This is the seventh part of a
series of articles celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.
Over the years there are certain stories that mean a lot to me either from
personal memories or involvement I had in fandom through the years. These
articles are not meant to be close examinations of the plot or production but more
about what these stories mean to me on a personal level. Enjoy.
“This is the story of two hearts
that learn to beat as one. It started on the distant planet Skaro where the
Master was finally sentenced to die. He listened silent as the crimes of all
twelve of his evil incarnations were read to him. Then he made his last and
final request. He demanded that I, The Doctor, nemesis and rival Time Lord take
his remains back to our home planet of Gallifrey. It was a request they never
should have granted.”
The Doctor (not read by Paul
McGann)
TV Movie rough cut
I have always felt that I hold a
special connection to the 1996 TV Movie.
As this pretty long article shows, not only do I hold a lot of affection for
the film but my life has intertwined with it a couple of times leading to an
interesting story and a lot of great memories.
It was announced in 1995 that Doctor Who would indeed return for at
least a special one-off production co-produced by the BBC and Universal to air
on the FOX network in the US. This may be one of the stories closest to my
heart and most personal to me. I worked at FOX at the time. OK, so I worked for
an affiliate. It is still a remarkable experience to work at a network that was
going to run a pilot for a TV series that seemed like a perfect fit for the
network at the time. If the TV Movie
worked, more episodes would be made or so we were lead to believe.
American television is so different
in 1996 than it is now. FOX is easily one of the most changed networks from
that time. To understand Doctor Who
possibly running on a US network is to understand FOX. At the time, there were
3 other broadcast television networks CBS, ABC, and NBC. These networks had
been around since the 1950s and they ruled the airwaves. On April 5, 1987 there
was a launch of a new network. The 4th network that was going to
shake up broadcasting. I remember sitting there that whole evening with my
sister, it was a Sunday and we watched a sleuth of programs we have never seen
before. I remember watching The Gary
Shandling Show, we watched The Tracy
Ullman Show and then there was Married….with
Children. These shows were alien to me.
The one thing FOX did that the
other three weren’t taking was risks. They would try out programs that were a
little unconventional and keep working at them making them successes. Who would
have thought anything like The Simpsons
would be big. It ruled at FOX. Now, it feels like an afterthought but The Simpsons on FOX reflected the whole
demeanor of the network. The more nights they would take over from their
affiliates, the more interesting programs would crop up. There was another
little series that started up in 1993. It was called The X Files. Once again, it started at a time that no other
networks were getting programs of that genre to work; FOX had a nice hit on
their hands. More programs were being broadcast on FOX that matched what I
liked to watch. FOX also stole away the NFL from CBS; it was a major coup
starting the tradition that they went after as many sports as they could.
Meanwhile as the FOX broadcasting
network was germinating, in Minneapolis I was enjoying a healthy amount of
Independent stations. For those who are young enough to remember, the
Independent stations were the ones that never had networks tied to them. The
Independent stations would show a ton of repeats of old programs and often cult
movies. It’s kind of what Retro TV and Me TV does now but still very different
and felt looser. It really wasn’t commercialized. One of my favorites was KXLI
in St. Cloud which used to show The
Avengers. I wrote about that experience here.
Then, there was KMSP but my absolute favourite was KITN channel 29. Also known
as “The Kitten That Roared”.
KITN started off as WFBT which
stood for “Family Bible Television” in 1982. The power of WFBT compels you! Anyway,
surprisingly this bible format station seriously tanked and gave way to KITN.
Some of the programs I grew to love I first saw on KITN. This includes the
original series of Star Trek, The Beverly Hillbillies, I Love Lucy, and The Monkees to name a few! Before anyone gets confused, this was
not the station that gave us Mystery
Science Theater 3000. That was KTMA. I am sure this amazing history of
Minnesota independent station chronology is interesting, so I will continue on….
When FOX began broadcasting in 1987
it started on KMSP but soon the station became disappointed in the performance
of the network and dropped it. It moved over to KITN which at that point the
call letters changed to WFTC. This stood for We’re Fox Twin Cities. A lot of
the cool syndicated programs from the 1960s and 1970s went away but we got the
cool FOX programs and also multiple (and I mean multiple) repeats of Star Trek: the Next Generation. They
showed it so often, it made BBC America look like they show it once a week! For
those who didn’t get that joke, BBC America shows Star Trek: The Next Generation all the time.
As for myself, before I got into
Advertising, I was working down in Mankato at a TV station in 1994. In 1995, I
really wanted to move back to the Twin Cities and I was lucky enough to have a
friend who I went to school with who worked at WFTC. They wanted to hire
someone else in their department and that person was me.
Perhaps now we could actually talk
about how Doctor Who fits into all
of this? In 1995 it was announced that Doctor
Who would be returning to our screens via Philip Segal, Universal, the BBC and
FOX. This is where things start to get interesting is that I worked for Fox. Now
that might be a little misleading. To bog this article down more with technical
terms, some TV affiliates in the US are called O&O which means Owned and
Operated. The network owns those affiliates. Others are owned by other media
companies. WFTC, at the time, was owned by Clear Channel Communications. So,
although I worked at a FOX affiliate, I technically didn’t work for FOX.
