How different do you think would NuWho have been if it had started with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor in the starring role?
NuWho with 8 instead of 9
- Thread starter Joe Washington
- Start date
Despite the tendency to group him with the classic series Doctors, I've always rather felt that "NuWho" as you call it did start with McGann. Despite starting off with McCoy, the TV movie feels much more like a new series episode than an old series one and McGann's Doctor seems cut more from the cloth of what was to come than what had come before. (None of that meant at all pejoratively.)
The biggest difference would probably be that the series the TV movie was designed to set up would have been focused more on the Doctor exploring his origins (specifically searching for his father, if I recall) whereas the revival we ultimately got elected to look in the opposite direction and saw the Doctor trying to escape his past.
The biggest difference would probably be that the series the TV movie was designed to set up would have been focused more on the Doctor exploring his origins (specifically searching for his father, if I recall) whereas the revival we ultimately got elected to look in the opposite direction and saw the Doctor trying to escape his past.
looking at things in retrospect - storywise - I don't think Season One would have been a good fit for McGann. This is especially so if it began with nothing coming between it and the TV Movie. In the latter, McGann's doctor is filled with child-like wonder, he's soft-spoken, a romantic, and very dapper (especially for a stolen costume). That would be very incongruous with a doctor suffering from shell-shock and guilt following the (believed) genocide of his own race. Maybe if we had "Night of the Doctor" and built on that before Season One, it might have worked a bit better. But given the state of mind #9 was supposed to have, Eccelston had a better aura for it.
And I'm a huge McGann supporter (I think he and Eccelston, and maybe Troughton, were the best "actors" Who ever had) and would love to see more of his Doctor on-screen.
And I'm a huge McGann supporter (I think he and Eccelston, and maybe Troughton, were the best "actors" Who ever had) and would love to see more of his Doctor on-screen.
It'd be a stark contrast to the TV Movie's representation of EIght, as this would be the Doctor after the Time War (which would still have to have happened) but I'd love it. McGann was always great as the Doctor on audio, and we'd get a season of him at least.
That said, he'd most definitely want to stay on more than one season, so I wonder if we'd ever get Tennant or Smith, or even Capaldi, and I really wouldn't want to lose any one of them (just like Eccleston). So, I'm not sure how much I'd want to.
That said, he'd most definitely want to stay on more than one season, so I wonder if we'd ever get Tennant or Smith, or even Capaldi, and I really wouldn't want to lose any one of them (just like Eccleston). So, I'm not sure how much I'd want to.
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