Watched 1-May
Can this be ranked? Of course it can...
We watched the 2016 imported UK BluRay.
There are some minor changes to the TV version... extra narration over the first scene and some extra and alternate edits.
This is well made and formulaic. It is unlike real Doctor Who in that there is a remarkable lack of "scariness". There is horror: the eye abuse, the fingernail, the ghost snake attack, the machine gun deaths.
But the thing that is **very** missing is the creeping dread of corridors and being chased by slow lumbering cybers or autons or yetis and the feeling of being trapped in the ark with no air supply while surrounded by wirrns or being stalked by Mr Sin in the dark and so on.
The tension in this plot is limited to the timey countdown and being chased by the evil gangster/Master guy. This is ordinary and less than completely compelling.
Paul McGann owns the role of Doctor Who. There are some 'piloty' moments which you might expect to disappear if the series went ahead. Daphne starts out well but goes kinda simpleton gushy by the end of the movie. Yee is ok but is obviously a youth identification character (which has not aged well in the quarter century since this was made.)
Eric gives an effective Hollywood bad guy performance.
Philip Segal is a minor DW hero for the persistence he maintained to get this made. The bad ratings result in the US killed a consequent series. The ok ratings in the UK were unable to sway the producers because of the way this movie was created.
The worst thing about this movie is this.
No matter what the quality or popularity of the film the contractual conditions that were conceded to allow this movie to be made ironically prevented the series return to UK production until rights expired in 2003 (I think or at least suspect). America and DW do not mix.
ABM Rating 3.40/4.00
LJM Rating 3.87/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.00/10
No. 47 (out of 159)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
Rankings Scoreboard
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From Quickflix
This one is getting harder to love. With every passing year it looks
less like the modern series and clearly has next to nothing to do with
the classic series.
When it first appeared it was like a miracle. In the 80's DW had gone
downhill and hit some horrible lows. The worst low of all came in 1990
when it grew clear that the series was not coming back in the new
decade. The lack of definite announcement made the experience awful and
frustrating as well as tragic and heart wrenching.
It took six long years for this effort to appear. It was a strange mix
of co-production money from US TV interests, Universal, BBC Worldwide
and filmed in Vancouver Canada. Incidentally only the second DW episode
to be shot wholly on film. Produced by a DW fan come Hollywood producer,
Philip David Segal this made for TV movie was hoped to be the pilot for
a series but poor US ratings put paid to that notion straight away.
At the time I thought it was a step up, now it looks more like a step
sideways and an abortive step at that.
