Well, it’s the biggest geek news in ages…and it’s been a very LONG time in the making. The 8th Doctor - Paul McGann - and his TV movie, coming to Region 1 DVD at last!
You can find the concise report at the Doctor Who news site, but I offer below a simple summation of the issue, courtesy of the always informative Doctor Who North American DVD FAQ…
Over 14 years after its production and broadcast, the Doctor Who TV Movie starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor will finally see release in North America!!!
2entertain’s Commissioning Editor Dan Hall revealed this surprise news on the “Hoo on Who” podcast (available on iTunes) on August 25. He was successful in negotiating release rights for this production outside of the UK that had previously been held by the co-producers of the TV Movie, Universal Television. This clears the way for a release in North America by BBC Worldwide Americas.
The version that will see release is a new edition that will be available in the UK in October as part of what they’re calling the Revisitations Box Set, where three previously available titles are being re-released together with boosted extra features. The McGann TV Movie is one of them. It (and the others) will be released (likely separately) in North America sometime in 2011.
For those of you who don’t know, “the TV Movie” as it is called was a one-off attempt to revive Doctor Who in 1996 as a “back door pilot” for the Fox Network in the U.S. It was a co-production by Universal Television, BBC Worldwide Americas, and Fox. In it, we see the Seventh Doctor regenerate into the Eighth, and embark on an adventure to save the Earth from being destroyed by the TARDIS after the Master opens its power source, on the eve of the new millennium. Ratings on Fox were not strong enough to warrant a series, and nothing else happened with the TV rights until 2005, although the McGann Eighth Doctor continued on in the spinoff fiction of original novels, audio dramas, and comic strips, all of which will be highlighted in the extra features on the upcoming DVD.
To say most North American Doctor Who fans were shocked & delighted by this announcement is an understatement.
I’ve previously analysed the 8th Doctor movie in the last of my Essential Classic Doctor Who posts, so I’ll offer my own hearty thanks to Dan Hall & 2/E Entertainment in the UK for managing something most of us thought would be impossible. Love it or hate it, the 1996 telefilm has been sorely missing from the Doctor Who DVD collection in the USA and Canada…and I’m sure a decade of built-up desire will lead to some solid sales figures. Paul McGann deserves his day in the sun, on the continent where his Doctor first premiered…
…to say nothing of finally giving Sylvester McCoy’s swan song full exposure!
