evil force. I said: 'If you're doing Doctor Who, I would love to play somebody crazy. I would love to play the Master."'<br />
<br />
Fulfilling his wish in Vancouver has, he admits been "a blast." In Matthew Jacobs' screenplay, The Master has materialised in America on New Year's Eve, 1999 and plans to wreak a little millennium mischief...<br />
<br />
Roberts confesses that his first two weeks in his latest evil guise has once more reminded him of the old truism about the bad guys being more fun.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely more fun. You get to carry weapons, you get to wear great suits. And you've always got a way with the babes," he admits.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, the Atlanta, Georgia raised Roberts and the Liverpudlian McGann don't appear to have much in common. But in fact, both actors went to the same drama school. "It turned out we'd had all of the same teachers!" says Roberts.<br />
<br />
Since he graduated from RADA, Roberts' career has been a roller-coaster ride. His debut movie, King of the Gypsies, alerted Hollywood and in the mid-'80s Runaway Train, with Jon Voight, won him an Oscar nomination. But in latter years he has had to live in the shadow of his little sister, Julia.<br />
<br />
His latest movie, an AIDS drama called It's My Party, has once more pushed him back into the limelight. However, his main priority at present is to have fun on set. "In my 20s, even my early 30s, I was always in a hurry to find that good script. But there's no hurry. I'll keep looking and when it shows up I'll be thrilled," he says.<br />
<br />
Roberts is understandably reluctant to reveal The Master's fate at the end of the movie. But he says he'd love to appear in a new series: "I like Paul's work so much that if he wanted me back on it I'd show up in a minute."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Julia Roberts' brother Eric takes over from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley in the role of the Doctor's nemesis, The Master.<br />
----<br />
Grace Holloway<br />
<br />
Daphne Ashbrook<br />
<br />
ACTRESS DAPHNE ASHBROOK, ALIAS THE DOCTOR'S NEW ASSISTANT, ON WHY SNOGGING A TIME LORD ISN'T EASY...<br />
<br />
Science fiction is not a line of work alien to Daphne Ashbrook.<br />
<br />
Among her many TV credits is the pilot of CBS television's UFO-abduction series intruders back in 1992 and an appearance in Deep Space Nine. Intruders even stimulated a real-life interest in the unexplained. "During Intruders, I got into the whole thing and met a lot of people who claim to be abductees," she explains. "I started collecting clips of film. But I don't believe it is fiction. I believe it's real." One thing Ashbrook did have a problem believing, however, was the existence of an incredibly successful genre TV series which she'd never even heard of.<br />
<br />
"I wasn't familiar with it at all," she admits, feigning embarrassment. But then she found herself cast as The Doctor's new assistant, Dr Grace Holloway — and with only two days to prepare herself to join the Who production in Vancouver!<br />
<br />
"I still haven't seen any [of the old series].To know about all that other stuff — for an actress I'm not sure that would actually help me."<br />
<br />
The relationship between the two Doctors is set to generate the hottest debate when the film airs on this side of the Atlantic. Grace stirs up feelings that have remained dormant in the Time Lord for hundreds of years. In fact, their first romantic moment came almost as soon as she arrived on set in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
"It was right at the beginning and we were a little shy of each other," she remembers. "I would like to have been a little more comfortable, I just didn't know him. It was weird — 'Hello, nice to meet you... Let's kiss!'"<br />
<br />
She knew McGann through Withnail and I. "But I haven't seen much else of his," she says. She is convinced, however, that he will win Doctor Who a completely new set of followers:. "Women will go crazy for him."<br />
<br />
For Ashbrook, the daughter of theatrical parents, working with McGann has made a pleasant change from the formula froth of American shows like Falcon Crest, all talking heads and pouting close-ups: "I'm not used to having an opportunity to work with an actor. It's all about the camera in America." And of the Who experience, she enthuses: "I'm having the best time I have ever had."<br />
<br />
The prospect of being a part of another science fiction production also fascinates her ("This is all up my alley") — and now she is fully aware of Doctor Who and its infinite appeal, Ashbrook is adamant she would have no hesitation in accepting an invitation to voyage inside the new TARDIS: "I would be a perfect companion." Ask her which moment in time and history she'd like him to transport her to and her reply comes quick-as-a-flash: "I want to be here when the aliens arrive..."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Daphne Ashbrook plays the Doctor's latest companion, Dr Grace Holloway.<br />
<br />
Caption: Holloway doesn't follow the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of the story, but could return, says Ashbrook. She does a mean Dana Scully impression, too.<br />
----<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
Caption: The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=All_Change&diff=32724All Change2024-03-03T21:52:43Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/5a/1996-06_SFX.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 1996-06-01 | display date = June 1996 |..."</p>
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| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/5a/1996-06_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1996-06-01<br />
| display date = June 1996<br />
| author = Garry Jenkins, Paul Cornell<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = TV movie<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
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DOCTOR WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH A FEW REGENERATIONS IN ITS TIME, BUT NEVER ONE AS SIGNIFICANT AS THIS. AS FANS WAIT BREATHLESS FOR THE NEW US TV MOVIE , GARRY JENKINS TALKS TO CAST AND CREW, INCLUDING THE NEW WHO HIMSELF, PAUL MCGANN, ABOUT THE TRIALS OF BEING A TIME LORD... <br />
<br />
