I wasn’t particularly planning for this issue to be a TV Movie Special, but it seems to have grown into one, rather! Having got hold of Eric Roberts (the Master) for an interview, it was happy coincidence that an opportunity presented itself to do something with Yee Jee Tso (Chang Lee), Jo Wright (the BBC’s executive producer for the project), and even Gordon Tipple (the ‘old’ Master). At which point it seemed sensible to invite Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook to the party, and make a real occasion of it.
But I’m unapologetic, as the 20th anniversary of the 1996 TV Movie is really something that’s worth celebrating. People often talk about the ‘16 years’ in which Doctor Who was off-screen, but that’s to do the TV Movie a disservice.
It might have only been on for one night, but its impact and legacy was far greater and far further-reaching than that. To this day it stands as a wonderful piece of work – certainly, for my money, the most beautifully directed Doctor Who there’s ever been – a gloriously witty, affectionate and warm edition of our favourite show. At the end of the film, when Paul McGann’s Doctor sits back down in Sylvester McCoy’s chair, and resumes reading his book and listening to his record, it’s a deceptively simple and yet very clever way to hammer home the idea that this really is the same man in a new body; and a genuinely new way to show off the idea of regeneration.