Sydney Newman (1917–1997)

The Master hopes to resurrect himself by stealing The Doctor's lives.

Who thought this plot was a good idea for a standalone movie and/or American pilot? It's bad enough that it doesn't make any sense, even if you know who these characters are; they also completely fail to include the stuff that hooks people into the series. The whole point of the show is that he can and does go anywhere in time and space, and this movie is set entirely in present day California. (Oh, sorry, it's set three show more years in the future. For no apparent reason.) They don't even bother to explain what the TARDIS is until about halfway through; before that, you get inexplicable images of a 1960s police box spinning in a CG vortex juxtaposed with shots of an old man in a vaguely steampunk sitting room. How can that possibly make any sense? Seen as just an episode of the series, it's mediocre at best, but as a movie it's a horrible mess.

Concept: D
Story: F
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: D

GPA: 1.4/4 (Bad) show less

A spaceship will crash if a rich old man doesn't become a good person overnight.

Too rushed and overstuffed with timey-wimey cuteness for there to be time for the character stuff (which the story is supposed to be about) to work. Also, there are plot holes and crimes against science (does Moffat even know what the word "frequency" means?). But it is nice that they at least tried to do something more low key in a special for a change. And its faults are made up for with some first rate Doctor show more Blathering.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: A
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: D

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.6/4 show less

A fugitive from genocidal soldiers hides in a group of alien tourists visiting 1950's Earth.

For a story that's only three episodes long, there's a surprising amount of time spent stalling. And for a story that spends a lot of time stalling, there's surprisingly little time spent explaining the plot or establishing characters. Everyone, including characters who couldn't possibly have any idea what's going on, just seems to understand everything that's happening, and that's going to happen, show more right from the start (while the audience can only hope to piece it together afterward). show less

Sydney Newman, the man who created the long-running British TV series Doctor Who, was actually Canadian. This previously unpublished memoir is supplemented with an afterword by his daughter and an essay that discusses his place in the history of British television. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as far as that, instead becoming bogged down in Newman’s childhood and young adult years. While I am grateful to Newman for starting Doctor Who and admire him for saying back in the 1980s that show more Doctor Who should be a woman at some point, I found this memoir very hard going indeed. Recommended for more patient fans. show less