When Bad Shows Go Good: The Eighth Doctor Who

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The History:

Philip Segal (Twin Peaks, China Beach) was one of many British people saddened when Doctor Who was put on indefinite hiatus in 1989. The BBC had been working to get the show revived in time for its thirtieth anniversary in 1993 but Segal had one better: get FOX in the United States to co-produce, the potential result being a program that neither FOX or the BBC would have to entirely fund themselves. Ultimately FOX committed to a TV movie, ultimately airing in 1996 on CITV (now Global in Canada), the BBC and FOX within a few days of one another. While a smash hit in the UK with over nine million viewers (about 75% of the audience share for that night), FOX only managed 5.6 million as the episode was plopped in the middle of May, meaning it was up against season and series finales from major programming (the follow-up to the Roseanne episode where Dan had a heart attack as a cliffhanger aired the same night). Ultimately the project never moved beyond the one episode, though for the 50th Anniversary in 2013 Steven Moffat did produce The Night of the Doctor, a prequel short film to Day of the Doctor featuring the Eighth Doctor's final day. Additionally the Eighth Doctor has appeared in many audio plays and books, so while his television appearances were extremely limited he was not forgotten.

The Show:

Doctor Who: The Enemy Within (AKA The TV Movie) follows The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) as he tries to delivery the remains of The Master, his old nemesis, to their home planet of Gallifrey. Unfortunately The Master isn't so dead it seems and he soon ends up taking over the body of a para-medic named Bruce (Eric Roberts) while The Doctor, through horrifying circumstances, regenerates into a new form (Paul McGann) and suffers from amnesia. Both trapped in San Francisco in the year 1999, The Doctor must try to thwart The Master before he can finish his resurrection and wreak havoc on the universe once more, possibly at the cost of Earth as well.

The Breakdown:

Paul McGann is pretty great as an almost proto-Doctor for the ones Eccleston, Tennant and Smith would all play. Young, strong and eccentric are all qualities McGann embodied as the Eighth Doctor. It's a shame that McGann never really got to flesh his character out as he definitely had the broad strokes down, and if there's one quality I really liked it comes down to a scene where the amnesiac Doctor suddenly starts to remember details about who he is. To break down the scene, surgeon Grace Holloway (Daphne Ashbrook) is trying to get The Doctor to fill in the blanks in his memory as they walk through a park. The wonder and enthusiasm McGann gives off in the scene as he goes a bit Theater Major on us (swinging from lamp posts and such) is great, especially as he goes from reliving his memories with glee to admiring the shoes Grace gave him. Even after regaining his memory The Eighth Doctor would have some pretty hilarious moments, including stealing a motorcycle by threatening to shoot himself and bringing back the Fourth Doctor's obsession with Jelly Babies. The Eighth Doctor's tone when serious was interesting too as while the weight of his voice was about the same it went from a heavy glee to a heavy gruff edge. Angry or passionate, the Eighth Doctor never lost his edge. Being the first Doctor to also kiss a companion definitely left a mark going forward.

The companions aren't really worth talking about since, as good as the audio dramas and some of the books are, that's a lot of extra material to cover and a weird time to start doing so now. Instead lets dive into The Enemy Within and how it begins: the Daleks execute The Master on their home planet of Skaro because of his evil crimes, and The Doctor honors the request The Master himself made to take his remains to Gallifrey. Immediately questions arise since The Seventh Doctor tricked the Daleks into destroying Skaro in the excellent Remembrance of the Daleks, and The Seventh Doctor was in the current episode too. This could be explained away by The Last Great Time War, since that suggested people were killed and then resurrected frequently, it even stated The Master was revived for it at one point. Beyond the continuity snarls the Daleks are barely audible but sound like chipmunks, so its at this point that most fans who care about this stuff (a fair number of them, myself included) were already faepalming. This was before the credits to the episode even began. Speaking of the credits, the new version of the theme song was pretty great.