The good citizens of Vancouver are used to the weird [[Canada]]'s West Coast capital is, after all, the spiritual home of Mulder and Scully. But on a brutally cold January night, in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alleyway in the heart of the city's bustling Chinatown, the semi-lit silhouette of a blue, London police box is drawing curious glances from the locals... <br />
<br />
The faces of the few who stop to investigate grow even more perplexed when they're filled in on the news that their city is playing host to a series that pre-dates The X-Files - currently filming a few miles away - by a good 30 years. You can imagine the ensuing conversation, an exchange straight out of a bad Benny Hill dream...<br />
<br />
"It's called Doctor Who."<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who?"<br />
<br />
"That's its name, Doctor Who..." etc. etc.<br />
<br />
In the third of a century since he first materialised on our television screens, the Doctor's oddball, sonic screwdriver-wielding magic may have cast its spell in some of the farthest flung corners of our planet - he's <br />
big in [[Brazil]] and [[Zimbabwe]], for example - but to the inhabitants of this particular corner of Canada, many of whom are recent arrivals from [[Hong Kong]], he's still a distinct nonentity compared to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the martial arts heroes on the window posters of the neighbourhood video stores.<br />
<br />
Not for much longer, however. At least if the group of well-insulated figures pacing up and down at the other end of this windy alleyway have anything to do with it. If producers Philip Segal and Pete Ware, and English director Geoffrey , Sax, can pull it off, Doctor Who will soon not only be big in this part of Vancouver, but the world over, familiar to everyone from Eskimos to Red Indians. Global domination, like it was back in many of the episodes in the original series, is the name of the game. Soon, everyone will be humming that old, electronic theme tune: du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb...<br />
<br />
Perhaps. If things go to plan. At the moment, they're certainly not going to budget...<br />
<br />
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, DOCTOR Who has been one of the UK's great institutions, as quintessentially English as leaves on the line and Lady Penelope, cricket and Commander James Bond. But just like Bond, the famous Time Lord's been out of commission for most of the '90s, where he was once considered to have run out of steam in the age of the World Wide Web.<br />
<br />
Now, however, he's back. Vancouver is the setting for a $5 million new Doctor Who adventure being made as a co-production between Universal Television and BBC Worldwide. And just as Bond returned at the wheel of a German BMW, equipped with an Irish accent, so the Doctor has rematerialised, complete with a new set of multinational modifications.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor in a line begun so memorably by the late William Hartnell, is an Englishman, albeit one with the unmistakable glint of Emerald Isle mischief in his darting green eyes. But there's a distinctly American flavour to the rest of the cast, hardly surprising given that the first story of the decade is set in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999. Eric Roberts, the brother of Hollywood star Julia, is portraying the Doctor's nemesis The Master, while Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Daphne Ashbrook is Dr Grace Holloway, the latest "companion" to hitch a ride in the Time Lord's TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Those of you fretting already at the Americanisation of our best-loved science fiction series need not lose too much sleep, though. As executive producer Phil Segal is at pains to point out, this is definitely not an American Doctor Who. "We have to protect the integrity of the franchise," he explains. "That's why the BBC was so unhappy with the show in its later years because it was written down to; it became silly. If you do cross that line then you shouldn't do it. We are not crossing that line."<br />
<br />
In Segal, it seems, Doctor Who has found as safe and protective a pair of hands as it could have found anywhere in Hollywood. Born in Southend, the former casting director and literary agent has a passion for The Doctor and an encyclopaedic grasp of the series' history that would shame the most devoted of Whovians. You suspect he probably knows the Gallifreyan for "franchise." He certainly seems to have a "Seal of Rassilon" fixation, as the famous swirly pattern from the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey is, at Segal's request, plastered just about everywhere in the new TARDIS, from the walls to the ornate feet at the bottom of the new central control column.<br />
<br />
But, bizarrely, Segal may not stay on board as producer if the TV movie does spawn a series. Even as writers, allegedly including Terrance Dicks (script editor on the original Doctor Who during the Pertwee years), are in preliminary talks about further scripts, Segal has admitted that a series would probably be overseen by another producer. It might have something to do with his perfectionism pushing the pilot over budget by $1 million. He's refusing to be drawn on the subject.<br />
<br />
Which is a shame, because if anyone could pull off the high-wire act of blending the traditional values of Doctor Who with the Hollywoodesque elements vital for success on network American television it was Segal.<br />
<br />
The casting of Paul McGann is yet further evidence of his intent to remain as faithful as possible to the feel of the original series. At 36, McGann is younger than any of the previous Doctors, admittedly, but his features are also more familiar to international audiences, thanks to successful parts in the likes of booze-sodden classic Withnail and I, Alan Bleasdale's Establishment-rattling TV series The Monocled Mutineer and the curiously creepy medical thriller Paper Mask, McGann will also bring a touch of the scallywag Scouse into the TARDIS; he'll be more John Lennon than Jon Pertwee.<br />
<br />
