From:        Damon Jason Casale, scyth+@andrew.cmu.edu

Excerpts from mail.fanfic: 15-May-96 [FFML] Dr. Who? by
AlberCrombie@starbase.sp 

AHHAHAHAHH!!!!  Finally, The Doctor gets the respect (and the budget) he
truely deserves!   The movie on Fox ROCKED!!! 

Welll...I could complain about a few points.  I won't, though.  It's nice
to have Who back.  ^_^

It is nice to have it back, though the first viewing left me with mixed 
feelings. There were a lot of good elements to the show, but there were a 
lot of things that didn't feel right. As it turned out, the things that 
stirred up the most controversy on rec.arts.drwho (the "half-human" bit 
and the kiss) turned out to be some of the least important (IMHO) 
problems/issues with the show.

The good bits (Spoilers):

Paul McGann grew into the role of the Doctor very well indeed, and the 
closing scene fitted like a glove; it *was* the Doctor stepping inside 
the Tardis and dematerializing.

The new Tardis is a plus, overall, though not an unalloyed plus. The new 
look is self-consistent and nicely atmospheric, but it's very different 
from the original series (even the wooden console room used briefly in 
the Tom Baker era) and I'm not quite sure how well it fits the Who 
mythos. I *didn't* care for the way they used the Eye of Harmony; too 
much pseudo-mystical stuff, though Kent might like it. :) (The sequence 
with the Master and his sidekick felt too much like the Fortress of 
Solitude sequences with Lex Luthor in Superman II.)

Grace made a pretty good companion, and her character meshed well with 
McGann. The much-debated romance elements were handled well and 
tastefully.

The special effects were well-done, though I'm not always happy with the 
way they were used. (See below)

The not-so-good bits:

I felt somewhat let-down by Sylvester McCoy's opening cameo -- he just 
didn't really *do* that much, and he seemed unusually passive. <Sigh> 

They spent too much time fixated on the regeneration (the regeneration 
itself, not the afteraffects) -- especially with the juxtaposed 
Frankenstein clips, it felt too much like a horror movie. In fact, that's 
probably the biggest problem I have with the show as a whole -- it had 
too much of a horror/brooding/etc. tone to it, like something out of the 
X-Files, instead of the light in most of Dr. Who.

The Master's "possession" was also treated that way... especially his 
"taking over" Grace. Compare it to the way he took control of Nyssa in 
Logopolis.

I didn't care much for the car chase, either... this is the sort of thing 
the naysayers were afraid of when they said it was going to be an 
American co-production. :)

The movie had it all!  Sylvester McCoy regenerating into Paul McGann, the
Death of the Master(yeah, right!), the tardis, a real budget, cool special
effects, a companion that understood the Doctors physics, and sooooo much
potential.

I'm not sure if that was just sarcasm on Grace's part.  8)

Doesn't matter -- she's got some spark to her. Just like the best of the 
companions, she isn't afraid to stand up to the Doctor.



Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
 tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
 <http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
 Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)

..Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.