When I found out that FOX would be
making this TV Movie, I was ecstatic
for a couple reasons. The most obvious one is that Doctor Who was finally returning and also there was a chance that
this would become an ongoing series. For the FOX network that existed in 1996, Doctor Who was perfect programming for
the network. It was sci-fi that could be made to look cool. I felt it would fit
in with the growing number of demographics for series such as X-Files or dare I utter its unholy
name, Sliders. I felt Doctor Who has the ability to be a
contemporary series that doesn’t need to be so dependent on its past. I was
pretty sure this new film wasn’t going to be mired in heavy continuity, right?
In January of 1996, Doctor Who fans were given the one
piece of casting news we had been dying for since we heard the TV Movie was being made. Who was going
to play the Doctor? He is name was Paul McGann and I had no idea who that was.
His hair was also way too short. I was starting to have my doubts. My friend
Roger, previously seen in an article where he dressed as the Sixth Doctor, another Roger and myself sort of got into
the business of planning conventions. We had a pretty sweet idea.
If you remember or cared, I was a
part of a group called The Whoniversity. In 1990, we held our first convention
PseudoCon which was a way of making a super cheap but fun convention. Our guest
was John Levene. John Levene stayed at my house for a week. Someday, I will
write an article about that which would make Hadoke’s Living with Levene look like an episode of The Walton’s. We had been involved with local convention planning
for years and years……and years. We decided that we could do a pretty decent
convention in July of 1996 called MediaLive. This was back at time that there weren’t
a billion conventions in the Twin Cities every year. It was more manageable and
was able to have some more fun with them plus less competition.
MediaLive Flyer |
There was a real anticipation to
the panel and what we were going to see. The room, as one can imagine, was
packed. I remember Cowboy Bob, from Visions, walking up and down all the isles
to make sure no one was videotaping it. Of course, there was no need for that. They
just needed to hire Steven Moffat to threaten people that there would be no
more exclusives as he did at ComicCon in July of 2013. Anyway, there was not
video footage from the making of the film. It was a slide show. It was 1996. The
one moment I will always remember is when Philip Segal announces to the room, “Ladies
and Gentlemen, your new Doctor Who.”
and a picture of Paul McGann in costume is up on the screen. The room goes
crazy! It was the first time I or I believe any of the general public saw
McGann in costume. He was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Everything negative I
thought about McGann playing the Doctor disappeared and I hadn’t even seen him
deliver one line yet.
This image was the first time I ever saw the Eighth Doctor in costume. |
Returning home, I decided to
de-cloak and let my bosses at WFTC know that
this movie is coming up in May and I am a lifelong fan of Doctor Who. I let them know that I think we should do something to
get people excited about this. After all, this was going to be big. We might as
well get publicity going now especially since this was (no doubt) going to
become a weekly series in the fall. So I spoke with our graphic designer who
was really talented and was responsible for the look of our station. I always
thought that the look of WFTC was far superior than any of the other local TV
stations in our markets. It was actually cool. Local TV stations notoriously
are known for having a cheessy/sickening look to them. Honestly, WFTC did not
have this. So, we built a Web Site on the WFTC Web Site to promote the TV Movie. It was pathetic.
It was a simple page with a Doctor
Who logo found on the Internet and a picture of Paul McGann. It had the header
of Dr. Who? and was adorned with a tile background of bitmap question marks. I
believe that was it. I didn’t expect something along the lines of Blogtor Who
but I did hope for something slightly more robust. After he showed me what he
did, I thanked him and never looked at it again. I was too young to request any
changes because he did it in his spare time at work and I didn’t want to press
him any further.
I was allowed to get publicity
items for the TV Movie from FOX. I
have a ton of pics from them and also a set of 35mm slides. Yes, 35mm slides.
Once again, it was 1996. I went to Brown’s Photo, anyone remember that place,
to get the slides turn into photos. They wouldn’t do them for me because I wasn’t
the copyright holder. So, I went back to the station and got permission from
the station to get these transferred bringing along a letter saying I could do
so. They still wouldn’t do it. Of course, now I could easily do it at home but
I don’t know where the slides currently are in my belongings. It could still be
at my parent’s house but I don’t know. I am sure there is nothing on there we
haven’t seen before but I still would like them back.
Sometime in April, something really
amazing happened that was completely unexpected. I got a hold of the TV Movie rough cut. People at the BBC in
the 1970s through 1980s would call this a 71 edit or so, other people called
this a workprint but the proper term is rough cut. In April of 1996, I saw the
whole film from start to finish (with effect shots missing and a couple of
extra scenes) and the movie was over a month away from airing. That was really
cool. So cool, I made an edited down version as a teaser at an event hosted by
a local fan club The Celestial Affiliation of Time Lords. They were a local
group that were having a viewing party and asked if I would schedule the day’s video
schedule. I love doing that. I haven’t done much in fandom for a little while
after The Whoniversity dissolved so I thought it would be a fun thing to do.