After getting a look at a design of the interior of the TARDIS that was pretty damn cool (one of my favorite actually) we learn The Master is now, somehow, a weird worm creature that wreaks havoc inside the time machine, causing it to materialize in San Francisco, 1999. The immediately leads to The Doctor getting shot by members of an Asian gang, who decided that a mysterious blue box was worth shooting on sight. Chang Lee (Yee Jee Tso), a gang member saved by The Doctor's arrival, takes him to a hospital, where the medical staff manage to turn a probably non-fatal gunshot into The Doctor's horrible death, as they proceed to operate on him as if he were human despite seeing his second heart in X-rays, he himself insisting he's not human, and him able to shake off repeated attempts to sedate him. Even when accidentally being killed by idiots The Doctor doesn't go quietly. In aftermath Bruce the para-medic is infested by The Master's worm form while Chang steals The Doctor's stuff.

While The Master finds and easily tricks/bribes Chang into helping him take control of the TARDIS The Doctor regenerates in the hospital morgue, then scaring the crap out of a young and less talented Will Sasso. Stealing clothes that were meant for a New Year's Eve costume party, The Doctor follows Grace home as she was the lead surgeon who ended up getting him killed, and thanks to post-regeneration amnesia (a lot of regenerations have messed up The Doctor's brain before) he doesn't really have anywhere else to turn aside from the vague connection he doesn't fully understand he has with her. Luckily Grace ends up deciding to take guy she sees pull a medical probe out of his chest (while wearing a toe-tag) home, and after getting him some shoes they bond as he slowly remembers who he is. At the same time The Master manages to use Chang to open the Eye of Harmony inside the TARDIS, determining that The Doctor is half-human along the way while preparing to steal his foe's remaining regenerations for his own personal use. While The Last Great Time War can explain the continuity problems at the beginning, the half-human thing I just mentioned not only generated a LOT of nerd rage but Russell T Davies flat out nixed the idea when the so-called Meta-Crisis Doctor was produced (he was half-human, thus making it clear The Doctor was not).

Realizing that the Eye of Harmony being open will destroy the Earth if left unchecked, The Doctor and Grace go to retrieve the circuit of an Atomic Clock so they can close the Eye. I've rewatched this episode a few times for this article and I still don't really get this detail myself, but the point is, they need a MacGuffin to stop the end of the world. Along the way The Master reveals he now has some kind of mind control venom he can spit, as he not only manages to basically freeze several guards with what looks like bile but also takes control of Grace right as it seems The Doctor has saved the day. The Doctor manages to turn Chang against The Master only for his enemy to kill him, but since he needed a human to open the Eye of Harmony again Grace was used, putting her in a position to help The Doctor sabotage the plan. Grace ended up dead as well but The Master was pushed into the Eye of Harmony, which was then sealed. As a result time ended up 'reversing', in that The Master was still trapped but Grace and Chang were brought back to life. This is one development that the latest episodes of the show haven't bothered even addressing in passing, though the episode implies this occurred simply because of the nature of the Eye of Harmony.

The Night of the Doctor, despite only being a few minutes long, did a great job summing up The Doctor in what little time it had. When Cass (Emma Campbell-Jones) is about to crash on the planet Karn The Eighth Doctor shows up to save her. Unfortunately Cass knows The Doctor is a Time Lord and, terrified of the Time War and what's become of the Time Lords themselves, she refuses The Doctor's help. Unwilling to leave Cass to die, both The Doctor and Cass end up dying during the ship crash. The Sisterhood of Karn however revive The Doctor, the group having ties to the Time Lords and even able to help guide The Doctor's next regeneration. Realizing that if he can't save people and instead he must fight, the ever-defiant Doctor decides to become The War Doctor (John Hurt) by drinking an Elixir of Life that will make him a 'warrior.' The short story managed to truly capture what would make The Doctor finally decide he can no longer be a healer but a warrior, just with the simple fact that he couldn't stand by and not try to save someone, and if that's no longer possible than he best adapt. It was, quite frankly, a brilliant send-off for the character.

The Wrap-Up:

So can I recommend it? Ehh... The Night of the Doctor is great, a solid companion piece to The Day of The Doctor, but The Enemy Within is both kind of awful in terms of plot and continuity, even if Paul McGann is pretty solid and there's a few funny and/or clever ideas thrown in (there's a great gag where a moto-cop drives into the TARDIS). Ultimately fans of the show should probably watch it, just be careful when tuning in.
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