And, yeah, verily, did the cry go out across NuWho fandom..."Who the hell is that guy and why does he say he's the Doctor?" This may be followed by, "Wait, wasn't he in that rubbish American movie back in the day?" He was indeed, and it was, I assure you, every bit as horrible as you've heard. But you haven't heard about the good things, the great things, the character has been in and done. I'd like to share some of those with you...
In The Beginning...
In 1996, the American TV network Fox aired a 90 minute made-for-TV movie called, simply, Doctor Who. It featured the Seventh Doctor, as played by Sylvester McCoy. It seems that the Master has been executed by the Daleks and they asked the Time Lords to send the Doctor to get the Master's remains (...look, just go with it, ok?). Something goes amiss and he lands in San Francisco on December 30, 1999. He steps out of the TARDIS and promptly gets shot. He gets rushed to the hospital, where a heart surgeon starts working on him. She saves his life, but notices some odd activity in that requires her to use a cardiac probe. This goes horribly wrong and, with Puccini blaring in the background, the Doctor dies. He gets taken to the morgue and there he manages to regenerate into the Eighth Doctor. From the start, this Doctor was young and energetic. He had a bit of amnesia initially, and had to dress up as Doc Holiday (...look, just go with it, ok?), but he brought youth and enthusiasm to the show, as well as a significant level of charm, with, and no small amount of sex appeal. The movie ended and the Doctor flew off in the TARDIS. We all hoped we'd see him on TV again, but no. The powers that be decided that the movie, which was a backdoor pilot, just didn't get enough ratings, so no new series was made. This was, as it turned out, a major blessing. Just read Wikipedia's article on unmade Who serials and you'll see what I mean. So that was the end of the Doctor on TV until 2005. But off the TV, something interesting was happening.