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Trivia / Doctor Who TVM (The TV Movie)

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  • California Doubling: Vancouver plays San Francisco, but they might as well have acknowledged they were in Vancouver for all the difference it would have made. It only seems like San Francisco in that there's a Friendly Local Chinatown and a guy almost went to a costume party dressed as Wild Bill Hickok (but then the Doctor stole his costume). In the Chase Scene, there aren't even any hills to speak of.
  • Completely Different Title: The Canadian French dub is entitled Le Seigneur du Temps (The Time Lord).
  • Corpsing: Daphne Ashbrook had a hell of a time keeping a straight face in the scenes where Grace is supposed to be dead. Although you won't catch her giggling in the final cut, she gave her autobiography the slightly spooky title of Dead Woman Laughing because of it.
  • Deleted Role: Gordon Tipple originally did an opening voice-over narration as the Master, but this was cut out in favor of Paul McGann doing a narration instead. Tipple's involvement with the film was reduced to a fleeting appearance in the opening scene where he had no dialogue, his face was totally obscured by shadows and his version of the Master was promptly killed off, making his discernible presence in the film next to nonexistent, and causing eternal fan debate over whether Tipple's Master was a separate incarnation or Anthony Ainley.
  • Distanced from Current Events: Following the Dunblane massacre, the movie was edited on its original BBC transmission, to remove as much of Chang's friends getting shot as possible. The Seventh Doctor's dying scream was also deemed to be too much and was also removed. The VHS release was also edited; UK viewers saw the uncut version for the first time in November 1999 when the movie was repeated on BBC Two for a Doctor Who theme night.
  • DVD Commentary: The DVD release had two:
    • The first was a straightforward commentary by director Geoffrey Sax about casting, filming, and special effects shots.
    • The second was moderated by Nicholas Briggs, and featured Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann reminiscing about filming, gushing about Daphne Ashbrook, and making fun of the movie's sillier scenes.
      Paul McGann: [referring to the Master's infamously camp entrance] Are those stairs going to light up as he steps on them?
    • An unofficial commentary featuring Daphne Ashbrook, Yee Jee Tso, Gary Russell, and Ken Deep is available on YouTube.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • In order to cast Paul McGann as the Doctor, Phillip Segal had to agree to cast a name actor as the Master. Hence why Eric Roberts was cast.
    • Sylvester McCoy's small part in the film can be chalked up to the fact that the higher-ups at the BBC (namely controller Jonathan Powell) saw him as synonymous with the show's Audience-Alienating Era. His participation was approved so long as he didn't say or do anything.
  • Exiled from Continuity:
    • Due to rights issues between the BBC and Universal, Grace and Lee have a spotty presence in the Expanded Universe. Grace did reappear once in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip (although the magazine got a slapped wrist for this, as they should have got permission from Universal but didn't), travelled briefly with the Eighth Doctor in the 50th anniversary comic Prisoners of Time, and was given a mention in a Sarah Jane Adventures novelization. However, an Eighth Doctor Adventures novel that was intended to feature her had to be rewritten with a Captain Ersatz, due to last-minute legal difficulties, and both Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso have made several appearances in Big Finish Doctor Who dramas, but always as original characters. In "The Day of the Doctor", a photo of Grace appears alongside other companions in the Black Archive but it's barely visible even in freeze frame.
    • When the Master and Chang Lee see the Doctor in the Eye of Harmony, we are supposed to see all the previous Doctors, but rights issues prevented this. This is present in both novelisations.
  • Fake American: Yee Jee Tso, who played Chang Lee, is actually Canadian.
  • Follow the Leader: The movie tries so hard to have a The X-Files vibe, down to very similar music and camera work in certain shots. X Files was the sci-fi smash hit at the time, so on one level it makes sense to borrow from that, but to say that the styles of X Files and Doctor Who don't mesh all that well is putting it mildly.
  • Hostility on the Set: In this interview, Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook have nothing but nice things to say about almost everything... except Eric Roberts, who was apparently standoffish, rude (making personal remarks about McGann being "effeminate"), and sometimes "amazingly bad".
  • In Memoriam: The UK television broadcast ended with a dedication to Jon Pertwee, who had died a week earlier.
  • International Coproduction: The BBC teamed up with Universal for this, with filming in Canada with a number of Canadian cast members (most notably Yee Jee Tso). The US ratings weren't high enough so Universal withdrew, hence the nine-year wait for the next episode...
