Doctor Who/Recap/TVM the TV Movie: Difference between revisions
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[[File:eightpic_1577.jpg|frame|[[Scenery Porn|Ain't they]] [[Pretty Boy|pretty...]] ]]
{{quote|'''The Doctor:''' ''A meteor storm... t-the sky above us was dancing with lights! Purple, green, brilliant yellow... yes!''
'''Grace:''' ''What?''
'''The Doctor:''' ''These shoes!'' [Stomps the ground happily.] ''They fit perfectly!''|The Doctor takes a brief moment away from remembering his dark past to rejoice on how awesome the shoes he just got are.}}
In 1996, seven years after its cancellation, there was a near-Herculean effort to return ''[[Doctor Who]]'' to the small screen. The lone fruit was a [[Backdoor Pilot]] TV special on [[
Despite being made in Canada and set in San Francisco, it's remarkable how true to the old series the movie ''was'', and how much of a precursor it wound up being for the new series as well.
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As we open, the Master has just been EX-TER-MIN-AT-ED by the Daleks (who now sound like cyborg chipmunks) for some random reason.
Before the Master's ashes can be returned, though, they turn into a semi-intelligent blob of amorphous goo. This blobby thing escapes from the little casket and wreaks havoc with the TARDIS controls. The TARDIS, the Doctor, and the blob crash-land in [[San Francisco]], on New Year's Eve 1999. Unfortunately, they've landed in the middle of a Chinese gang war. Half a second after the Doctor sets foot outside the TARDIS, he's hit by two stray bullets from the shootout.
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One of the gang members, Chang Lee, is nice enough to call an ambulance. The ambulance arrives, with EMT Bruce. Bruce, Chang Lee, and "John Smith" are whisked away to the hospital, where "John Smith"'s physiology is sufficiently different from the human norm to cause serious problems. Trauma surgeon Dr. Grace Holloway is called in (from a performance of ''[[Madame Butterfly]]'', where she was [[Tender Tears|weeping tenderly]], while on call) to check out the weird fibrillations. And to see why every scan keeps showing two hearts. Even though the bullet wound is [[Only a Flesh Wound]], Grace inadvertently does more harm than good when she starts poking his heart, [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|and the Doctor dies]] on the operating table. From exploratory surgery. Congratulations, Grace! You're the first and only companion to ''kill the Doctor!''
Chang Lee takes advantage of the confusion to swipe the Doctor's stuff. Bruce the EMT, for which this must be sad but routine, ambles off home... completely unaware that the the Master has invaded his EMT outfit and has designs on the rest of him. At night, the Master slithers into Bruce's body and gives him some neat [[Mind Control Eyes|glowy green eyes]].
Anyway, the Doctor's death doesn't last, [[The Nth Doctor|as is routine for Time Lords]]. Hours later, a very confused Doctor, now looking like Paul McGann and clutching his death shroud around him, escapes and wanders the hospital. He scares the morgue worker half to death by appearing right when the guy is watching an old [[Frankenstein]] film. He then takes a moment to [[Chewing the Scenery|scream "WHO AM I?!" dramatically]] in the run-down wing of the hospital, while wrapped in that white shroud and showing off his half-naked torso. The fact that he [[Looks Like Jesus]] is neatly paired with shots of the satanic Master looking very serious.
The Doctor swipes a Victorian costume from the employee locker
Now dressed, though still barefoot and sporting a toe tag, the Doctor tries to figure out who he is. The sight of Grace jogs his memory, and he follows her to her car, where she is even ''further'' freaked out when he extracts a stray bit of medical probe from his person and explains that he's the two-hearted guy she killed the night before. Grace takes this about as well as can be expected, especially considering she just quit her job over a Doctor-related coverup, ''and'' her boyfriend just left her for leaving the opera halfway through. But eventually, she takes him home with her (not like that... well... okay, ''maybe'' like that) and gives him her ex-boyfriend's shoes. The Doctor's memory is soon restored, and he snogs Grace a few times out of sheer joy, forever shattering the series' [[No Hugging, No Kissing]] policy.
