- 10 minutes ago
How a Doctor Who movie got Lost in the Dark Dimension...
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00When Christopher Eccleston stated that multi-Doctor stories are cash grabs, he wasn't far wrong.
00:06While the show was off the air, BBC Enterprises, the corporation's marketing arm, went all in on
00:12video releases, books on tape, recorded soundtracks and novels to keep fans appeased during the
00:18wilderness years. Their biggest Doctor Who-related project, however, actually ended up unmade.
00:24Designed as a celebration of the show's 30th anniversary, Doctor Who The Dark Dimension
00:30was intended to be a feature-length straight-to-video movie. The Dark Dimension, like Shada, is one of
00:36the Doctor Who fandom's great obsessions. Despite having never fully entered production,
00:41there have been many attempts by fans to realise the story as originally intended.
00:47So, with the 60th anniversary fast approaching, and rumours of a multi-Doctor story back in
00:53the news once again, now seems like the perfect time to take a look at this abandoned special.
00:59So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture, here with the true story behind
01:04Doctor Who's abandoned anniversary movie.
01:07Number 10. BBC Enterprises Plans an Anniversary Movie
01:13According to the Dark Dimension scriptwriter Adrian Rigglesford, the planned movie was
01:18at the behest of Tom Baker. Speaking to the Space Mountain Convention in Clacton-on-Sea in 1993,
01:24Rigglesford told fans that Tom Baker went to the BBC and said,
01:28I would like to be Doctor Who again, and that's the reason why it happened.
01:31Baker also apparently suggested that the script should be written by Douglas Adams.
01:36So, in light of this and the strong performance that Doctor Who was having in the home entertainment
01:41charts, BBC Enterprises started planning something special in September 1992, a brand new feature-length
01:49episode for exclusive home video release to celebrate Doctor Who's 30th anniversary in 1993.
01:57Rigglesford's script was commissioned about a month later, specifically written with Tom
02:02Baker's requests in mind.
02:04The plot revolved around Hawkspur, a villainous alien who murders the seventh Doctor and alters
02:09the Doctor's personal timeline so that Tom Baker's incarnation never regenerated.
02:14This older fourth Doctor would team up with Ace and the Brigadier to put history back on
02:19course, with the other surviving Doctors making brief cameo performances throughout.
02:24Now, while this may have satisfied fans and some BBC high-ups who felt that the series had
02:30lost its way in the 1980s, it was a storyline that proved to be quite controversial further down
02:36the pre-production process.
02:39Number 9.
02:40Graham Harper comes on board to make Doctor Who scary again.
02:44Now, while BBC Enterprises wrangled over the project with the controller of BBC One, Jonathan
02:51Powell, who is one of Doctor Who's greatest enemies, Rigglesford had managed to bring a director
02:57on board.
02:57And he chose Graham Harper, a fan-favourite director who was responsible for two of Doctor Who's most
03:04atmospheric and acclaimed stories of the 1980s, The Caves of Androzani and Revelation of the Daleks.
03:10Harper was reportedly very excited to make Doctor Who scary again, and was certainly a great choice
03:16for the darker, more grown-up tone that Rigglesford's script was aiming for.
03:21Now, at this stage, the film was planned for exclusive VHS release, which meant that the target
03:27audience were older fans, who had paid employment and disposable income.
03:32But that all changed in early 1993, when Jonathan Powell was replaced as controller of BBC One
03:40by Alan Yentob.
03:42Now, Alan Yentob was a supporter of Doctor Who and cult television in general, and had actually
03:47overseen some classic Who repeats over on BBC Two throughout 1992 and into 1993.
03:54And with the support of Charles Denton, the new head of series and serials, he gave his blessing
04:02for The Dark Dimension to be aired on BBC One, with the VHS release then potentially including
04:08extra footage as an added selling point.
04:12Number eight, monster redesigns begin in earnest.
04:16Now that the project had the blessing of BBC One, the focus turned back to Rigglesford's script.
04:21As this was to be an anniversary special, there was a desire to include not just the
04:25surviving past Doctors, but several classic monsters.
04:29The sixth Doctor was to meet the Ice Warriors, while the fourth Doctor would confront a Dalek
04:34in a Victorian graveyard, and the fifth Doctor would be thrown into the Cyber Wars.
04:39Now, in order to update some of these classic foes for a 90s audience, designers were brought in
04:45from a variety of sources, including Jim Henson's Creature Workshop.
04:50Henson's team were assigned the Cybermen, with Rigglesford giving an insight to some of the
04:55designs at the Space Mountain Convention, stating,
04:57The guy who designed it, Nigel Johns, was trained by alien designer H.R. Giger.