  • No Export for You: Even though it was partially an American production, complicated legal issues (Universal Television owned the movie itself and the new characters, the Beeb owned everything that previously existed) meant it was fifteen years before the TVM was released on home video in the United States and Canada.
    • In a reverse, UK-based Big Finish Productions has been unable to obtain the rights to Grace or Chang Lee for use in their BBC-licensed audio dramas, as by all accounts said rights are buried under a mountain of red tape it would take too much time and money to disassemble.
  • Omake: Daphne Ashbrook likes to chat with her fans in-character as Grace, frequently on her Tumblr.
  • Orphaned Reference: The Master's human body was originally supposed to slowly degrade throughout the film. This plan was abandoned when Eric Roberts found the make-up prosthetics to be too uncomfortable. One scene of this plotline remains, when he peels off a fingernail in front of a nurse.
  • Prop Recycling:
    • Both the original TARDIS key and sonic screwdriver props were retained.
    • The costume designers were unable to get any of the costumes Sylvester McCoy wore as the Seventh Doctor, but luckily the actor still owned the hat.
  • Real-Life Relative: Eric Roberts' actual wife plays Bruce's wife, whom the Master strangles.
  • Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Paul McGann had just shaved his head to play an SAS officer for the Made-for-TV Movie The One That Got Away. He had hoped to be the first Doctor to have a shaved head, but he was overruled, hence the wig.
  • Recycled Set: The hospital sets used for this film were also used by the producers of The X-Files.
  • Role Reprise: Sylvester McCoy returned seven years after last playing the role, solely to get killed off early on.
  • Saved from Development Hell: Oh, Jesus. How can we begin to describe this? The concept for a revived series first started in 1989, just after the show was first cancelled, but The BBC rejected it. Eventually, multiple companies were involved: at first, it was Universal, the BBC and Amblin Entertainment. Steven Spielberg himself was a fan of the concept, or at least the overly energetic way the old series was once described by one of the fellows trying his damndest to get this movie made, and wanted it done quickly. This was 1994. The script for the pilot at the time, according to Word of God, would have featured the Doctor and his Grandfather Borusa. The Doctor would have gone on a journey to find his father, Ulysses, and discover that the Master was his half-brother (a plot point previously considered during the Third Doctor's era but ultimately rejected). The original audition Paul McGann read this script for can be found on the 2-disc set. However, the proposed script was pretty much a knockoff of Indiana Jones, which Spielberg hated. He left the production, and the producers struggled to keep it quiet from the BBC while they found a home with Fox. The Fox TV Movie department. To keep the BBC happy with this change, the pilot-turned-movie was then changed into a pilot-turned-movie-turned-backdoor-pilot. Should the ratings be high enough in America, the whole thing would be picked up for a series. The ratings were alright, but sadly, not with the right demographics... and this is an abbreviated version of the hell it went through. Just about the only good thing that came out of it was the decision to make the film a continuation of the original series rather than follow the reimagining route of some of the early scripts, and the show not actually being picked up for a full series did prevent the introduction of a good number of plot points that in hindsight would've thrown everything about the show out of whack.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers:
    • The movie was thought to be permanently unavailable outside the British Commonwealth due to this. The warring rights-holders decided to bury the hatchet, and a worldwide DVD release came in February 2011.
    • The 2016 Blu-ray release of the film is upscaled standard definition, and the PAL speedup issue from other releases wasn't fixed. The film was largely shot on 35mm film, and so could have been released in true high definition, but again the original negatives are property of Universal and it would be far too expensive and time-consuming to sort out the rights (assuming the negatives were not destroyed in the 2008 fire).
    • The show's expanded universe cannot use any of the characters solely created for the movie, because the rights for those characters still reside with Universal and are buried underneath a mountain of red tape. The Doctor Who Magazine comic strip did once use Grace without being aware of the copyright issues, and received a warning for doing so and had to promise not to use her again; similarly, one of the Eighth Doctor Adventures was originally meant to feature her, but had to be rewritten to cut her out at the last minute.
    • In recent years, as shakeups of rights and ownership have changed around the film, particularly with Disney's buyout of Fox, the BBC has shyed away from even using imagery and clips from the TV movie to stay on the safe side, the Eighth Doctor's appearance in merchandise and expanded media having shifted to his "Night of the Doctor" look by default.
    • The squeaky-voiced Daleks at the beginning might have been the result of not wanting to fork over money to Terry Nation's estate for what amounted to a few seconds of screen-time.
