Gary Russell might not have envied Gary Gillatt as the Doctor Who TV Movie went into production in early 1996, but the incoming editor of DWM found himself thrown in at the deep end...
“It’s easy to forget quite how quickly the TV Movie went from rumour to production to broadcast,” says Gary Gillatt. “It was the briefest break in the clouds, and came and went in a matter of months. Paul McGann was announced as the new Doctor, and within hours he was filming in Vancouver. DWM was as surprised as anyone when that photocall in the Longleat Doctor Who exhibition happened – and, for a cover, we had to make the best of that peculiar picture of Paul cautiously offering what appeared to be a novelty ashtray, or a ball of unicorn dung.