"I thought it was important to have a hero that was a little more accessible to a broader audience," explains Segal. Strangely enough, it was one of McGann's less successful roles, in the City yuppie drama Dealers, that persuaded the producer that this was his Time Lord. "There was an incredible sparkle in his eyes," remembers Segal. "I've seen mad scientist looks and celebrity looks, and I've seen a lot of talented people who wanted to do this show. But McGann had something else...<br />
<br />
"To me he's a cross between Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Those two for me solidified the alien quality of the character, with a lot of whimsy and humour. And a lot of fun," he says. "1 think that Paul really is the epitome of those two characters. And I think this is going to make him a big star in the United States."<br />
<br />
IN THE WARMTH OF A HOTEL ROOM THE NEXT MORNING, PAUL McGANN is behaving more like the down-to-earth guy he is than a megastar-in-waiting. He's deep in thought about where he would venture in time and space if he were given the keys to the TARDIS... Suddenly, he snaps into life, eyes as bright as Anfield on a wet Wednesday night. "I would like to go back to 1959, which is when I was born, and when Shankly took over at Liverpool," he says excitedly.<br />
<br />
"I would like to go back and shake his hand. He came in and it all started. He told everybody what was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't the Messiah, maybe he was John The Baptist. Let's get Biblical! Do you know he was offered the job at Anfield in 1952 and he turned it down?"<br />
<br />
He goes on, the bit between his teeth, determined not to be knocked off the ball, a conversational Ian Callaghan: "Guess why? They wouldn't let him pick the team! The board picked the team in those days. But he was offered the job again seven years later — and he took it. The first thing he did was sort out the toilets at the Oakfield Road end. The second thing he did was make us the world's best football team. Good old Bill."<br />
<br />
McGann has been in Vancouver now for over a month. He admits he was lost at first, slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of playing a character he grew up with in Liverpool in the '60s and '70s. "Doctor Who is like the BBC equivalent of Ambassador to the United States. It's big. It's I, a big thing," he enthuses.<br />
<br />
The fact that he's so full of beans this morning can probably be attributed to three factors — the copious amounts of coffee he's been drinking, the news I've just imparted about Liverpool's midweek win over Aston Villa, and the fact he's now feeling completely at ease with a role that could transform his life.<br />
<br />
"When it was first mooted last year and I went over to see the casting agent in Los Angeles, I kept saying to myself, 'I don't want to do this — I thought Eric Idle was going to do it.' And I turned it down. I said, 'This is daft; I can't do it.' That must have been a year ago," he explains. "You can't imagine yourself saying those things, doing those things, wearing that costume... I kept saying, 'There's no way, no way. I am going to look like a tosser. And I am going to feel like a tosser.' I was being honest!"<br />
<br />
By the time he'd agreed to take the role, he'd just finished making the SAS movie, The One that Got Away for ITV and was playing a rather different kind of role on stage. "The last character I played before this was Jesus. The characters you're doing tend to dictate the kind of mood you're in," he explains.<br />
<br />
That other-worldliness only made Philip Segal and his producer Peter Ware even more convinced they had the right man for the role. "Philip kept saying, 'I know you don't think it's something you might entertain, but...,'" he laughs. McGann, however, stuck to his guns. "There was no pressure. It's easy to say no to something. Easy."<br />
<br />
The producers' master-stroke, however, was showing McGann the "bible" they'd put together for the production, a directory of Doctor Who from his origins to his enemies, his previous incarnations — as well as the adventures they envisioned for his future. "He said, 'Look at this.' They gave me the bible. It looked like some monks had done it in Dunstan in about 890AD. It gives you the whole story about where Doctor Who comes from and about his father on Gallifrey..."<br />
<br />
By now, Segal's enthusiasm for the project was becoming infectious —and McGann was hooked. For the first time he began to realise that he may actually enjoy playing the part. "As far as Phil is concerned," he explains, "there is no greater character, in its myriad possibilities. This is a go-anywhere, come-from-anywhere figure."<br />
<br />
"It was then I began to think, 'I suppose it is right.' And I generally tend to work on the principle, 'Will I have a laugh doing it?' Will I be able to do it in the right spirit?' There are actors who can manufacture to perfection — that's a gift — but I can't do it. I've got to believe in what I'm doing, and have a hoot doing it. If I don't believe in it, it looks ropey. So I decided, in the end, it would be a hoot... And it is a hoot!"<br />
<br />
SEVERAL STORYLINES WERE CONSIDERED FOR THE FIRST ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
"I think Phil Segal wanted to do one where the Doctor goes off in search of his father," explains director Geoffrey Sax. "He lands in the middle of World War II, goes to the British Museum and finds a message in a sarcophagus. He then goes back to Egypt in the time of Ramases and ends up chasing his father all over the world in different time zones. His father is a Time Lord too. I think that would be a great one to do."<br />
<br />
There was also talk of pitting The Doctor against the Daleks. "The problem with the Daleks is that they have to be able to do things that they couldn't do when we were kids. We had some drawings of new Daleks done, but it was financial in the end. If the franchise is successful I'm sure they'll feature," explains Segal.<br />
<br />
In the end, writer Matthew Jacobs came up with a story involving The Doctor and his auld enemy The Master. While transporting his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey, The Master slips loose and forces the TARDIS down to Earth, San Francisco, on the edge of the millennium, 31 December 1999.<br />
<br />
Fans should have no problems with the storyline. Nor should they complain about the sfx, which will finally bring The Doctor screaming and kicking into the age of computer-generated graphics and matte-paintings.<br />
<br />