The Master, meanwhile, has paired up with Lee, and Lee is able to freely wander around the TARDIS (using the Doctor's key) because the TARDIS apparently likes him. The Master promises him gold in return for helping him, and the two open the onboard Eye of Harmony, thus overloading the TARDIS and wreaking havoc on Earth.
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The Doctor finally gets his hands on the beryllium atomic clock, after pissing off half the fanbase by randomly claiming he's half-human, and the day is saved from being wiped out by an overloaded TARDIS going boom.
Oh, and the Master tries to steal the Doctor's body while blowing things up, the Doctor is put in bondage gadgets, the Master tenderly kisses Lee on his forehead for no reason, and the Master gets killed [[Deader Than Dead]] for [[Killed Off for Real|real]]. ... [[Joker Immunity|For a while]].
And Grace and Lee both die, but the TARDIS revives them... somehow, and they return to their normal lives. Anyway, with the world saved and the Master safely dead, the Doctor heads back off to have many more adven...
Oh, cruel world, you have ''got'' to be kidding us! ''Nine'' more years [[Doctor Who
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As for why it wasn't picked up by Fox? Despite great ratings with males for the day it aired, it had little-to-no female demographics. Which Fox disliked somehow. And so, ''[[Doctor Who]]'' was put back into limbo for almost another decade. Meanwhile, the adventures of the Eighth Doctor would continue in [[Eighth Doctor Adventures|literary]], [[Doctor Who Magazine|comic book]], and [[Big Finish Doctor Who|audio]] format, with Paul McGann reprising his role in the latter.
This is considered canon by most of the New Series production staff: [[Russell T. Davies]] specifically mentioned this story when promoting the revived show in 2005, [[Doctor Who
The half-human aspect does appear to have been [[Doctor Who
Watch it [https://web.archive.org/web/20100331043328/http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x135v4_tardismedia_doctor-who-the-movie here.]
* [[Agent Scully]]: Grace is a bit like this.
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The novelisation goes to great lengths to try and explain away the more [[Egregious]] plot holes, and doesn't do too bad a job of it either.
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* [[Black Eyes of Evil]]: Posessed!Grace.
* [[Body Horror]]: Bruce undergoes this when the Master takes his body. According to the DVD commentary, the Body Horror was to get progressively and dramatically worse over the duration of the film as the Master's body decayed, but this concept was ultimately toned down, as Eric Roberts proved allergic to the prostethic they planned to use.
* [[Book Ends]]: Both the Seventh Doctor (at the beginning) and the Eighth Doctor (at the end) sit down to read ''[[The Time Machine]]'' and listen to a jazz
* [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]: Grace.
* [[Call Back]]: This is [[Doctor Who/Recap/S7
* [[Camp]]: The Master. Boy ''howdy'', the Master.
{{quote|
* [[Cassandra Truth]]: The Doctor has a hell of a time trying to convince Grace of anything:
** Firstly, the Seventh Doctor tries to tell Grace not to operate on him, because he's an alien and it'll kill him. She doesn't listen. He dies.
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** The first was a straightforward commentary by director Geoffrey Sax about casting, filming, and special effects shots.
** The second was moderated by Nicholas Briggs, and featured Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann reminiscing about filming, gushing about Daphne Ashbrook, and making fun of the movie's sillier scenes.
{{quote|
* [[Establishing Character Moment]]: The "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0JB_oKGb0w these shoes]!" bit of dialogue (the bit including the page quote) is always the first thing anyone goes to when describing the Eighth Doctor.
** Grace's establishing moment is when we see her crying at the opera. This is [[Lampshaded]] on a DVD featurette.
** The Master, believe it or not, gets one of these. Perhaps the only moment in the Movie where he really seemed like the Master.
{{quote|
'''The Doctor:''' Yes, intimately.
