DOCTOR WHO: THE MOVIE (SPECIAL EDITION) (TV)
Summary
A television film based on the fantasy/science fiction program about the Doctor, a mysterious man who travels through time in a device shaped like an English police call box, featuring his eighth incarnation battling against his archrival, the Master.
The film opens as the Master is put on trial for his crimes by Daleks on the planet Skaro. The Master makes one final unusual request: that his remains be taken back to Gallifrey by the Doctor. While in transit, the box containing the Master’s remains bursts open and emits a strange sludge which slithers over to the TARDIS controls and causes them to malfunction and go into an emergency landing. In San Francisco on December 30th, 1999, the TARDIS appears and interrupts a struggle between gangs of teenagers armed with automatic weapons. Chang Lee, one of the teenagers, happens to be standing behind the TARDIS protecting him from the hail of bullets. The Doctor emerges and is immediately gunned down as the other gang escapes. The sludge escapes from the TARDIS, but the Doctor is unable to warn Lee about it before he falls unconscious. An ambulance soon arrives and the Doctor is placed inside; Lee takes him to the hospital, and the sludge secretly accompanies them.
At the hospital, the medical officials find themselves puzzled by the Doctor’s two hearts, and call in cardiologist Grace Holloway to operate him. This interrupts her night out at the opera. She prepares to operate on the Doctor but he suddenly awakens and warns her not to go through with the procedure, trying to explain that he is not human. His pleas are ignored and he is knocked out with anesthetic. The surgery takes a turn for the worse as the Doctor goes into a seizure; his physiology proves to be too alien for the physicians to treat and he dies. Grace informs Lee of the Doctor’s death and he claims he will inform his family on his own, but simply uses this as an excuse to swipe the Doctor’s personal effects and run away. The sludge conceals itself in the uniform of a paramedic and lies in wait until late that night, when it emerges, assumes a serpentine form, and enters the paramedic’s body in his sleep, thus turning him into the new Master. The Doctor’s body is placed in the hospital morgue, and later that night he regenerates into his eighth incarnation while in cold storage. He manages to bash his way out of the storage chamber and wanders through the hospital corridors, wearing nothing but a sheet. He appears to have no memory of his true identity.
The Doctor, still in a daze, searches through a locker room for clothes. Meanwhile, the Master awakens and murders the paramedic’s wife; he states that his current body will not last long and he requires the Doctor’s body in order to survive. The Doctor continues wandering around the hospital as his memories slowly return. Grace’s boss burns the x-ray taken of the Doctor’s two hearts, hoping to cover up the hospital’s apparently grievous error as there is now no evidence the Doctor was there. Grace believes there is much they could learn from the Doctor’s physiology and she threatens to quit if he goes ahead with his cover-up. She gathers her effects and leaves the building, but runs into the Doctor in the elevator. He has a vague memory of meeting her, but she does not recognize him in his new incarnation. She yells at him to stop bothering her, but he shows her the stint she put in one of his hearts the previous night and begs her to take him to safety before he is killed again.
The Master arrives at the hospital and learns that the Doctor’s body was believed to be stolen, and that Lee made off with his possessions. Grace takes the Doctor back to her house, where she is infuriated to learn that her boyfriend has left her and taken many of her things. She uses a stethoscope and confirms that he has two hearts, and the Doctor recalls more details about his life. However, she does not believe that he came back from the dead. Lee uses the Doctor’s key to enter the TARDIS and finds the Master already inside. The Master hypnotizes Lee into giving him the Doctor’s possessions. Grace and the Doctor go for a walk and he recalls that he is from Gallifrey. The Master claims to Lee that the Doctor stole the TARDIS from him, and that he also stole his body. He also claims that the Doctor is evil, having assumed the roles of various historical figures such as Genghis Khan. He bribes Lee with gold to secure his assistance in recovering “his” body. The Master then takes Lee to an area of the TARDIS called the “cloister room,” where he gets Lee to open the Eye of Harmony, the TARDIS’s power source. This somehow causes the Doctor to regain his memory of his identity.
Using the Eye of Harmony, the Master gets a vision of the Doctor’s current appearance and notes his humanlike retinal structure, proclaiming that the Doctor is “half human.” The Doctor becomes aware of the Master’s presence and realizes he has opened the Eye of Harmony; the Master uses the Eye to perceive what the Doctor sees and hears. The Doctor frantically explains to Grace the nature of the Master and his intention: to make him look into the Eye of Harmony, thus stealing his soul and allowing him to assume control of his body; he also claims that leaving the Eye of Harmony open will result in the planet earth being sucked through a black hole, and that he requires an atomic clock in order to stop that from happening. Grace believes he is insane and runs away, frightened by the Doctor’s sudden shift in behavior. Lee recognizes Grace and the Master believes that locating her will lead them to the Doctor.
