Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight
- Publication: The Courier-Journal
- Date: 1996-05-14
- Author: Tom Dorsey
- Page: C3
- Language: English
The longest-running science-fiction series gets a new life tonight when "Doctor Who" returns to the tube at 8 on Fox.
The British Broadcasting Corp.'s wildly popular time-travel series (1963-89) is being reincarnated as a movie. The film is eagerly anticipated by the series' fans who watched the reruns on PBS stations.
Sci-fi fans of almost any stripe should like this quirky yarn and the strange twists and turns it takes.
Doctor Who (Paul McGann) is one of a group of Time Lords who are supposed to be observers of the universe but never stick their nose into events.
The good Doctor is a benevolent 950-year-old renegade who breaks the rules to right wrongs. Think of him as a Superman without cape.
The wrong he's righting tonight is the diabolical scheme of The Master, an evil Time Lord played by Eric Roberts. The Master is bent on extending his own existence through eternity and he doesn't care if he has to upend the universe to get his way.
Time Lords have as many as 13 lives. They can regenerate themselves into different people, but The Master has used up all of his lives. Doctor Who has been asked to escort his ashes to a place of eternal imprisonment.
A glitch in the transport system sends Doctor Who to San Francisco on New Year's Eve 1999 where The Master's remains escape and take over the body of an emergency medical-services worker.
Ultimately The Master has to inhabit the body of Doctor Who if he wants to be permanently resuscitated. So the chase begins.
Along the way, Doctor Who acquires a woman surgeon sidekick (Daphne Ashbrook). That partnership winds up in a romance that could last until the end of time.
McGann is the eighth in a line of actors who have played the part. Sylvester McCoy, the most recent actor to play Doctor Who in the TV series, appears at the story's start.
The first actor to play Doctor Who, William Hartnell, left the series in 1966. When that happened, the producers came up with the idea of a Time Lord regenerating himself into the body of the next performer.
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- APA 6th ed.: Dorsey, Tom (1996-05-14). Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight. The Courier-Journal p. C3.
- MLA 7th ed.: Dorsey, Tom. "Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight." The Courier-Journal [add city] 1996-05-14, C3. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Dorsey, Tom. "Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight." The Courier-Journal, edition, sec., 1996-05-14
- Turabian: Dorsey, Tom. "Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight." The Courier-Journal, 1996-05-14, section, C3 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sci-fi_fans_should_enjoy_%27Doctor_Who%27_flick_on_Fox_tonight | work=The Courier-Journal | pages=C3 | date=1996-05-14 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=18 December 2024 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Sci-fi fans should enjoy 'Doctor Who' flick on Fox tonight | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sci-fi_fans_should_enjoy_%27Doctor_Who%27_flick_on_Fox_tonight | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=18 December 2024}}</ref>
