20 years on, Doctor Who Magazine takes a look back at 1996’s TV Movie, with new interviews from Daphne Ashbrook, Eric Roberts, Yee Gee Tso, Gordon Tipple and the Eighth Doctor himself, Paul McGann…
The 56-year-old actor can’t quite believe how quickly 20 years have flown by…
“It seems like yesterday. If you’d have said ‘ten years’, I’d have said, ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’ But it’s actually 20! I remember every bit of it. It’s an anniversary, isn’t it? We love anniversaries in magazines, and we love anniversaries on the telly.”
Despite being a pilot for a series which never materialised, in hindsight, Paul acknowledges that the TV Movie undoubtedly played its part in Doctor Who’s legacy…
“Those of us who were involved in it, when on the occasions that we do get to meet and talk about it in front of an audience, even four or five years ago… Phil Segal was there, and Yee Jee was there, and Daphne was there, Eric Roberts was there… we all met and there was a proper reunion and we talked about it, and I think the feeling then between us, and the audience agreed, was that yes, flawed it might have been, and a long shot it certainly was, and in the end it failed its chief function which was to go to a series, but… all things considered it was a good idea and it played its part in restoring the momentum enough. It kept Doctor Who going. Ten years later, it came back. And Russell T Davies [showrunner 2005-10] gave the nod, in subtle ways, to it.”
ALSO INSIDE THIS SPECIAL TV MOVIE-THEMED ISSUE…