3. The TARDIS Brings The Doctor's Friends Back To Life - The TV Movie
Wait, what? No, really, seriously...what?! If there's anything that takes the TV Movie from territory that's merely sentimental to the genuinely mawkish, it's the scene in which the Eighth Doctor lovingly carries Grace Holloway's broken form up the stairs to rest beside the still body of Chang Lee - just before the TARDIS decides to belch some time dust out and bring them both back to life. Bet the Doctor wishes he'd known about that feature back in Earthshock - though maybe he wouldn't have used it, anyway. Seriously, what is going on here? Had this movie been made in 2006 rather than 1996, we might have gotten a much darker ending: the Doctor witnesses the Master killing his friends, manages not to save the Master from going into the Eye of Harmony, and now must carry on traveling alone with the knowledge that there are two people that he couldn't save who are no longer in the universe as a result of his coming to Earth. But it wasn't 2006, and the world apparently wasn't ready for that dark a take on Doctor Who yet. Except in the books, of course. It may very well be that last bit that makes many fans cringe at that sequence with the time pixie dust: we actually had been prepared for darker Doctor Who stories by that point, and having a downer ending might very well have sealed the fate of the movie ever going to series, but it would have felt more satisfying in its own way. As it is, there's the big red reset button, which would pave the way for further, more embarrassing reset buttons in the 2005 series. Nothing against Grace or Lee, but couldn't they just have stayed dead?
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