Of course, there will be no escaping the wrath of the hardcore Whovians at some point. "We are not going to make everyone happy."<br />
<br />
Segal concedes with a shrug. But if there's one element guaranteed to set the crustier members foaming at the mouth it's the revelation that — shock, horror! — the Doctor enjoys his first serious screen kiss. Yes, McGann and Ashbrook will be seen in not just one, but several screen clinches.<br />
<br />
"I think it's part of the '90s. Yes, the Doctor is a bachelor, but he's a creature of habit, and of love and passion. He is passionate about what he is and what he does," Segal protests. And anyhow, he adds, sex is not an entirely new addition to the series. Remember the Amazonian, chamois-leather clad Leela (Louise Jameson) during Tom Baker's reign? "There was lots of sex appeal there," he offers...<br />
<br />
PAUL MCGANN WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS FIRST<br />
<br />
broadcast on 23 November 1963. William Hartnell will always remain the definitive Doctor as far as McGann is concerned; he reminded him of two terrifying figures in his childhood. "We had this cruel but fair master at<br />
<br />
Ir school with white hair. He was an enormous man. Seddon his name was. He was desperate that we would never forget him. Everyone loved to hate him. He was the one who used to dish out the cane," he recalls.<br />
<br />
"His hair looked premature. We used to ask, 'Sir, how did you get your white hair?' And he would say: 'Because I was a rear turret gunner.' He looked like Bill Hartnell — he was scary. That was partly down to the fact that, to me, he was part Seddon and part the Hack's man."<br />
<br />
The Hack's man?<br />
<br />
"Remember the cough sweets Hack's? Bill looked like the bloke on the wrapper who was about to explode into the world's biggest sneeze," he says, laughing.<br />
<br />
More importantly, McGann reckons Hartnell had the air of a master of the universe, a genius who could float through time and space at will. "He has hung out with Mozart. He's a genius. But where he comes from he's a bit of a young upstart, a maverick. He left and slammed the door. With Hartnell you believed it all."<br />
<br />
Other Doctors paled in comparison. "They were not high church," hi. says, once more lapsing into another of his religious metaphors. The Catholic imagery continues as the actor goes on to explain why the Yeti were the creatures most likely to send him diving behind the McGann living room sofa. "I wasn't scared of Daleks. Go on, show us a Dalek that ran upstairs," he explains. "But the Yetis scared me. What it might have been, looking back, was that we were — are — Catholic boys and at that time in the mid-'60s we were in church almost every day. There was one of these sacred heart statues there. His shirt or robe is drawn back and there, exposed, is his heart. It's the size of a heart and it's quite graphic. Sometimes it might have a crown of thorns around it. And the top of the heart is made to look like Golgotha with a crucifix in it. Scary stuff for a seven year old..."<br />
<br />
But the worst is yet to come. "I remember kneeling there, looking at the beating heart of Jesus, and the next thing, the Yetis are on," he remembers. "And what happens? The Yeti's chest opens up and there's this beating heart. A red throbbing heart! fit's actually a silver ball, but wiry point that out while McGann's in full flow? — Ed] It comes out and goes down the hall. That did it for me. I was going, 'Aaahh!'"<br />
<br />
It's an image that never quite left him. "Even ten years ago, when I finally ended up going to the Himalayas, I was lying there on the first night and thinking, 'Ooooh Yetis!'" McGann leans forward, an extra twinkle in his eye, and drops his voice to a whisper. "It was probably a semi-religious experience."<br />
<br />
His humour is infectious and natural, so too is his down-to-earth demeanour. He often self-censors any lapses into the language of "luvviedom" by apologising for sounding like "a desperate thesp."<br />
<br />
Ever since he burst on the scene in the wonderful Withnail and I —recently re-released — he's been one of the more interesting actors at work in this country. In films from The Monocled Mutineer and Paper Mask to Ken Russell's The Rainbow, he's conjured up an air of appealing edginess and dangerous energy. As Doctor Who, you sense he might take greater risks than any of his seven small-screen predecessors.<br />
<br />
To a certain section of the population, he'll always remain one of the McGann brothers — his brothers Mark, Steve and Joe are all successful actors — but Paul himself has done nothing to dissuade that view, and recently starred with his siblings in The Hanging Gale, the BBC drama set in famine-ravaged Ireland in the mid-19th century.<br />
<br />
Predictably, there'll be two sides to the celebrity Doctor Who will bestow on him. The price of fame he's not looking forward to is the one dished out by the tabloids. "For someone who is awkwardly private like me it will be difficult," he admits. But coping with the series' vast legions of fans will be something he'll grow into, he suspects.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sylvester McCoy, the previous Doctor, is offering plenty of support. He's already terrified his long-time friend with tales of his experiences amid the most obsessive of Whovians — "McCoy was at a convention in Texas once and someone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of being shot?' laughs McGann — but he's equally aware of the affection fans have for the character. "A couple of days after I was given this gig, this guy wrote to The Independent, a top Whovian. He was saying you are going to have to brush up on your so-and-so-calculus and astrophysics because you are going to have to waffle on about this for years to come!'<br />
<br />
He admits, however; that playing the Doctor full-time will not be easy. "For me, McCoy is really gifted — he can go to these things and act soft and give them what they want," he confesses. "He's an entertainer. I'm not like that. Still, I'm sure you'll find me doing readings soon enough!"<br />
<br />
However, he's unsure how long he might want to play the role: "They've got me on a contract to do this movie, then everything is contingent on whether it gets picked up," he says. "Everyone's chuffed that it is going well, but the viewers might hate it. Who knows?<br />
