If I had been in rusell t davies position when he first showed all the doctors (the next doctor I believe) I would have shown Mc coy then eccleston, not mcgann at all. don't get me wrong, i feel mcgann is a good actor who would have done well given a proper chance in the actual show, but I don't see how someone who wasn't actually in a single episode of the show can be classed as an official doctor. Also acknowledging mcgann meant he was effectively acknowledging the event's of the tv movie. From the dalek's temporarily becoming a democratic race who would hold a trial of the master for the doctor, then happily give him the ashes, to the shudder inducing 'half human' line, the whole thing is a horrible failed experiment, and a cautionary tale of what happen's when you let the americans mess with the who universe (which was later ignored, leading to the equally awful torchwood miracle day.) but it's all now included in official who history whereas had mcgann not been acknowledged then those ideas would have just been the strange content of a spin off movie seen much as the peter cushing one's, which would not change it's existence and could still be enjoyed just the same by those who actually do like it.

before people start having a go, I know he is an official doctor now. All the line up's shown and night of the doctor prove that was the decision made, Im just saying it was a bad decision in my opinion.

What do you think?. Had you been in rusell t davies position, putting emotion aside in terms of how much you like/dislike mcgann's doctor, would you have acknowledged him as a real doctor, hence acknowledging the tv movie event's as real, or would you have only acknowledged those doctors from the show, hence forever eradicating the 'half human' line from official who history?

From the moment he emerged from Sylvester McCoy - yes.

I think this is a strong point, i would have included McGann.

Just out of interest, if they had decided to ignore the tv movie, and hence mcgann, and had released a minisode for classic who fan's in 2005 showing Mc coy regenerating into eccleston, would you then have been happy for it to be ignored?. I ask, not to try and change your opinion, but because that regeneration scene in the tv movie seems to be one of the main reason's why people support the fact that it was made official by rusell t davies, so I'm wondering if it could have been effectively ignored by him, would that change people's minds at all.Because as far as I can tell, everything else said in that movie is sort of an embarassment to the who history so without the renegeration being important, I can't see anyone would have complained about it being rendered effectively 'unofficial'

Should the War Doctor be real?

Of course, he was in an episode of the show, whereas mcgann never was, so up until rusell made the decision to include mcgann, that point was up for debate.

Of course he should be. He is cannon regardless of whether or not he appeared in an episode. BBC counts it as canon so should we.

I made it clear in my original post that I am aware that he is indeed real now, as regarded by the bbc and fan's alike. If you read fully my original post, you will see it was a theoretical question about the decision before any past doctors were shown in new who when the decision could have gone either way in terms of classing him as official or not.

BBC co produced the tv movie plus it got official vhs and dvd releases for the range so he has always been real. They always counted him as official so I don't understand why rtd wouldn't have counted him.

If Mccoy wasn't in the film, I doubt Mcgann would be classed as one of the main Doctors. He'd be like Cushing or Atkinson- he played the Doctor, but not in canon.

Considering I hadn't seen the TV movie, or really any Doctor Who prior to 2005 - I probably wouldn't have even watched the minisode But if McCoy-Eccleston was the official order, then that would have been the official order.

But it would have been an odd decision by RTD and there would probably be many who would have considered McGann the 'true' Eighth Doctor for many years to come. Having two McCoy regenerations would have been a bit silly. If we didn't see the regeneration - that would have opened up possibilities.

As we are all so very aware...

There were plans to show McGann regenerating into Richard E Grants Doctor in Scream of the Shalka.


Which would then have put REG as an official Doctor.


If that had happened I'm guessing we would have seen REG play the War Doctor and not the Great Intelligence (who could have been played by Hurt )

What do you mean? They're all real!

Seriously, whatever you think about McGann or the TV movie (former great, latter...hmmm. Not great IMO) it was shown on BBC1 and is therefore canon to me personally.

Of course that doesn't include Dimensions In Time because, ummm, well, I don't want it to be.

I think RTD called it right, myself.

If the relaunched series had started in 1997 or 1998, then maybe RTD could have gotten away with shoving the TV movie into the same non-canon pigeonhole as the Cushing films, although doubtless it would have left a lot of people unhappy.

By 2005 however, Paul McGann had been the "current" doctor for longer than anyone else, and had a ton of comics, novels and audio plays based around his character. Even if there was technically some room for debate until later in the series, I think RTD knew he would have been eaten alive if he ever tried to claim that McGann was anything but an official doctor.

Yes, and he is and has been since 96 (plus Night was an Episode).

I think that's very probably true, but we'll never know because McCoy was in the film, and was shown regenerating into McGann, which removes any doubt whatsoever IMO that McGann's incarnation is an official version of the Doctor.
That being the case, RTD could not ignore him.

I think any doubt about McGann's portrayal and place in the line up was absolutely nailed with Night of the Doctor.

I'm stilled annoyed that Night of the Doctor was a minisode rather than a pre titles sequence for the 50th. It would have made the whole episode the closest to perfection than ever.

Had we not seen a regeneration, IMO it would have been okay to exclude McGann's Doctor.

IIRC Richard E Grant WAS the official 9th Doctor but that got changed with the announcement of the series coming back.

Yeah he was official for about 2 months IIRC.


My point being though that if they had shown him regenerating from McGann (in a BBC Produced episode of DW even if animated) then they would probably have had to keep him in the numbering and Eccleston would have been known as the 10th Doctor when the new series started.


This could well have led to REG playing the Doctor who fought in the Time War rather than introducing an unknown incarnation played by Hurt.

In the Official 'The Legend' book REG is listed as the Ninth Doctor (I took a picture), the strange thing is the new series is mentioned at the end of the book - it's clear Doctor numbering was just as confusing 11 years ago.

Was I hallucinating in 1996?

This is my thinking. Strange really that the main reason people are so adamant about mcgann is because of Sylvester Mc coy. I suspect even if they couldn't get Mccoy had done a colin baker type regeneration where it was just Mcgann from behind in Mccoys clothes then their would still have been doubt his authenticity, seeing as it wasn't an episode, until new who officially included him (if in that scenario they did, as it may have been Mccoys involvement in the movie that also convinced rusell)

No you've just forgotten the difference between an episode of a show and a movie

Jon Pertwee regenerated into Trevor Martin on stage, it didn't make him a canon Doctor. McGann is though!