05:03So you can imagine that this particular Cyberman looked terrifying. It had holes in its knuckles,
05:09and there was a point where it held up its hand, made a fist, and six-inch blades shot out
05:14of its
05:14knuckles. It was like Wolverine out of the X-Men comics. Cyberene!
05:18Now these new Cybermen are the overriding image of the Abandoned Project, and they really give an
05:25insight into the more horror-inducing adult tones that they were clearly aiming for.
05:31Number 7. Rick Mayall, David Bowie, and Brian Blessed were tipped to play the villain.
05:36There were a number of enticing star names linked to the role of the central villain Hawkspur.
05:42Rigglesford had previously written a book with Brian Blessed, so had suggested him for the role.
05:47Another name, David Bowie, was of course familiar to the team from Jim Henson's Creature Workshop,
05:52who had worked with him on Labyrinth. Now it's not clear how advanced these discussions were past
05:58names on a list. And given how enterprises approached the casting of the Doctors, but more on that later,
06:04it's highly likely that they didn't get very far. Now one of the most enticing names for potential
06:10actors to play the villain was Rick Mayall. And Graham Harper had worked with Mayall on The New
06:15Statesman, where Mayall had played the role Alan Bastard. So given their working relationship,
06:21it's highly likely that Mayall was Harper's top choice for the role. But the prospect of Rick Mayall
06:28killing Sylvester McCoy and then facing off against Tom Baker in a Doctor Who story is one of the
06:34series' greatest what-ifs. And despite the clear flaws in the project, having Rick Mayall and Tom
06:41Baker involved would have at least ensured that it was nothing less than memorable.
06:45Number 6. Pre-production begins, casting does not. Establishing a production office in June 1993,
06:56BBC Enterprises won the bid to produce the project, with a tender of £75,000. But BBC TV were concerned
07:06that the budget was too low and the Enterprises had no experience in producing original drama. But despite this,
07:13design work continued on the monsters, updating the Daleks' extermination effects to 3D bolts.
07:21Test shoots began, costumes and sets were being designed for the special, the Pertwee-era variation
07:27of the theme tune was decided upon, and a new title sequence concept was being drawn up.
07:33Kevin Davies, who would later direct the fondly-remembered anniversary documentary More
07:39Than 30 Years in the TARDIS, was put in charge of realising the concept of incorporating all five
07:45Doctors' faces into the old-fashioned howl-around intro. The only problem was, no one had contacted
07:51the five Doctors. In an interview with TV Zone, fifth Doctor actor Peter Davieson said that,
07:57they never returned my agent's calls when this project was floating around. I was then sent a
08:01script later on saying, we hope you like the script, we look forward to working with you,
08:05and still, no one had contacted my agent. And it would only get worse from there.
08:11Number five, most of the Doctors aren't impressed. As news of the project started to filter around fan
08:19circles in June, it wasn't until July that the news of the project was broken in the 202nd issue of
08:26Doctor
08:27Who magazine. Now, fans were incredibly excited about the prospect of Doctor Who returning to BBC One
08:33after three years. But most of the Doctors were less excited. In the years following the project,
08:40John Pertwee, Peter Davieson, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy have been vocal on the script's many
08:46problems, not least the fact that they were all overshadowed by Tom Baker. As Colin Baker remembered
08:51in an interview with TV Zone magazine, it's not a very sound strategy to present it in. The way it
08:57was presented, i.e., that one is much more important than the other four. John Pertwee,
09:02meanwhile, objected to how the script approached Doctor Who in general, telling Starburst magazine,
09:08it should have been given to a writer that knows something about what we're doing. Someone like Barry
09:12Letts. Sylvester McCoy later tapped into the inherent problem with the proposed story. He told TV Zone,
09:19I don't think it was even the kind of story fans would want to see for the 30th anniversary.
09:24They want to see all the Doctors together.
09:27Number four, budget miscalculations lead the project to be abandoned.
09:32Fan excitement over the project was short-lived. A BBC board meeting held on the 10th of July decided
09:39that the anniversary multi-Doctor story was just a hastily cobbled cash grab. Citing the upset the
09:46project caused for past Doctors and the unrealistic production schedule, the board decided to send
09:52BBC Enterprises a memo that cancelled the Dark Dimension for financial and logistical reasons,
09:59and rumour has it that those financial reasons related to the fact that the broadcasting costs
10:05hadn't been factored into BBC Enterprises' budget. Now, this wasn't quite the end of the project,
10:11however, and Rigglesford set about rewriting his script for a potential Christmas 1993 release.
