- 10 minutes ago
Delve into the history of 'The Dark Dimension,' the ambitious Doctor Who movie planned for the 30th anniversary that was ultimately scrapped. Learn about its wild plot, the plan to bring back Tom Baker, and the behind-the-scenes drama that kept it from being made.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
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