'''Grace:''' Does she kiss as good as me?
'''The Master:''' As ''[[Grammar Nazi|well]]'' as you. }}
** Although this exchange from the climax is also cited by fans in summing up ''both'' the Doctor and the Master:
{{quote|
'''The Master''': Life is ''wasted'' on the living. }}
* [[Extremely Short Timespan]]: The entire plot unfolds over the course of New Year's Eve 1999.
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* [[Fingore]]: At one point, the Master pulls off one of his fingernails and flicks it aside.
* [[Forgot I Could Fly]]: "''This is an ambulance!''."
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: The bondage-gear-looking device the Master uses on the
* [[Grammar Nazi]]: One of the Master's lesser-known quirks.
* [[Grand Theft Me]]
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* [[Made for TV Movie]]: Duh.
* [[The Messiah]]: And how. The movie really goes to town with the 'Doctor-as-Jesus' imagery and subtext.
* [[Mind Control Eyes]]: When she's under the Master's influence, Grace's eyes go [[Black Eyes of Evil|completely black]]; the effect is quite creepy.
** Bruce's eyes go a sickly green colour when the Master possesses him, but that's more 'Killed-The-Original-Occupant-And-Possessed-His-Body Eyes'.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice Job Killing the Seventh Doctor, Grace]]
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* [[Out of Continues]]: The Master's whole motivation, not spoilered because it's made clear from the beginning: Having run out of regenerations, the Master wants to steal the Doctor's. (Or, as he put it, "[[Large Ham|I NEED]] [[Ho Yay|THE DOCTOR'S]] [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|BODY]]"!)
* [[Percussive Maintenance]]: The TARDIS needs a little tap to get going at the end.
* [[Quintessential British Gentleman]]: Okay, so the Doctor's always been a bit of an anglophile, but the movie and the Eighth Doctor really takes it [[Up to Eleven]]. Dresses like a Victorian poet, oft-stated fondness for tea, highly
{{quote|
'''The Doctor''': Yes, I suppose I am! }}
* [[Quote Mine]]: The line "I finally meet the right guy, and he's from another planet" comes out of absolutely nowhere and is often considered to have been put in the script solely for this purpose.
* [[Reckless Gun Usage]]: The Doctor shows he's an [[Actual Pacifist]] by threatening to shoot ''himself'' in order to commandeer a policeman's motorcycle. However, when Grace wants a word with him, he starts pointing the gun vaguely in the direction of the policeman while looking the other way. It's not even clear if he's actually aiming at the cop or if it's simply [[Absent-Minded Professor|slipped his mind]] that the object he's holding is a gun. And then there's the bit where the Doctor does the [[Dramatic Gun Cock]] every time he aims again. Does he think he needs to hold the gun very, very still to prevent in uncocking itself? It shouldn't even be possible to do that.
** When Grace takes the gun off him, she shoots the radio on the cop's
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: The Master [[
* [[Reset Button]]: Closing the Eye of Harmony reverts time just enough to {{spoiler|bring Grace and Chang Lee back to life}}.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: As mentioned below, the interior of the TARDIS. Having a budget meant they could really play with the whole [[Bigger on the Inside]] thing, and boy did they ever.
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* [[Techno Babble]]: One of the complaints about the story is that it falls into this trap at the end; it's not really made very clear by the narrative what a 'temporal orbit' is or how this manages to save the day {{spoiler|and bring Grace and Chang Lee [[Back From the Dead]]}}.
* [[There's No B in Movie]]: Averted. The mortuary guy spends his shift watching the original ''[[Frankenstein]]''.
* [[Trauma-Induced Amnesia]]: The anesthesia almost stopped the Doctor regenerating
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: After spending the movie as both coldly methodical and campy, the Master ''completely loses it'' when the Doctor escapes his chains.
* [[Wag the Director]]: A mild example. According to the DVD commentary, Eric Roberts brought his own makeup crew, and oversaw the lighting and framing of all his character's shots.
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