pubs
I’m watching a documentary on the new Doctor Who; in it is a retrospective of all the previous Doctors, and in that is enough footage to remind me why I like McGann’s. It’s a shame he never got more time; with some refinement he could have been close to the best. Almost ideal.
McGann’s was the emotional Doctor. It seems, after seven lives and a terrifying regeneration, something finally hit him. He becomes wistful, pensive, idealistic. At one point, he actually kisses his companion. It feels like he’s started to grasp the value of this life, of his whole situation. Of what it all means. He is sad, and fragile — and appreciative of everything. I guess he realizes that he might not have as much time as he’s always thought. Which must be weird, for a time lord.
All of the pieces are there. A roundness, a sense of dimension and balance. He gives the impression he’s looked through his past and decided who he is, and what matters to him. McGann brings a certain poignance to the whole arc of the series; he seems to imply that it’s going somewhere, that it has some internal structure, that there is some real evolution going on in the character. That we’ve been building to this moment. He makes it easier to go back and extrapolate, to get a piece of the Doctor’s mind. Just enough to understand him as a person, without robbing him of his mystery.
I say all this as I learn that Eccleston has ditched the role after a single season. After he leapfrogged all of the other actors in line to ask for the role, after he decided past Doctors were too foppish and that he wanted to modernize the character, and after exactly one episode has aired (to ten million viewers), away he goes. That’s… I mean. Hell. If you’re not up for commitment, then why bother with Doctor Who? Of all series? I taste lemons. There’s something weird when a companion hangs around longer than the Doctor himself.
This stunt puts Eccleston second to McGann in brevity, though McGann is to no blame for his part. Colin Baker was yanked out by the teeth, too. And McCoy just had the series cancelled on him. When Davison signed up, he only wanted to do three years; that was supposed to be a short run. And when his time was almost up, he regretted his earliier decision. So — yeah. Eccleston’s in a class of his own. Recall that the character is supposed to be running out of regenerations, and make of him what you will.
I still want to see McGann again. Surely there is some backstory to patch up here. We never did find out what happened to him — and there is plenty precedent for crossover.
EDIT: Or did we? I wasn’t aware that McGann had taped four full “seasons” of audio episodes. I knew he’d done some more work with the character; that these are actually considered seasons 27-30, however, is new to me. And this final episode was only released in December.
Well. Hell, then. I need to get ahold of these. I wonder how.
EDIT AGAIN: Jesus. It turns out that, after all of the novels and audio plays and junk, McGann is the second most well-recorded Doctor of all (following at 116 to McCoy’s 120). And a lot of stuff has happened during his era. And after the second episode of the new series, it seems that Davies considers it all canon. So maybe he hasn’t done that poorly after all. I still would like to see him in action again.
Is this really true? I had the impression it was a rumour. Can’t blame me. Most of everything in the tabloids is hateful bile.
I do quite like David Tennant though. I haven’t actually seen it, but the current one looks more like a cockney villian, while this new fella is more foppish.
The BBC announced it today. L’see, where is that? Here. The replacement is still, officially, undecided. Tennant claims this is the first he’s heard of it. His face scares me, somehow. And golly, he looks young.
Thing is. To judge by the first episode, Eccleston does a good job in the role, regardless of his appearance. He’s got staying power. And it seems rather rude to just storm through like this. I guess if that’s the way he’s going to do things, maybe it is for the best. He works, though. Now they have to find someone else who works at least as well. And someone who will hang around and actually contribute, instead of just using the show to launch himself after a year. This means another period of concern.
tom baker all the way for me, yo.
i don’t remember mcgann…
oh, the guy from the tv movie thing! i didn’t remember him kissing people. if he did i probably thought they were just giving him a love interest to pimp him out to american tv.
It’s too bad that they can’t pull some trickery and push McGann back into the role, if he were to be interested.
I’ve gone and forgotten how many regenerations the Time Lords are supposed to have. 11? 14?
GAAAAAH, I don’t believe Eccleston waffled so quickly!
I really liked the first episode with him. I could even understand some of the stuff he said.. but.. bleah. Only one episode aired? It could have at least waited. Lordy, way to try and derail something that’s had a hard time starting up again.
I was just thinking, actually, you know, since The Doctor’s only got 13 regenerations (I think?), that, he’s only got 4 left. But then I figured, they would at least get a few series out of Eccleston before hitting #10, but, wow.
It’s almost certain that’s where it came from; still, McGann made sense of it all. He made something out of it that transcended all of the stupidity in the movie.
It’s not impossible, of course; it just won’t happen. I still expect him to show up eventually, though. Just because he’s kind of the underdog Doctor. He was the “current” one for a decade, and only appeared once. People loved to make up stories about him.
McGann also is pretty involved. I knew he was still doing Doctor stuff; that the last four years he was recording “seasons” of the show, though — well.
I remember a quote from him about the new series, saying he was interested; it’s just that no one ever asked him.
Thirteen.
Only three left now.
I guess in theory they could actually script a big arc that brings the series to its close in another decade or so.
I’m disappointed to see Eccleston quit so soon. I hope that the BBC makes sure that his replacement hangs on for a few seasons.
Some of the stuff that McGann did in the movie (and in the book series as well) was foreshadowed in McCoy’s time. The last McCoy season really sets the tone for the early New Adventures novels, and by the time we get to McGann’s doctor, there’s enough there to make his more sensitive, believable portrayal of the character work well.
I just curse that the movie around him had to violate continuity so much.
I want to wake up and hope that Eccleston leaving is an April Fool’s joke.
On the basis of episode two, seems like the Ninth Doctor has his own baggage. This could go somewhere.