<br />
"I am only just realising now the depths of people's feelings about the show," he adds, another rapscallion grin spreading across his face. "Some people will love me; some will hate me. It's like being an MP or Stan Collymore. Which is fair play..."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is being released on video in this country soon after it airs in America on 14 May. The BBC are mooting the last weekend in May as a possible UK airdate, though this is subject to change at the 11Ith hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
----<br />
The Director Geoffrey Sax<br />
<br />
ACCLAIMED BRITISH TV DIRECTOR GEOFFREY SAX REVEALS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DOCTOR'S BOLDEST TV MOVIE.<br />
<br />
One of the most respected film-makers in British television, Sax has an impressive CV, from ITV comedies like The New Statesman (for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy) to popular BBC dramas like Lovejoy and Bergerac.<br />
<br />
So his Doctor Who is clearly going to be flavoured with a healthy pinch of ingredients drawn from his earlier work. In fact, Sax is convinced that blending humour with high-tech action is the key to resurrecting The Doctor.<br />
<br />
"I hope it's something that will keep people on the edge of their seats but also make them laugh," he explains.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, who plays his companion, Dr Grace Holloway, have been a major asset in Sax's search for comic subtlety. "The first thing we shot was in Grace's apartment. I rehearsed it a day or two before and I knew as soon as I got up to the set with them that the chemistry between the two was extraordinary. She has got this great comic timing."<br />
<br />
And Sax knew from the beginning that the most difficult element would be making audiences on both sides of the Atlantic happy.<br />
<br />
"We have to assume the majority of the audience has not seen this character before," he explains. "You have to keep to the traditions, but also set some new rules. When I worked on the script that's what I worked on, making sure it worked for both audiences without it being a mid-Atlantic compromise and a mess."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the script is filled with moments that will be familiar to Who fans — the voice of the Daleks at the very beginning, for instance. "To those who know, it will raise a smile," he says, "to those that don't it's simply some alien being. But it still makes sense dramatically to both audiences."<br />
<br />
For all the gentle comedy Sax hopes to evoke, there's no escaping the fact that for many the film will stand or fall on the quality of its action and special effects. The director admits he's had most fun working on the film's more spectacular scenes... "It's important it's fast-paced. So I always try to keep the camera moving," he says.<br />
<br />
There are many ambitious set-pieces too, from shoot-outs and car chases to the apocalyptic showdown between The Doctor and The Master too. Sax makes no secrets where he draws his inspiration from: "I often think, 'How would James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do this?' They are the sort of people who weave magic into films... If I had $50 million to make this, how would I do it? Then it's a case of how can I make it look like I had $50 million!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: British director Geoffrey Sax regarded the TV movie as a kind of "comedy thriller."<br />
----<br />
The Designer Richard Hudolin<br />
<br />
AMERICAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD HUDOLIN REVEALS HOW HE'S BRINGING WHO INTO THE '90S.<br />
<br />
<br />
You start doing your research," bemoans designer Richard Hudolin, "and you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God, they've handed you the Crown Jewels and expect you to do something with it!'"<br />
<br />
But if giving the new Who movie a distinctive, futuristic look by dressing up Vancouver locations was a hard task, designing a new version of the series' trademark TARDIS was an even bigger challenge...<br />
<br />
Viewed from the outside, the famous time machine is an authentic replica of the original, recreated from original BBC blueprints.<br />
<br />
But the cozy familiarity presents a stark contrast to what lies inside...<br />
<br />
On a cavernous sound stage, Hudolin has created a set that's part Jules Verne, part HG Wells and part Bram Stoker. The interior is a Victorian gentleman's reading room and a monument to the magpie habits of a time traveller. Next door, the cloister room - home of the Eye of Destiny has the appearance of a vast, sinister Gothic cathedral.<br />
<br />
Hudolin's previous credits offer plenty of clues to his influences. As well as being art director on an impressive range of movies (TimeCop, K2, Stakeout and Little Women), Hudolin has also worked on television series, including Sherlock Holmes Returns for CBS and Dracula for the Famous Players TV station in Canada.<br />
<br />
At the heart of the room stands the familiar control console, with Its distinctive crystal column. But the chamber itself has been re-designed to convey the idea of infinity. "Between the cloister and the control room, the idea was to have a 'MObius strip,' with no inside, no outside, and lots of things going on," explains Hudolin.<br />
<br />
"The producer Phil Segal said we could do anything we wanted. He told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted. If you want to create a feeling of space and infinity then you don't need walls or rooms; you need areas, with all Tie Doctor's things around him:"<br />
<br />
His previous experience on science fiction movies helped with some of his ideas. "I did a film years ago called HyperSapien, with Harry Lange, the production designer who worked on 2001," explains Hudolin. "That fell into the sphere where you're mixing reality with what is the future."<br />
<br />
The sheer size of the set is also reminiscent of the work Hudolin did on Superman Ill, where he assisted award-winning designer Terry Ackland Snow. "When you work with those kind of people you get a sense of scale. The TARDIS has got a 24-foot ceiling, because Pete Ware [one of the show's producers] asked how big we could make it, and I said I'll take it as high as it will go. Because you need grandness. You can't put The Doctor into a cubby hole."<br />