  • Screwed by the Network: Fox aired the film during Sweepstakes at a time when Doctor Who fandom in America wasn't quite as big as it is today. It aired opposite Roseanne, namely the storyline of Dan's heart attack. As a result, it disappointed in the ratings, the series never happened, and fans had to wait a whole decade for new Doctor Who.
  • Short Run in Peru: The movie aired in Canada and the US two weeks before it hit British airwaves, due in part to it being an international co-production between The BBC and Fox.
  • Stunt Casting: Eric Roberts as the Master. This was actually a compromise, with the original idea being to stunt-cast the Doctor himself. Although Paul McGann was the first choice of producer Philip Segal and director Geoffrey Sax, executives at Fox wanted a well-known American actor in order to draw in ratings — with Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, and Jim Carrey (who is Canadian) being among the names thrown around note . Eventually, Fox agreed to cast McGann (who was British) under the condition that a name actor play the Master instead.
  • Wag the Director: A mild example. According to the DVD Commentary, Eric Roberts brought his own makeup crew (although this is justified as he proved allergic to the makeup and prosthetics originally used), and oversaw the lighting and framing of all his character's shots (again, this could stem from his allergy and didn't want to ruin the shots with his rash).
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Tim Curry was the first choice for the Eighth Doctor before Paul McGann was cast. Curry expressed interest in the part as he was keen to take on a character that wasn't a villain, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with Muppet Treasure Island.
    • Christopher Lloyd was the original candidate for the part of the Master before Eric Roberts was cast. However, Lloyd was turned down due to the fact that he was considered "too expensive". Ironically, Roberts turned out to be even more expensive to hire than Lloyd.
    • Carrie-Anne Moss, Marcia Gay Harden, Paige O'Hara, Helen Slater, Maria Bello, Nia Peeples, Helen Hunt, Kelly Lynch and Mia Sara were considered for the part of Grace Holloway before the casting of Daphne Ashbrook.
      • According to Sophie Aldred, Ace was considered to appear, but it was decided that explaining the concept of the Doctor to a new audience was complex enough without introducing the companion. Furthermore, she was busy with presenting work, although she said she would have dropped in a heartbeat in favor of returning.
    • Michael Apted, Joe Dante, Alan Parker, Ridley Scott and Peter Weir were considered to direct the movie before Geoffrey Sax was hired.
    • Alan Menken was considered to write a new theme tune before John Debney was hired when the producers couldn't secure the rights to the familiar theme.
    • Interestingly, the original concept of the movie actually focused on the Doctor learning that he was half-human, and that the Master was his long lost half-brother. However, these concepts get the occasional Discontinuity Nod in canon nowadays. Paul McGann's screen test shows some snippets of the original script.
    • A production bible for the series this "should" have launched has gotten out, and it was to be a Story Reset with the Doctor retreading events of such things as the Daleks (re-imagined as spider-like pods), "The Gunfighters" and "The Abominable Snowmen". The weirdest thing was that the Cybermen had been reinvented as a race of nomads that use technology to upgrade themselves called "The Cybs"note . It further described them as "cybotic."
    • In the original script by Matthew Jacobs, the Seventh Doctor arrived on Halloween with the Master having mortally wounded him. He was saved by a Street Urchin named Jack (who would become Chang in the final film), who took him to the hospital to meet Grace (then called Kelly Grace). The plot would’ve followed the same, with the Master reviving Jack’s dead father to manipulate him so he could create an undead army. Later versions also featured a pair of comic relief porters named Bill & Ted (seriously) and a librarian named Gareth.
    • At one point, the Master's schemes involved an “intergalactic roving force field” called the Millennium Star which passed near Earth every thousand years. The Master intended to use the Eye of Harmony to harness the power of the Millennium Star, permitting him to refashion the universe. The Master posed as a “false messiah” in order to influence Grace and Chang Lee.
    • When Chang looked into the Eye, he was originally supposed to see all the previous Doctors. Rights issues prevented this, although it was reinstated in Gary Russell's novelisation.
    • The Master originally shot Bruce's wife and in a Deleted Scene callously killed a hospital patient who looked like the Seventh Doctor.
    • New Orleans was an alternate setting.
    • Bruce was originally a fireman.
    • Early plot drafts included a more active prologue for the Seventh Doctor wherein we actually saw him rescue the Master's remains from Skaro and the Daleks in an Indiana Jones-like sequence.

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