10 Doctor Who Flops The BBC Has Buried

9. The TV Movie

Doctor Who Paul McGann Eighth Doctor TV Movie
BBC Studios

The TV Movie was one of several unusual Doctor Who projects produced during the wilderness years - the period of time when the show was off the air between 1989 and 2005.

Though the BBC was involved in making it, the TV Movie was mostly an American-led production, with the Fox Network reportedly considering a full series - but only if this backdoor pilot proved a success. And because that series never did materialise, it's clear that the parties involved felt that the TV Movie didn't strike the chords they wanted it to, whether from a ratings, critical, or fan-pleasing perspective.

It's not terrible by any means - Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor is actually rather wonderful, and it's worth watching for him alone - but the TV Movie is widely considered the black sheep of Doctor Who's mainline television outings.

What's more, the fact that the BBC decided to go in a new direction with Doctor Who in the years after the TV Movie aired makes it clear that the corporation considered it something of a failed experiment.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!