<br />
He was encouraged by English director Geoffrey Sax. "He wanted it to be very theatrical," reveals Hudolin. But he also designed the set so it would complement Sax's plans to use atmospheric lighting. "A lot of the set is designed to help the director of photography. As the rotor starts to work on the console there's this blue light that casts a glow," he explains.<br />
<br />
Hudolin admits reinventing the TARDIS has been one of the most enjoyable challenges of his career. He's well aware, however, how critical Who fans will be about his work. "I was not scared by that," he says. "That's part of the fun of it. In the end it's design. There's no right or wrong."<br />
<br />
"Producer Phil Segal said we could do anythinq we wanted. he told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Richard Hudolin's sets were designed with the director's ideas for lighting in mind.<br />
----<br />
The Master Eric Roberts<br />
<br />
<br />
PLAYING THE DOCTOR'S ARCH ENEMY IS A RIGHT LAUGH, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO ACTOR ERIC ROBERTS...<br />
<br />
Eric Roberts was just a typical 18 year old RADA student slumming it in London when, in 1973, he first cast eyes on Doctor Who...<br />
<br />
"I just loved it. It was really fun, really cheesy," he recalls. When, late last year, word got to him that Universal Television were working on a new movie version of the same show, he told his agent to move — and fast.<br />
<br />
"I offered my services," he explains. The Oscar-nominated actor, whose stormy black looks have never left him short of bad guy offers, had never forgotten the most sinister of all the Doctor's enemies. "The first time I saw the Master, he was a big, black, glob with eyes," he laughs. "He was the all-foreboding evil force. I said: 'If you're doing Doctor Who, I would love to play somebody crazy. I would love to play the Master."'<br />
<br />
Fulfilling his wish in Vancouver has, he admits been "a blast." In Matthew Jacobs' screenplay, The Master has materialised in America on New Year's Eve, 1999 and plans to wreak a little millennium mischief...<br />
<br />
Roberts confesses that his first two weeks in his latest evil guise has once more reminded him of the old truism about the bad guys being more fun.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely more fun. You get to carry weapons, you get to wear great suits. And you've always got a way with the babes," he admits.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, the Atlanta, Georgia raised Roberts and the Liverpudlian McGann don't appear to have much in common. But in fact, both actors went to the same drama school. "It turned out we'd had all of the same teachers!" says Roberts.<br />
<br />
Since he graduated from RADA, Roberts' career has been a roller-coaster ride. His debut movie, King of the Gypsies, alerted Hollywood and in the mid-'80s Runaway Train, with Jon Voight, won him an Oscar nomination. But in latter years he has had to live in the shadow of his little sister, Julia.<br />
<br />
His latest movie, an AIDS drama called It's My Party, has once more pushed him back into the limelight. However, his main priority at present is to have fun on set. "In my 20s, even my early 30s, I was always in a hurry to find that good script. But there's no hurry. I'll keep looking and when it shows up I'll be thrilled," he says.<br />
<br />
Roberts is understandably reluctant to reveal The Master's fate at the end of the movie. But he says he'd love to appear in a new series: "I like Paul's work so much that if he wanted me back on it I'd show up in a minute."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Julia Roberts' brother Eric takes over from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley in the role of the Doctor's nemesis, The Master.<br />
----<br />
Grace Holloway<br />
<br />
Daphne Ashbrook<br />
<br />
ACTRESS DAPHNE ASHBROOK, ALIAS THE DOCTOR'S NEW ASSISTANT, ON WHY SNOGGING A TIME LORD ISN'T EASY...<br />
<br />
Science fiction is not a line of work alien to Daphne Ashbrook.<br />
<br />
Among her many TV credits is the pilot of CBS television's UFO-abduction series intruders back in 1992 and an appearance in Deep Space Nine. Intruders even stimulated a real-life interest in the unexplained. "During Intruders, I got into the whole thing and met a lot of people who claim to be abductees," she explains. "I started collecting clips of film. But I don't believe it is fiction. I believe it's real." One thing Ashbrook did have a problem believing, however, was the existence of an incredibly successful genre TV series which she'd never even heard of.<br />
<br />
"I wasn't familiar with it at all," she admits, feigning embarrassment. But then she found herself cast as The Doctor's new assistant, Dr Grace Holloway — and with only two days to prepare herself to join the Who production in Vancouver!<br />
<br />
"I still haven't seen any [of the old series].To know about all that other stuff — for an actress I'm not sure that would actually help me."<br />
<br />
The relationship between the two Doctors is set to generate the hottest debate when the film airs on this side of the Atlantic. Grace stirs up feelings that have remained dormant in the Time Lord for hundreds of years. In fact, their first romantic moment came almost as soon as she arrived on set in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
"It was right at the beginning and we were a little shy of each other," she remembers. "I would like to have been a little more comfortable, I just didn't know him. It was weird — 'Hello, nice to meet you... Let's kiss!'"<br />
<br />
She knew McGann through Withnail and I. "But I haven't seen much else of his," she says. She is convinced, however, that he will win Doctor Who a completely new set of followers:. "Women will go crazy for him."<br />
<br />
For Ashbrook, the daughter of theatrical parents, working with McGann has made a pleasant change from the formula froth of American shows like Falcon Crest, all talking heads and pouting close-ups: "I'm not used to having an opportunity to work with an actor. It's all about the camera in America." And of the Who experience, she enthuses: "I'm having the best time I have ever had."<br />
<br />
