Back in ‘the classic era’ fans, for whom the common–occasionally truthful–complaint about Doctor Who was how cheap it was, and the sting of that affront, led to what-iffing about what Doctor Who would look like with ‘real’ time and, more importantly, money put into it.
We got, or we thought we had got, our answer in 2005 when nu-Who began. Nu-Who certainly looked the part, and we all know it was a runaway, and long-lasting, success. It was only later, perhaps much later, that RTD and/or Steven Moffat fessed up that nu-Who had been moderately, or modestly, budgeted. But the ‘real’ money, in the form of a mouse, was yet to come.
But it also wasn’t the first time ‘real’ money was thrown into Doctor Who.
The bridge between the classic and new eras landed on May 14, 1996 when Fox made a one-off TV movie which the Tour lovingly calls ‘the TVM’ of The Enemy Within. SO much has been written about the genesis and evolution of the TVM into something which could even tie into the classic era that we’ll leave that to your dogged determination.
But more about the money. So much of it, especially the TARDIS,, was up on screen that it added an all-new gloss and offered a glimpse of what Doctor Who could be, or could have been. The failure of the TVM, owing to the fact that it didn’t get a series pickup, wasn’t down to a lack of money or effort, and especially not Paul McGann. It’s just that Doctor Who was still too foreign a concept for mass adoption by American audiences in 1996. Even as a one-off it was a welcome change in perspective from the cloistered existence of 1963-89, but a disquieting one as well.
It could be argued, and with good reason, that the trams-Atlantic partnership led to a production that lacked that certain British-ness which was all part of what made Doctor Who what it was. Money can’t solve that problem, but it is a symptom, and a lesson to be learned. 30 years ago. Too bad it wasn’t when the mouse came-a-calling.
