(The 1996 TV movie aside) I was wondering what sort of show an American TV channel would make if it were to buy the rights for Doctor Who to make its own version.

This happens a lot, of course, with US TV companies making their own version of a British show rather than just taking the original British version (Broadchurch, Life on Mars, Being Human, The IT Crowd) with varying degrees of success.

So, if there was to be a US remake of Doctor Who:
[LIST][*]Who would be the Doctor and the companion?[*]What would be the main differences?[*]What would they keep the same?[/LIST]
I know the mere suggestion is probably giving many of you a nose bleed but, go on, have a go!

There won't be a US remake and I believe that is a certainty while the UK show is running and Moffat is still in charge.

This is more of a 'fantasy football' thing, bp2.

Well still I believe thought experiments are useful only if there is an element of reality. If you want opinions on this sort of thing then look at the threads when a movie was proposed by a director. And this is not fantasy football because people do not invent football players.

And also I consider the title to be misleading. There is no question marks or anything to suggest that this is a thought experiment.

Do threads have to be useful?

God forbid we should just have some fun

If the US did it, you can bet he'd have a laser gun, a teleporting device other than the Tardis and his base would be The Pentagon. His ship would likely be an invisible rocket because the Americans don't get the quaintness of British ideas and he would be a dashing, handsome fella who got paid absolutely megabucks so regeneration wouldn't really be an issue. His companion would be a sexy FBI agent who would find herself in situations where having a bonk with the Doctor was essential.

However they could do a similar style show and call it Nurse What who travels through time and space in a portaloo and she wears a very short skirt.

Who would play the "American" Doctor? My personal choice would be Hugh Laurie...

So a British actor doing a gruff "Batman" voice? American TV is full of Brit actors impersonating Batman, rather than doing proper American accents.

Just look at what happened when an American TV company got involved in Torchwood .

Ok, if the "American" Doctor has to also have an American Accent, then I suggest Jim Parsons...

Funnily enough the BBC news site is running this story regarding the Moff's views on foreign remakes of UK shows.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26342072
An interesting read which should set people's minds at rest regarding the viability of a genuine US remake of Who.

So, with that out of the way, lets have some fun with this, theoretical, hypothetical idea of a US version of Doctor Who.

The Doctor - Kyle MacLachlan. He's charismatic enough to pull this off, does 'quirky' extremely well, and at 55, he's the same age as Capaldi, so that should put t rest any quibbles about his age.
Companion - Britt Robertson. She's one of the best things about Under The Dome. A cracking actress, and very easy on the eye too, which helps...
The Master - Michael Sheen. Well, American films always cast a British actor as a baddie don't they, and Sheen is based in the US these days, and anyway, he's just terrific.

Bazinga!

I suspect the Americans would cast a British actor as The Doctor - partly to retain the "character" of the thing and partly cos the British accent is regarded as "educated" and just foreign enough to pass as "other worldly" - plus US TV has given us clever casting like Patrick Stewart in Star Trek - but...

...there are some American actors who have the right sort of "oddness" to pull it off - Jeff Goldblum could do it justice (very "Tom Baker") and a slightly younger Donald Sutherland (Canadian but who's counting) was always my choice if they'd made the movie at the time it first got suggested.

Thanks to the 2005+ "re-invention" of the character, it would be possible to cast a "young hunk" style Doctor if that's what US audiences wanted - but we've seen some smart casting on US TV in recent years - the casting for Smallville or Buffy was spot-on and a big part of the success of those shows.

One important difference with US television is that it has become regarded as perfectly legit for Hollywood "stars" to appear in TV shows these days. If they ever made a DW series, I can imagine them casting a huge star - at least for the first year.

The absolute worst thing they could do would be to try to precisely mimic the British series with some actor wigged-up and made to look like one of the UK Doctors. It would NEED to be different otherwise it would be pointless.

It would be interesting to see if they pull-off having BOTH series being made at the same time. It's easy enough to have two completely different Doctors - regeneration and time-travel handle that - but having "the 23rd Doctor", for example, would impact on story-lines because we'd "know" that every earlier Doctor was effectively "indestructable". They could work around that in various ways - easy enough to come up with "alternate reality" or similar. The big potential would be a cross-over - a meeting between the UK and US Doctors would make for a good big-screen spin-off.

Incidentally - aside from the casting, imagine having 20+ episodes per series and mega-million dollar budgets. If Stargate, Star Trek etc are anything to go by, one in every three episodes would be very good and many would be absolute classics. That means a lot of less popular episodes but so much good stuff that we quickly forget how bad a few were.