10:18Meanwhile, in America, Philip Siegel, working at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment,
10:24had heard about the project and was concerned. In a DVD interview for 1996's Doctor Who TV movie,
10:31Siegel said,
10:32I read the script and it was awful. It was really embarrassing and it was silly, and we were going
10:38to march out all of the old Doctors and it just felt wrong. It was going to muddy the waters
10:43and
10:43confuse people, especially as we were so close to delivering our bible and our script.
10:49Siegel requested that the BBC Enterprises' senior manager Tony Greenwood put a stop to the project,
10:56and thus the final nail was put in the Dark Dimension's coffin.
11:01Number 3. Dimensions in Time replaces the Dark Dimension.
11:06Now, if Siegel was concerned that the script for the Dark Dimension was silly, then who knows what
11:13he must have thought about the script for its replacement, the infamous Dimensions in Time.
11:19Fans were understandably disappointed that a dark and brooding 96-minute feature-length movie special was
11:25replaced by a light and fluffy romp through Albert Square in 3D for 1993's Children in Need Telethon.
11:33Viewed through the prism of an anniversary special, Dimensions in Time is unbelievably disappointing.
11:39It's a crossover with BBC soap EastEnders. The Doctors don't quite feel right,
11:43the companions are thumbnail sketches of how the characters are remembered by writers John
11:48Nathan Turner and David Roden. And worse than that, Tom Baker still doesn't share screen time with the
11:54other Doctors. But really, fans should have just lightened up. Dimensions in Time was just a bit
11:59of daft fun for a really good cause. And actually, funnily enough, Adrian Rigglesford's wish for Light
12:06Entertainment host Noel Edmonds to introduce the Dark Dimensions in Noel's Who party actually came true.
12:14Edmonds announced the winner of the phone vote that would decide which EastEnders character would save
12:19the Doctor from the part 1 cliffhanger. He was then joined by John Pertwee in character as the Doctor,
12:25who instructed audiences to put on their 3D glasses. Look, it wasn't a feature-length movie,
12:31but it was still a good laugh. Number 2. Adrian Rigglesford unsuccessfully tries to publish the
12:37making of the Dark Dimension book. Now, before the Dark Dimension was abandoned, Virgin Publishing were
12:44interested in publishing a novelisation. But when Greenwood pulled the plug on the project,
12:49the publishers decided it wasn't really worth it anymore. After all, they had several seventh
12:55Doctor stories to be working with and were starting to create new stories for the previous six incarnations.
13:01But undeterred, Rigglesford continued to seek publishing opportunities for his unmade Doctor Who
13:07story. He considered a script book with Titan Books, but then the BBC clamped down on making the
13:14script public. And it was this clampdown that also ensured that the unofficial making of book failed
13:21to surface on the three potential publishing dates between 1994 and 1995, despite a dust jacket featuring
13:29the new style Cyberman being designed. Eventually, details of the Dark Dimension appeared in Virgin's
13:35reference book The Nth Doctor by Jean-Marc Leffissier. The book contained various background notes and a
13:41full synopsis for the unmade adventure, which sparked the imagination of several creatively-minded fans.
13:50Number one, the project is eventually realised by fans. Now, if we learned anything during the
13:56wilderness years of the 1990s, it's that if Doctor Who fans aren't satisfied with existing Doctor Who,
14:02then they make it themselves. Doctor Who DJ, missing episode hunter, and continuity advisor Ian Levine,
14:10has funded many such projects for his own private collection. He finished work on his version of the
14:16Dark Dimension back in 2012, and he even managed to secure Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred to voice
14:23their respective characters. And there have been many other similar attempts to realise the potential
14:29of Rigglesford's script over the years. Now, the most high-profile and accessible of these is Faros
14:36Features' audio adaptation of a leaked version of the Dark Dimension script, featuring a cast of fans
14:43and realised by fan artists. The 2021 adaptation of The Abandoned Project was recorded during the pandemic.
14:52Script editor and fourth Doctor Matthew Toffolo told We Are Cold,
14:56It's been a great pleasure playing a weary 90s-era fourth Doctor and hearing the project come together
15:02with incredibly talented voice acting, editing, sound design, and an equally impressive soundtrack.
15:09Now, it is still available on YouTube, and it's likely the closest fans will ever get to The Dark Dimension.
15:16And there you have it, the true story behind The Abandoned Doctor Who movie. Now, if we missed out any
15:22details,
15:23then do let us know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like,
15:27and subscribe, and tap that notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
15:32at WhoCulture, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
15:37I've been Ellie with WhoCulture, and in the words of Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.
Comments