What if Doctor Who was revived in 1996 instead of 2005?

[ChrisIII]

Thought this could be it's own thread instead of just another for the general thread if that's OK. Sort of a hypothetical thread like the LOTR in the 60s one.

"Classic" Doctor Who ran from 1963-1989, cancelled due a combination of poor ratings and BBC's growing ambivalence towards the show since Tom Baker had left in 1981, as well as some other issues (Violence concerns, BBC politics etc). In 1996, a Paul Mcgann TV movie was made that was largely intended as a possible pilot for a new TV series that would be an American and British co-production.

The film stuck with the continuity of the show, with Sylvester McCoy regenerating into the Eighth Doctor Paul Mcgann, and several references to Time Lords, Daleks etc. and the main villain was recurring foe the Master, who had last appeared in WHO's final episode/serial Survival.

However, despite strong ratings in Britain it failed in the United states, largely because it was scheduled against a "special" episode of Roseanne. Fans though Mcgann was a great Doctor, but many were annoyed at the attempts to "Americanize" the show, as well as failing to take advantage of Doctor Who's time travel aspect, instead setting everything in near future San Francisco.

So no further series was greenlit, although Mcgann's Eighth Doctor continued in spin-off material with Mcgann reprising the role for Audio dramas.

Although there had been attempts at a Ninth Doctor in now non-canon but still official productions (The Curse of Fatal Death, Scream of the Shalka), the BBC green-lighted a continuation of WHO in 2003 (largely due to the sucess of Buffy & Star Trek spin-offs in Britain) which was also a continuation (but did it somewhat more cautiously than the TV movie, with familiar elements and enemies introduced more gradually) with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, although with no explanation as to how he came to regenerate apart from possibly being related to the Time War storyline (an explanation-and an in-between Doctor-was introduced in the 2013 anniversary short "Night of the Doctor").


But what if the TV movie did well and a series happened? Would there be more "Americanisation", or updates of classic Who monsters (Some concept art for an earlier script in particular showed "Spider Daleks" which would play up their mutant angle with their casings opening )? Who would be the likely companion? Also when Mcgann decided to leave, who would be the possible future Doctors?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Thought this could be it's own thread instead of just another for the general thread if that's OK. Sort of a hypothetical thread like the LOTR in the 60s one.

In 1996, a Paul Mcgann TV movie was made that was largely intended as a possible pilot for a new TV series that would be an American and British co-production.

The film stuck with the continuity of the show, with Sylvester McCoy regenerating into the Eighth Doctor Paul Mcgann, and several references to Time Lords, Daleks etc. and the main villain was recurring foe the Master, who had last appeared in WHO's final episode/serial Survival.

However, despite strong ratings in Britain it failed in the United states, largely because it was scheduled by Roseanne. Fans though Mcgann was a great Doctor, but many were annoyed at the attempts to "Americanize" the show, as well as failing to take advantage of Doctor Who's time travel aspect, instead setting everything in near future San Francisco.

So no further series was greenlit, although Mcgann's Eighth Doctor continued in spin-off material with Mcgann reprising the role for Audio dramas.

Although there had been attempts at a Ninth Doctor in now non-canon but still official productions (The Curse of Fatal Death, Scream of the Shalka), the BBC green-lighted a continuation of WHO in 2003 (largely due to the sucess of Buffy & Star Trek spin-offs in Britain) which was also a continuation (but did it somewhat more cautiously than the TV movie, with familiar elements and enemies introduced more gradually) with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, although with no explanation as to how he came to regenerate apart from possibly being related to the Time War storyline (an explanation-and an in-between Doctor-was introduced in the 2013 anniversary short "Night of the Doctor").


But what if the TV movie did well and a series happened? Would there be more "Americanisation", or updates of classic Who monsters (Some concept art for an earlier script in particular showed "Spider Daleks" which would play up their mutant angle with their casings opening )? Who would be the likely companion? Also when Mcgann decided to leave, who would be the possible future Doctors?

I remember McGann being contracted for 6 years so he'd be behind Tom Baker if it lasted that long.

Grace would probably be the main companion and we'd have the romantic drama years earlier.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...oClassicSeries

TV tropes had a list of changes that the series would've explored ie the Doctor and Masters are half-brothers and searching for their missing dad, the doctor is half human and some radical reinventions of Borusa, the Daleks and Cyberman.

This would have been the Timeless child breakdown years earlier.

[ChrisIII]

Think the Borusa stuff would be from an earlier draft, basically giving the Doctor a kind of computer sidekick.

It seems like it possibly would've been similar to the robot version of the Master from Scream of the Shalka (Played by Derek Jacobi who of course became a real Master, if briefly in the show).

Reportedly the first choice was Peter O' Toole.

Guess who co-starred with him in one of her breakout roles in "Venus" (2005)?




The concept of the Doctor's father (Ulysses) being an explorer kind of also is similar to Tectuen.

[JBatmanFan05]

I can't speculate at this moment on what might have happened, but I can say that I almost inexplicably L O V E the 1996 TV film Doctor Who with 8th Doctor Paul McGann. The sheer differentness of it, I love the set designs and the color palette and special effects and McGann is just amazing. Not even Eric Roberts can make me not love this film.

One of history's greatest TV tragedies isn't that we didn't get more of McGann 8th Doctor immediately thereafter this film in this hypothetical revival series.

[ChrisIII]

It's kind of unfortunate we haven't seen the same console room design since, although we've had plenty of re-creations of the Hartnell-era design (Which of course is somewhat simpler). The new series did stick for the most part with the Time Rotor being connected to the roof instead of just bobbing up and down, with the exception of Jodie's which was a sort of asymmetrical crystal.