The prospect of being a part of another science fiction production also fascinates her ("This is all up my alley") — and now she is fully aware of Doctor Who and its infinite appeal, Ashbrook is adamant she would have no hesitation in accepting an invitation to voyage inside the new TARDIS: "I would be a perfect companion." Ask her which moment in time and history she'd like him to transport her to and her reply comes quick-as-a-flash: "I want to be here when the aliens arrive..."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Daphne Ashbrook plays the Doctor's latest companion, Dr Grace Holloway.<br />
<br />
Caption: Holloway doesn't follow the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of the story, but could return, says Ashbrook. She does a mean Dana Scully impression, too.<br />
----<br />
Caption: A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
Caption: The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1996-06_SFX.pdf&diff=32723File:1996-06 SFX.pdf2024-03-03T21:50:34Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1964-07-18_Radio_Times.jpg&diff=32722File:1964-07-18 Radio Times.jpg2024-03-03T21:12:42Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=No,_Dr_Who_is_not_aboard!&diff=32721No, Dr Who is not aboard!2024-02-29T21:47:49Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette | file = 1995-05-19 Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette.jpg | px = 400 | height = | width = | date = 1995-05-..."</p>
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FOR followers of television's Dr Who seeks, this will be a familiar sight. The police box, converted Into a time machine, takes off with the intrepid doctor aboard.<br />
<br />
But there's a down-to-earth explanation for this photograph. It's all part of the programme to phase out police boxes, which have become largely obsolete as officers on the beat now have personal radios.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1995-05-19_Hammersmith_%26_Shepherds_Bush_Gazette.jpg&diff=32720File:1995-05-19 Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette.jpg2024-02-29T21:46:45Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Hammersmith_Fulham_%26_Sheperds_Bush_Gazette&diff=32719Hammersmith Fulham & Sheperds Bush Gazette2024-02-29T20:46:31Z<p>John Lavalie: Redirected page to Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette</p>
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<div>#REDIRECT [[Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette]]</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Meet_the_monster_from_Dr_Who&diff=32718Meet the monster from Dr Who2024-02-29T20:46:19Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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VISITORS to the BBC film studios in Ealing last week may have found themselves appearing live on daytime television as a backdrop to presenters Jayne Irving and Eamonn Holmes.<br />
<br />
As BBC staff members and friends were given a preview of the exhibitions open to the public at the weekend, a camera crew followed Miss Irving past the huge water tank. built to film Ealing Studios' epics like The Cruel Sea, to the set of a massive costume drama about novelist Vita Sackville West, where the Open Air team were settled around a Victorian dining table. The cameras swung round to the demonstration make-up table, where Wendy Richards (Pauline in EastEnders) was waiting to do a piece about the early days of television drama. Eamonn Holmes, normally so calm and urbane, three a little tantrum over the late arrival of guests, and any visitor who happened to be in the way was shooed away by an imperious floor manager as the massive studio cameras were wheeled through the crowd<br />
<br />
The studios have changed very little in the last 60 years — the only significant change since the BBC took over is the conversion of the original Stage 1 into offices. But the massive diesel generators are still used to power the lights on the stages.<br />
<br />
This is the second series of open days the BBC has held in the last ten years, but the first to be open to the public. It would be nice to think they could become a regular feature. keeping viewers in touch with the television world.<br />
<br />
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Caption: A monster hit ... the open day brought a chance to see the creatures from Dr Who. Below Eamonn Holmes briefs Wendy Richards<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Meet_the_monster_from_Dr_Who&diff=32717Meet the monster from Dr Who2024-02-29T20:45:44Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Hammersmith Fulham and Sheperds Bush Gazette | file = 1989-12-15 Hammersmith Fulham and Sheperds Bush Gazette.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = |..."</p>
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| publication = Hammersmith Fulham and Sheperds Bush Gazette<br />
| file = 1989-12-15 Hammersmith Fulham and Sheperds Bush Gazette.jpg<br />
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| author = Amanda Holloway <br />
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VISITORS to the BBC film studios in Ealing last week may have found themselves appearing live on daytime television as a backdrop to presenters Jayne Irving and Eamonn Holmes.<br />
<br />
As BBC staff members and friends were given a preview of the exhibitions open to the public at the weekend, a camera crew followed Miss Irving past the huge water tank. built to film Ealing Studios' epics like The Cruel Sea, to the set of a massive costume drama about novelist Vita Sackville West, where the Open Air team were settled around a Victorian dining table. The cameras swung round to the demonstration make-up table, where Wendy Richards (Pauline in EastEnders) was waiting to do a piece about the early days of television drama. Eamonn Holmes, normally so calm and urbane, three a little tantrum over the late arrival of guests, and any visitor who happened to be in the way was shooed away by an imperious floor manager as the massive studio cameras were wheeled through the crowd<br />
<br />
The studios have changed very little in the last 60 years — the only significant change since the BBC took over is the conversion of the original Stage 1 into offices. But the massive diesel generators are still used to power the lights on the stages.<br />
<br />
