Doctor Who: Why Now Is The Right Time For A Movie
The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special is just a matter of months away, but has a massive chance to make a Doctor Who film been missed? In the 50 years (15 off air) which the Doctor has been around, we are yet to see a Big Screen production of the British TV series. The only thing that has come close to it was the disappointing Doctor Who TV Movie which aired in 1996, the one-off that featured Paul McCann in his only outing as the eighth incarnation of the Time Lord.
For years now, there have been several rumours that a Doctor Who movie would get the green light. Unfortunately none have been true. The 50th year would have been the perfect year to finally treat the fans to the long awaited film. Of course now there is no possibility of that happening, but we can still hope that it will happen in the near future, and there are a couple of reasons why it is the right time for The Doctor to get a cinematic release date.
The Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who hasnt gone down well with long term fans of the show, particularly Series 6 and 7. In the latest series there has been major inconsistency in the quality of Episodes, one week it would be brilliant and the next completely atrocious. Especially that now a lot of episodes seem to be very much for children and its nothing like it was in the early Russell T Davies era, where Doctor Who was genuinely scary.
These episodes follow a trend of what type of Doctor there is; Christopher Eccelston was a dark and mysterious Doctor, and so were his episodes. Matt Smith acts much more like a child hence his childish episodes. As a lifelong Doctor Who fan lately I have been disappointed. The way to reel everyone back in though, could be too make and incredible film, do something that has never been done with the show, so its fresh and old fans and new fans will be excited about it, if Doctor Who doesnt improve It could end up to how it was in the late 80s and nobody wants that.
So to renew interest in this TV series, the solution could be to finally make a movie of it. This may also develop though into taking in new fans. There is no doubt about it that Films get more publicity than TV series, making a film would get Doctor Who known to a whole new audience and it could also spark a new age of Doctor Who, it could be a stepping stone into a wider universe.
This reason may contradict my previous point in some way but let me clear that up. Steven Moffat is a terrific writer, all of his episodes are brilliant, besides Asylum of the Daleks. The thing that pulls the rest of the series down is the quality of writing from the rest of the writers. They make their episodes too childish in my opinion and you dont get great villains as they have very little screen time and the confrontations always seem rushed, there is too much of a quality gap between Steven Moffat and the rest of the Doctor Who writers.
Steven Moffat has the capability to write a film, he has already co-written The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. The story arcs which he has put forward in Doctor Who in the past few years have been incredible. The only problem with them is that they are not resolved well enough, you feel as if they are rushed in some sense, a solution could be to make Doctor Who an hour long, other than the fact that the complete series is a shambles with brilliant complex story arcs and in between childish episodes. I believe that Moffat has the writing quality to deliver a script worthy to be made into film. Doctor Who has finally a writer capable of capturing the pure essence of the show. This would be a massive bonus if you were to make a film, because the head writer could write the film, so you dont have to hire someone who has never written an episode of Doctor Who and have them change a few things e.g. how the Doctor acts. If they were to make a film of the Doctor Who, Steven Moffat would be my first choice to write the script.
The 50th Anniversary will air on 23rd November and the twelfth Doctor will be introduced at Christmas. Just seeing those two statements there puts the movie a considerable distance away. The writers wont be thinking about a movie now, because of the 50th Special and they wont feel any pressure to make a film, and if the 50th Special is brilliant we may not need a film. I cant help feeling though that this year was the perfect time for the film. The way things are shaping up lately we may have to wait a long time, a very long time.