One cool thing was that the scanner had a panaramic view, which seems to fit somewhat better with the main camera being the light on top of the TARDIS than the smaller screens we've had in both versions of WHO. Never really got used again.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Think the Borusa stuff would be from an earlier draft, basically giving the Doctor a kind of computer sidekick.

It seems like it possibly would've been similar to the robot version of the Master from Scream of the Shalka (Played by Derek Jacobi who of course became a real Master, if briefly in the show).

Reportedly the first choice was Peter O' Toole.

Guess who co-starred with him in one of her breakout roles in "Venus" (2005)?




The concept of the Doctor's father (Ulysses) being an explorer kind of also is similar to Tectuen.

Their take on borusa reminded me of Zordon.

[ChrisIII]

Wonder if they'd have a "mission" format to send the Doctor on instead of the Doctor mostly just travelling and happening to stumble upon bad stuff most of the time (With some exceptions-The UNIT format had him being brought to at least advise on most of their cases, and the Doctor ocassionally was sent on missions by the Time Lords during the Pertwee and early Tom Baker eras, and in one case with Colin Baker).

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Wonder if they'd have a "mission" format to send the Doctor on instead of the Doctor mostly just travelling and happening to stumble upon bad stuff most of the time (With some exceptions-The UNIT format had him being brought to at least advise on most of their cases, and the Doctor ocassionally was sent on missions by the Time Lords during the Pertwee and early Tom Baker eras, and in one case with Colin Baker).

The movie started with him returning from Skaro so it's possible he could've gone on missions from time to time.

[Frobisher]

A lot of the potential late 90s Doctors either did it for Comic Relief (Richard E Grant, Rowan Atkinson), did it later (Ecclestone) or would never have agreed anyway (Ewan MacGregor, maybe). I could try see them asking Ewan Bremner or Robert Carlyle on the back of their Trainspotting bump, or Robbie Coltrane post-Cracker, and Peter Capaldi could also have been a much less weathered and grumpy take than he ended up (why are all my ideas Scots?).

Probably they’d have got the weird kid from My Family who looks exactly the same now as an adult, Martin Clunes/Neil Morrissey, or Ardal O’Hanlon (never had an actually Irish Doctor right?).

[Jim Kelly]

Would've been cool if it continued to be produced in Vancouver. With X-FILES coming to the end of its production in our city, SLIDERS still in production, STARGATE-SG1 beginning production and SMALLVILLE and SUPERNATURAL further down the road--there's no doubt our crews could handle a science fiction series, with B.C. subbing in for anywhere in the world or on any other planet. However, I think the U.K. wouldn't like it if their Doctor was being produced in the colonies. Britain brings a certain look to WHO that might be considered essential.

[Catlady in training]

2000's TV was a different landscape because after the success of TV shows like X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, other TV shows started to rely more and more on season-long storylines. Especially in "genre" shows. RTD pretty much built the revival on this model, combining the monster of the week stand-alone episodes with an overarching storyarch for each season.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

8's era might've been more episodic while 9 and 10 would dabble in the mixed episodes with an ongoing plot format of the 2000s.

Tim Curry could've been tapped to play Ulysses if the show got off the ground. He was one of the early choices for 8th Doctor before Mcgann was cast.

Some of the other revival attempts would've got made as spinoffs. I'm referring to Davies idea of the Doctor being homeless and discovered by a group of kids or Gatiss's idea of the Doctor as the audience surrogate instead of the companion. Those would've been perfect for Susan.

Richard Grant's Shalka Doctor could've been one of Mcgann's sucessors.

I don't know if we would've gotten the Time War but it's possible we might've gotten one of the future incarnations involved in a smaller version of it.

The Master being involved in the Dalek's creation did happen in Big Finish's "The War Master:Anti-Genesis".

[ChrisIII]

Kind of interesting in the classic series the Daleks and the Time Lords don't care about each other until "Genesis". It's pretty much just the Daleks and the Doctor; but in "Resurrection" and "Rememberance" the Daleks pretty much directly threathen the Time Lords.


There's also an interesting thing about the Daleks-if the Doctor had never appeared on Skaro in either time, would the Daleks have ever left Skaro? Meeting the Doctor and also perhaps figuring out that he was there at their beginning eventually might have had them figure out there was more to the universe-In GENESIS for instance the Kaleds are adamant that it's just them, the Thals and other life on Skaro and that's it. In both cases, the Doctor and his companions prove them wrong-and that there's a whole universe out there to conquer-and time travel too!

So the Doctor might have accidentally made them a universal threat....but then again, as the Doctor points out in Genesis, it led to good things like civilizations banding together to stop them-and it's possible something worse would have taken their place.

[Jokerz79]

Interesting enough we might have gotten the Capaldi Doctor sooner he was on the short list for the Doctor in the tv movie as was Eccleston both turned down the audition invite at the time. So, he could have replaced McGann when he eventually regenerated.

There are a lot of reason I would have enjoyed this timeline. I loved the Steampunk look of the TV Movie's Console while hating the 1st RTD era's Tardis inside it's my all-time least liked Tardis interior. Also, I loved McGann as the Doctor and have loved for him to have a proper run.

[ChrisIII]

Kind of wonder how a younger Capaldi would've played it. In his first season in particular his Doctor was patterned largely on other "White haired" Doctors like Hartnell and Pertwee (Although with a significant amount of the Sixth's rudeness as well, but less of the narcissism) although this gradually softened.

Kind of wonder if he'd a bit like his "Lair of the White Worm" character.