This is the second series of open days the BBC has held in the last ten years, but the first to be open to the public. It would be nice to think they could become a regular feature. keeping viewers in touch with the television world.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: A monster hit ... the open day brought a chance to see the creatures from Dr Who. Below Eamonn Holmes briefs Wendy Richards<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1989-12-15_Hammersmith_Fulham_and_Sheperds_Bush_Gazette.jpg&diff=32716File:1989-12-15 Hammersmith Fulham and Sheperds Bush Gazette.jpg2024-02-29T20:44:30Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Is_%27Blake%27s_Seven%27_going_downhill%3F&diff=32715Is 'Blake's Seven' going downhill?2024-02-29T20:01:29Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Radio Times | file = 1981-12-05 Radio Times.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = | date = 1981-12-05 | author = | pages = | language = English |..."</p>
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I PROTEST strongly against the latest series of Blake's Seven (Mondays BBC1). This once excellent programme has been reduced to the level of Doctor Who - mindless, childish trivia. The main strength of the previous series lay in the attention given to the development of the characters. I used to enjoy the intelligent dialogue and subtle interplay of personalities. Look at the programme now - what has happened?<br />
<br />
I can only presume that the producer has found new scriptwriters. True, the plots are as obvious, stereotyped and unoriginal as ever - no change there! - but the characterisation has sadly lapsed ...<br />
<br />
Malcolm Hill<br />
<br />
Hull<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1981-12-05_Radio_Times.jpg&diff=32714File:1981-12-05 Radio Times.jpg2024-02-29T19:59:22Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Dr_Who_and_the_Sontaran_Experiment&diff=32713Dr Who and the Sontaran Experiment2024-02-29T18:13:05Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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DR WHO AND THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT By Ian Marter<br />
<br />
Based upon the Dr Who serial [[broadwcast:The Sontaran Experiment|The Sontaran Experiment]] this is an ideal youngster's introduction to science fiction. The storyline does not contain any earth-shattering ideas but, nevertheless, it is good, basic science fiction. Reading the book brought to mind the serial in question and underlined the feeling that it is only the BBC's budgetary restrictions that keeps Dr Who at a children's viewing time. The plot is mature enough to ensure more adult acceptance. If you have a young brother or sister showing an interest in science fiction then you cannot go far wrong by buying them any book in this excellent series—excluding the historical titles like [[broadwcast:The Crusade|Dr Who and the Crusaders]]. It would help them make the transition to reading Moorcock, Silverberg, Farmer, et al. more easily.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Dr_Who_and_the_Sontaran_Experiment&diff=32712Dr Who and the Sontaran Experiment2024-02-29T18:12:21Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Starburst | file = 1979-05 Starburst.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = | date = 1979-05-01 | display date = issue 9 (May 1979) | author = | page..."</p>
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DR WHO AND THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT By Ian Marter<br />
<br />
Based upon the Dr Who serial [[broadwcast:The Sontaran Experiment|The Sontaran Experiment]] this is an ideal youngster's introduction to science fiction. The storyline does not contain any earth-shattering ideas but, nevertheless, it is good, basic science fiction. Reading the book brought to mind the serial in question and underlined the feeling that it is only the BBC's budgetary restrictions that keeps Dr Who at a children's viewing time. The plot is mature enough to ensure more adult acceptance. If you have a young brother or sister showing an interest in science fiction then you cannot go far wrong by buying them any book in this excellent series—excluding the historical titles like [[broadwcast:The Crusade|Dr Who and the Crusaders]]. It would help them make the transition to reading Moorcock, Silverberg, Farmer, et al. more easily.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:1979-05_Starburst.jpg&diff=32711File:1979-05 Starburst.jpg2024-02-29T18:11:17Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Echo_Magazine&diff=32710Echo Magazine2024-02-29T17:54:30Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
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{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Echo_Magazine&diff=32709Echo Magazine2024-02-29T17:54:18Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{Publisher |firstPublished=1989 |lastPublished=&nbsp; |location=Arizona |website=echomag.com |notes=&nbsp; }} {{Publication|United States}}"</p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
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{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=The_BBC_have_zapped_new_life_into_that_most_bizarre_of_geek_entertainments,_Dr._Who&diff=32708The BBC have zapped new life into that most bizarre of geek entertainments, Dr. Who2024-02-29T17:53:43Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Echo Magazine | file = 2005-06-02 Echo.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2005-06-02 | author = Matthew Heil | pages = 66 | language = En..."</p>
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In the 'Why Didn't I Think of That' department, our friends at the BBC have zapped new life into that most bizarre of geek entertainments, Dr. Who. The galaxy-romping show, where a continually reincarnated alien fights bad guys that look like trash cans and evil Muppets, has added a new surprise to his way-out mix: a bisexual space captain.<br />
<br />
Yes, across the pond (and on your Satellite cable) the good doctor gets a good dose of out actor John Barrowman, playing Captain Jack Harkness, according to the folks at www.afterelton.com. If the openly-gay actor's lucky, he'll even reincarnate into season two. Get the latest info at www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=File:2005-06-02_Echo.jpg&diff=32707File:2005-06-02 Echo.jpg2024-02-29T17:51:45Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div></div>John Lavalie