Working at WFTC, I got to know the
people in Master Control really well. They knew I knew how to work equipment so
they allowed me a little freedom. They ran some of my favourite series such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons. WFTC held broadcast
masters of Star Trek: The Next
Generation (STTNG) on Beta SP tapes. They actually held all of them on tape
so they had all episodes at one time. Instead of having friends, I would go
into the station every Saturday and Sunday for 2 hours. I would set up 3
different Beta SP machines to play 3 different episodes of STTNG while using 3 different VHS decks to record those episodes. I
had to watch them closely because I needed to remove the bumpers and the 2
minutes of black space for commercial breaks. This would happen at different
times on the episodes so I had to use the episode logs that were on the tapes
to know when to stop the machines and do an edit x 3. I would have to switch back
and forth. I would also do the same on The
Simpsons. They were awesome copies for the time. Luckily the station was
super close to where I lived plus I always laughed because this station was a
big proponent of Star Trek, their
address was 1701 Broadway which 1701 is the number of the Enterprise.
One day at work I was called into
Master Control. The operator Mike showed me that they were “feeding” via satellite
the EPK (Electronic Press Kit) for the TV
Movie and it included a ton of promos. I recorded this and dumped it down
to VHS. I thought I was extremely fortunate to have this. That was just the
beginning.
The slate on the International Feed |
Program Development Sheet for the 1996-1997 season featuring Doctor Who |
I spoke to Roger about this and he
thought it would be fun to get people together once a week to watch Doctor Who at his house. This would be
really casual. It wouldn’t be a fan club plus it would completely communicated
to people online. We really wanted to do this because I had a collection I
wanted to share and KTCA had stopped running the series years ago. VHS tapes
were slow coming out and we thought there would be a resurgence of fans because
of the TV Movie. Roger named the
group, The Minnesota Doctor Who
Viewing Society or MNDWVS. We created a web site which was better than the one
made from WFTC. I went on to Rec arts Dr.Who and announced we were doing this. We
originally decided to go through the whole series, one story per week and begin
with An Unearthly Child. We had about
8 people show up which was about 8 people more than I expected. After each
viewing we would sit around and discuss it kind of like a book club. It was
super fun and very casual. We were even written up in the St. Paul Pioneer
Press on their Web Site as being really cool and something to check out. We
eventually moved to the Southdale Library and kept showing Doctor Who to people who had missed it being on TV. We even funded
Gary Russell to come over for the first CONvergence and Keith Topping for the
second one. Over the years other Viewing Society groups started around the
world. It was flattering. I like to think the groups in the Twin Cities that
get together at a theatre to watch episodes are based on what we did. Even the theatre’s
Web Site erroneously listed the group as The Minnesota Doctor Who Viewing Society and not as the real group’s name. When
the new MN Doctor Who convention CONsole Room was announced somebody posted on the
convention’s Facebook page wondering if it was a Minnesota Doctor Who Viewing Society event! It’s not but the Minnesota Doctor Who Viewing Society will be
handling the video room for the convention. I am very proud of the MNDWVS even though it
is nothing more than a traveling video room, it brought a lot fans together. I
am immensely proud of that.
One of the iterations to the MNDWVS web sites coincidentally featuring the TV Movie and the launch of BBC America. |
Even though we had birth of the
MNDWVS, we didn’t have enough attendees to do a proper MediaLive. There was a
belief in fans running conventions at that time that the show must go on even
if it meant that the organizers lost their shirts or sometimes houses. We didn’t
believe in that philosophy at all. We cancelled the convention. We just did a
smaller party. The only one who seemed genuinely upset was Philip Segal. He
threatened to sue Roger for breach of contract. Relax. We don’t have anything he
could take anyway except for a pristine copy of the TV Movie but I imagine he already had that.
MNDWVS schedule guide from 1997 |
My letter from the BBC for contributing to the BBC range. |
After the TV Movie failed on FOX, I was convinced we would never see Doctor Who on TV again. As we celebrate
the 50th anniversary, how wrong could I be? The series has never
been more popular as we go into production of Series 8 since the series
returned in 2005 and we are about to find out the identity of the Twelfth
Doctor. I think the new series owes a lot to the TV Movie visually and structurally. The TV Movie is the perfect bridge between the classic series and the
new series. In fact, it’s not a failure at all.
Paperwork from FOX Broadcasting for local affiliate to buy media time for the TV Movie. |
Next week: We say farewell to Ray Butt with a tribute to some of
the series he worked on including Only
Fools and Horses plus reviews for Midsomer
Murders Series 1, Midsomer Murders
Set 22, and the Blu Ray for Smiley’s
People.
Have a great week!
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