With the celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who in full swing. I was interested to observe a place in the time-line reserved for the TV movie Doctor, played by Paul McGann but not for Peter Cushing's twice-cinematic version. There is of course a good reason for that, in that this isn't the Doctor at all. For the purposes of the anticipated cinema viewer and no doubt dumbing down somewhat for the target American audience, this Doctor is no alien, no two hearts, no Gallifrean. Instead he's a slightly absent-minded, doddery, even frail elderly inventor who just happens to invent a time machine, call it the TARDIS and answers improbably to the name Doctor Who. Which is a pity, as with just a little bit more exposition, his origin could easily have been subsumed into the plot and almost forgotten about, as this adventure gathers speed, but no, commercial considerations win out and thus we get a Doctor who isn't the Doctor.
This fatally cripples the story, at least for this die-hard Whovian, but there are some compensations elsewhere. Firstly we get to see the Doc in colour five years before Jon Pertwee's incarnation did the same on the small screen in the classic "Spearhead From Space" adventure. The story itself, adapted from an earlier TV episode, is okay too and of course Peter Cushing is engaging in the title part.
On the down side though, the film plays too much to the family entertainment brigade, with some fairly feeble attempts at humour, too much screen time to the infant girl companion, good as she is and worst of all variety entertainer Roy Castle as the male companion here, acting like he's in a Carry On film, all pratfalls and gaucheness. It gets hard to take the story seriously with him mooning all over the place.
But all that said, it entertains pleasantly enough, the studio sets are okay, with an interesting experiment in using a green gauze lens (I would imagine) to depict the spooky forest and of course the Doctor, not for the last time, saves the day and still gets home in time for tea.
So it ever was...
This fatally cripples the story, at least for this die-hard Whovian, but there are some compensations elsewhere. Firstly we get to see the Doc in colour five years before Jon Pertwee's incarnation did the same on the small screen in the classic "Spearhead From Space" adventure. The story itself, adapted from an earlier TV episode, is okay too and of course Peter Cushing is engaging in the title part.
On the down side though, the film plays too much to the family entertainment brigade, with some fairly feeble attempts at humour, too much screen time to the infant girl companion, good as she is and worst of all variety entertainer Roy Castle as the male companion here, acting like he's in a Carry On film, all pratfalls and gaucheness. It gets hard to take the story seriously with him mooning all over the place.
But all that said, it entertains pleasantly enough, the studio sets are okay, with an interesting experiment in using a green gauze lens (I would imagine) to depict the spooky forest and of course the Doctor, not for the last time, saves the day and still gets home in time for tea.
So it ever was...