If Doctor Who had not gone on hiatus in 1989...?
dayne14
Posts: 261 Forum Member
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If Doctor Who had not gone on hiatus in 1989, it got me thinking, who and how many actors would have concieveably played the time lord? Would Paul Mcgann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant etc. have ever taken the lead? I still forsee Mcgann and Tennant but not CE somehow.
And who would have been him during the 1990's? I see Robson Green as an outside shot, not based on him now, but given his popularity during his Casualty and more so Soldier Soldier days...? I think today we would now be on the 14th or 15th incarnation realistically
Interested to know people's thoughts?
And who would have been him during the 1990's? I see Robson Green as an outside shot, not based on him now, but given his popularity during his Casualty and more so Soldier Soldier days...? I think today we would now be on the 14th or 15th incarnation realistically
Interested to know people's thoughts?
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His version of the Doctor was very stripped down in terms of Alien-ness and eccentricities, and the darker more brooding side was brought to the fore-front.
If he did play the Doctor without the gap, and without the Time War, he certainly would have been a very different version of the Doctor.
I reckon McCoy would have done four or five years at most, leaving about 22 years. Following the four year average, that would be another five doctors after McCoy.
Hard to say who. The universe hangs by such a delicate thread of coincidences its impossible to predict the outcome unless you're a Time Lord. Every decision creates ripples.
But I bet Richard E Grant would have had a shot at it. He seemed eager.
That's the question, who would have taken on the Producer role. The show was something of a poison chalice at the time, and JNT was basically trapped in the role. He couldn't leave because no one wanted the job.
The wonderful thing about RTD is that he was a massive fan of the show, along with most of the team that brought it back. It's difficult to see where such writers and production staff would have come from at the time.
Unlikely. New Who owes much to the New Adventures range of books that started in the early 90s and they would not have existed if the series had continued. Mark Gatiss, Matt Jones, Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts and even RTD himself first cut their Doctor Who teeth in the New Adventures. The book series was the ultimate outlet for professional fans to put their stamp on Doctor Who and it really helped to build the community of professionals that we now know as contributors to the Doctor Who team.
You may well have had some really odd Doctor choices from the rather lacklustre pool of TV actors that were around at that time. I don't think the likes of McGann, Eccleston, Tennant et al would have ever considered the role, which, imo would have been seen as simply a bit of a joke kids programme.
Off topic I know, but there you go.
Not necessarily, if the BBC continues to invest talent, money and publicity in the series the way they've been doing since the revival. If some executives who'd rather make high-brow literary adaptations, talent shows or tedious garbage with Alan Yentob decide that they would rather sabotage it, history will indeed repeat itself.
Quite agree, if the shelf life comment was true, Eastenders, Casualty etc would have been over years ago!
Can't really agree with that. I think when Peter Davison took over, the show was refreshed and in Season 19 there was a nice mix of original story lines and old adversaries, pretty much like we have at the moment.
Unfortunately the success of Earthshock and the 20th anniversary meant JNT probably pandered to the fan's a bit too much and though Season 20 wasn't an awful Season by any means, in terms of originality it probably wasn't as good. Season 21 was better in that regard but it still pandered a lot to the show's history. IMO, In terms of trying to find the seeds for the show's demise, it was probably from this point onwards.
The heavy reliance on the show's history, a Doctor at the end of the Season that should never have happened and all the 6th Doctor related problems hence forth which we've discussed endlessly on here. All these plus the hiatus in 85 probably led to what happened in '89.
I'm open to correction but I thought McCoy has gone on record to say he would have left in Season 27 had it gone ahead.
As for the main question, I don't regard it as a hiatus, I associate that word more with what happened in 1985. Whatever you call it, I think unless the whole production team had been replaced and the BBC's attitude towards it changed, the programme would have been axed sooner or later. I can't see it would have gotten any better.
Maybe with a new production team, it could have been rescued but I think I can concur with other posters that a rest certainly did it a favour and it's came back stronger as a result.
Season 27 (1990) - McCoy as the 7th Doctor, a new companion along the lines of Lady Christina from POTD, Ace leaving (possibly staying on Gallifrey) and Richard Griffiths taking over at the latest half way through the season's last story
Seasons 28&29 (1991-2) - Griffiths as the 8th Doctor with the aforementioned new companion.
Season 30 --- that's a toughie .... how would we have celebrated the 30th anniversary year? Certainly not with Dimensions In Time that's for sure, though let's not forget that Tom came back for that one and Jon Pertwee was still alive, so maybe we'd have got...
"The Six Doctors" starring Richard Griffiths, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy?
Following that, I picture a series of feature length christmas specials starring Robert Lindsay and later Bill Nighy before being cancelled in 1999.
"... a TVMovie for the 40th anniversary in 2003 starring Hugh Grant was unsuccesful and has never been repeated due to popular demand"
While it's fun to speculate 'what if', I don't think JN-T would ever have left the producership of Doctor Who.
Doesn't anyone else think that he publicly said that he wanted to leave, yet nobody wanted the role at the time? Nobody believed that you could make Doctor Who into something, with the history it had? Also strange that the minute that he passed away, suddenly it was full throttle on the re-boot?
Strange? Maybe not ;D
Just an estimate though, since, as improbable as it may be, its possible one Doctor just stayed for the entire 23 year gap.
Damn that charismatic hypothetical son of a gun!
I remember even before the TV Movie, there were rumours going about who should play The Doctor in the TV Movie. There were all sorts of names banded about, David Hasselhoff being one of them.
I remember being annoyed at the time because McCoy wasn't among the names mentioned and it as far as I could see at the time he was still The Doctor, even some two or three years on. That's why I'm glad in one way that he came back and did the TV Movie, because that acknowledged he still had been The Doctor all that time between 89-96.
Surely we're not suggesting that Jimmy Savile was in line for Doctor Who???
In terms of JNT, he confuses me, not least because I don't know an awful lot about him. However, maybe a reboot was thought possible more after his death, as perhaps before hand he would have been rater obstructive?! I get this impression that he treated DW as his property, rather than the BBC's and the public's, and therefore thought he could do whatever he liked.
Interesting to hear some of 'The Lost Stories' on audio.
I would like to have seen Raine as a companion to 7. Also I like Platt's Lungbarrow so would like to have seen that Cartmel thing pan out. The Doc's past etc
I have rather different feelings about the Cartmel Masterplan and Lungbarrow so I'm quite glad that John Nathan-Turner vetoed televising it. I think it was the last good decision that he made.