Grace tries to make a call to put the Doctor in a psychiatric ward, but he proves his point by walking through her glass door, a sign that the Eye of Harmony is altering the planet’s molecular structure. The Doctor warns that at midnight the planet will fully succumb to such distortions and be destroyed. As Grace awaits an ambulance to pick up the Doctor, he sees a television news report stating that a local research institute is featuring the unveiling of a powerful atomic clock as part of the upcoming New Year’s celebration. The Master arrives, posing as the paramedic he is possessing, to take the Doctor away, along with Grace. The ambulance is caught in a traffic jam and the Doctor recognizes the Master. The Master vomits an acidic substance onto Grace and the Doctor responds by spraying the Master with a fire extinguisher. Grace and the Doctor escape and threaten a police officer with a gun in order to obtain his motorcycle. They speed along the highway to reach the research institute, but find that Lee and the Master have already beaten them there.
The Doctor and Grace move among the party at the research institute, trying to find a way to get closer to the atomic clock. The Doctor admits to Grace that he is “half human” and swipes an ID tag in order to gain access to the clock. He steals a small component from it and tries to escape with Grace, but find Lee and the Master among the partygoers searching for them. The Doctor pulls the fire alarm, giving them enough of a distraction to escape. They reach the TARDIS and enter using the Doctor’s spare key. He uses the component he stole from the atomic clock to try to close the Eye of Harmony. However, he fears they may already be too late to prevent the earth’s destruction. He devises a plan to go back in time to before the Eye was opened, but cannot execute it as the TARDIS is virtually out of power as a result of the Eye being open for so long. They decide to execute a plan involving using the power of the Eye to “jump-start” the TARDIS at the precise moment of the planet’s destruction. However, the Master and Lee arrive, and he possesses her into attacking the Doctor.
The Master has Lee and Grace wheel the Doctor in front of the Eye on a gurney as they prepare to reopen the Eye. The Doctor tries to convince Lee that the Master has been lying to him all along. Lee refuses to open the Eye and the Master snaps his neck, killing him. The Master forces Grace to look into the Eye, thus opening it. This creates a link between him and the Doctor, immobilizing him as he absorbs the Doctor’s lives. The Doctor sends Grace back into the TARDIS’s control room in order to re-route the Eye’s power and send the TARDIS back in time. The new year approaches as Grace struggles to adjust the TARDIS and the Eye causes bizarre weather disturbances throughout San Francisco. Midnight arrives and Grace successfully causes the TARDIS to enter a “temporal orbit.” This interrupts the life force transference process and saves the Doctor, but the Master attacks Grace in a rage and throws her off a ledge. The Master and the Doctor struggle over the Eye of Harmony until the Master accidentally falls in, seemingly killing him. The Doctor carries Grace’s dead body through the TARDIS as it travels back in time. The Eye of Harmony expels energy which somehow restores Grace and Lee to life before it closes. The Doctor deposits Grace and Lee back in San Francisco only a few minutes after they left. He bids them farewell and gives Grace a final kiss before disappearing in the TARDIS. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: BBC
- DATE: May 14, 1996 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:25:46
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 111754
- GENRE: Drama, fantasy/science fiction
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, fantasy/science fiction
- SERIES RUN: BBC - TV, 1996
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Alex Beaton … Executive Producer
- Philip David Segal … Executive Producer
- Jo Wright … Executive Producer
- Peter V. Ware … Producer
- Matthew Jacobs … Co-Producer, Writer
- Geoffrey Sax … Director
- John Debney … Music by
- John Sponsler … Music by
- Louis Serbe … Music by
- Paul McGann … Cast, The Eighth Doctor
- Eric Roberts … Cast, The Master
- Daphne Ashbrook … Cast, Grace Holloway
- Sylvester McCoy … Cast, The Seventh Doctor
- Yee Jee Tso … Cast, Chang Lee
- John Novak … Cast, Salinger
- Michael David Simms … Cast, Dr. Swift
- Catherine Lough … Cast, Wheeler
- Dolores Drake … Cast, Curtis
- William Sasso (See also: Will Sasso) … Cast, Pete
- Jeremy Radick … Cast, Gareth
- Eliza Roberts … Cast, Miranda
- Bill Croft … Cast, Motorcycle Policeman
- Dave Hurtubise … Cast, Professor Wagg
- Joel Wirkkunen … Cast, Ted
- Dee Jay Jackson … Cast, Security Guard
- Gordon Tipple … Cast, The Old Master
- Mi-Jung Lee … Cast, News Anchor
- Joanna Piros … Cast, News Anchor