For a moment, your thread title had me worried that this was something that was actually going to happen, thus tainting the worldwide reputation of the doctor who brand. Seriously the tv movie and torchwood miracle day show that doctor who+american's= embarassing disaster. I'm sure they could find someone american to be a likeable doctor, but, I still suspect, based on previous form, it would bomb regardless. American producer's just dont seem to get the essence of who, which is probably because it is quintessentially british, and can only be made well here.

I suppose though, if it didn't effect production of the uk show in any way it would be of no consequence either way anyway (apart from, as I said above, tainting the international brand identity)

Max Beesley would be cast as the Doctor. River Song would be his infrequent assistant and they would generally complain about the dishes and dirty laundry and his full time companion would be Elizabeth Olsen.

He would travel through time and would take every opportunity to say stuff like this isn't the American Way.

He would wear a dark suit with pink socks and would occasionally go in a trance when to summon up mystical time energy to blast his enemies when things got really tough.

He wouldn't give a damn about the human race initially but through Elisabeth he would suddenly learn what it meant to be human.

The Daleks were actually an invention of an evil timelord who was upset with the Doctor over an incident that happened to them when they were young - but we would only find this out by the end of series 3.

When said evil timelord is found out we discover that the series was never actually about time travel it was actually about the bonds that tie people and also wrench them apart, and the journey towards reconciliation.

Oh and finally, their would be vampires that helped the Doctor once in a while.

I think at the moment there's a definite U.S. taste for the anti-hero and the ensemble cast, so I could see them returning the Doctor to his crotchety and mysterious roots, expanding the core cast to take more of the weight.

Why not a US remake of Marmite? It could be made from peanuts, hydrogenated soybean oil and high fructose corn syrup.

I believe that you are very nearly at the point where this could be commissioned. However, you seem to have omitted a conspiracy theory which, as you will be aware, is a requirement of all such series by the time we get to Season 4. If you could find a way to incorporate this into your summary, then I think we can safely say that a space in the schedules will be found for your new and novel idea during 2015.

If they were to remake the show it would have to be relatively close to how the series really began. That means not jumping straight into the continuity of NuWho, which I believe would be a mistake. This also means they need an older actor to play the US First Doctor, and not go straight in with a Tennant or Smith-like Doctor due to their popularity.

With that in mind, it shouldn't be a Hartnell-esque archetype either - it wouldn't be the best move to copy An Unearthly Child word for word. The opener would probably be a bit darker, with the Doctor being a lot more morally ambiguous.

I think casting someone like Willem Dafoe as the Doctor could provide the same level of sinister behaviour that Hartnell had, but also have a gentle nature too... Not to mention he is an exceptionally talented actor as well. He's also 58 so he's even older than Hartnell, but looks really good. (and bless Hartnell, but he did look older than his years. )

There would be the cliche high school setting in mind as well... which would probably lead to some Smallville esque settings and guitar music in the background... so for Susan, it needs to be someone who is young, but mature. No Disney stars or whatever. Ugh. I say... Ariel Winter (Alex in Modern Family). She has the geeky stereotype down, and I think she's very talented. With a full on dramatic role as Susan, I think she'd be brilliant.

Ian and Barbara... I'm not so sure. William Russell is pretty much irreplacable as Ian, so I think taking a different angle on the characters would work well, if not fully replacing them with different characters. I think Colin Ferguson could make a great Ian though. I watched Eureka quite a bit when it was airing and I think he'd fit the part, even if they have to give him the background of a US marine.

Barbara... I'm not so sure. But from the top of my head, I'm thinking they'd cast someone fairly good-looking, perhaps older rather than younger. Well that's what I'd do.

I think it could be interesting to say the least... not worth an automatic veto if they treat it with the right level of dignity and respect, and make the series a bit darker, a bit more serious much like the Hartnell serials, enough to stand out against the UK series.

It could also make a cool crossover episode for the UK series. Twelfth Doctor, Clara and Danny go to parallel universe and bump into the Twelfth Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan who are struggling to get back to 21st Century America, etc, Coal Hill school background shared, etc, "I miss Susan" etc.

As long as they don't change the TARDIS though. That is crutial IMO to the series being fundamentally recognised as Doctor Who.

I've never understood the American obsession with remaking British shows. Why can't they just be satisfied with the British show?

If Mulett doesn't mind me adding question to his thread...

Would a genuinely American version NEED the TARDIS to be an old British police call box?

If it's a genuine re-imagining, wouldn't it make far more sense to use something quintessentially American instead? If so - what should the TARDIS be?

They could use a hot dog stand!

A '59 Chevy Impala - a car that still manages to look excitingly futuristic and pleasingly retro at the same time.

If we're talking about a clean start, it would have to be something conventional for the time period that the series is conceived, something modern viewers would walk past every day and not think twice about.

It would have to be a Starbucks.