Doctor Who (2003)

"Time is of the Essence"

Doctor Who or Doctor Who: The Movie was a Science Fiction Adventure film and the first film in the Doctor Who: Motion Picture franchise.

It was produced by Paramount Pictures and BBC Films and was released first in America on 21st November 2003 and then in the UK and everywhere else on 23rd November.

The film was produced to celebrate Doctor Who's 40th Anniversary and is the final story for Richard E Grant's Tenth Doctor as well as for Anna Hope as Commander Sandra Armstrong.

Synopsis
The Doctor and Commander Sandra Armstrong are brought to Gallifrey by the Keeper who requests their help in repairing the Time Distortions which threaten the entire web of time, caused by Rassilon. The Doctor summons his previous incarnations to help repair the time distortions.

While his predecessors deal with the unfolding chaos, the Doctor and Sandra travel back in time and end up involved in Omega's dangerous time travel experiments.

Plot
The TARDIS flies around in space, then straight into a vortex that has opened up as it flies through it and then the camera flies straight into the TARDIS through it’s keyhole into a gigantic console room. The Tenth Doctor and Sandra Armstrong are standing by the console. Suddenly the TARDIS grounds to a halt, the time rotor stops moving and the lights go dark. A blue beam pulls the TARDIS out of the vortex as it’s pulled into normal space into a gigantic orange planet, Gallifrey. The beam then pulls the TARDIS closer to the surface. Sandra asks the Doctor what’s going on. He explains that it feels like a type 70 time beam from Gallifrey. He tells her then that the Keeper will be wishing to see them both. The TARDIS is pulled right through onto the planet as it flies towards the citadel. A small hatch opens up in the glass dome and the TARDIS is pulled through that before it’s pulled right down to the bottom of the citadel where a small hatch opens and the TARDIS is pulled through that into a giant hanger decorated with the Seal of Rassilon.

The proceeding scenes see the Doctor and Sandra speaking to The Keeper, who is now in charge of Gallifrey. He explains about the distortions in time and then summons the Doctor's previous incarnations their as well. However, because of the distortions, the Doctor’s first three incarnations have been erased from history and pretty soon the same will happen to the other Doctors. The Keeper explains that he has pinpointed the main distortion points and each incarnation must go back to one of these points and rectify them. After they have all left, the Keeper walks out of the hanger and into a small closed-off room. Sitting on the throne there is The Rani. He tells her that she must find The Rogue to stop this once and for all.

In a dark science laboratory that looks as if it’s falling apart, the door swings open and Omega walks in. He walks over to his equipment and sits down as he buries his head in his work. Suddenly a gust of wind flows past his face and he looks up and then walks to the door and closes it. But another gust of wind flows past his face. He looks confused and then there’s another and another until its a constant. Then he hears a noise, it sounds like an engine. He looks up as the TARDIS materialises. Omega looks amazed as it becomes solid. He walks around it until he gets to the door. He’s about to open it when it opens as the Doctor and Sandra walk out. The Doctor turns to Omega, believing to have startled him before recognising him. The Doctor and Sandra then attempt to ensure that Omega goes ahead with his time travel experiment and they help him out. This plot-line goes throughout the film until about 20 minutes until the end when the experiment is conducted and Omega starts to be engulfed by anti-matter and he vanishes. This is of course all intercut with other plot-lines that the film follows. One of them however, invades this situation. Mid-way through, Omega is attacked by a squadron of Cybermen who are only to be defeated by UNIT. The Doctor explains that the time distortions are indeed getting much worse.

With Leftover and the Eighth Doctor, people from many different time-periods break through into modern-day Newcastle as they eventually repair that distortion only after the Eighth Doctor has a sword fight with a medieval knight. Similarly, the Fourth Doctor and Romana end up on an intergalactic hub planet and spend their time tracking down a crime lord who has been selling time to different people. In the end, the Doctor seizes his operations and ends up closing the time distortions he caused there.

For the Fifth Doctor, he's in an alien religious order who have been worshipping a Dalek who has fallen through time to them. He, of course, ends the Dalek’s plans and sends it back where it came from.

The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown are on a prison planet where they discover that the prisoner’s minds have been wired into a computer interface. They discover that both the Rogue and the Rani are behind this as they have already ‘fixed’ the distortion and have done this by using the prisoner’s brains. The Doctor explains that the distortion is still here and they have caused it. He then proceeds to out-smart them both which allows him to release the prisoners.

The Seventh Doctor finds his distortion of Gallifrey’s neighbouring planet of Karn. He is greeted by the sisterhood who are in deep meditation; trying to find the source of the distortion themselves. The Doctor and Ace explore the outskirts of the Sisterhood’s temple where they find a crashed ship with a body in, the body of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Doctor tries to revive him but fails. The Brigadier is dead on Karn and there is nothing the Doctor can do about it. Before he can do much mourning, a creature appears out from behind the ship and pounces on the Doctor and Ace, they managed to break free killing the creature but before it reaches its point of death, both it and the Brigadier fade into thin air.

Finally, the Ninth Doctor and Janet are on the planet Skaro, home of the Daleks. Straight after landing, they are taken prisoner by them and taken to the Emperor, however this Emperor is different; he seems to be telepathic as he invades the Doctor’s mind and exposes his worst fears. The Doctor uses that to his advantage and starts looking into the Emperor’s mind. He starts reversing all the damage that has been done through the combined minds of both a time lord and a Dalek and causes the Emperor to fade out of existence. The Daleks reach to attack the Doctor but a snap of electricity takes them both and they appear once more in the hangar from the beginning of the film. All the other Doctors are also there except for the Tenth and incumbent incarnation.

Back to Omega’s Laboratory after the time-travel experiment, The Keeper appears before the Doctor and tells him there is one thing more that he must do. He explains that although the timeline has been rectified, it must all be tied together. He tells the Doctor that he must return to Gallifrey with him and use the Sufricq device. The Doctor tells him that it’s forbidden and refuses to use it but the Keeper grabs onto him and Sandra and with a burst of electricity they move to the throne room on Gallifrey which now holds the Sufricq device in the middle. The moves the Doctor over to it and tells him that he must use it for Gallifrey. The Doctor refuses but the Keeper forces him onto the device and the Doctor screams in agony. Flashing through all of time in a montage; constantly appearing and disappearing. The Doctor is seen lying on the floor, presumed to be dead with the Keeper, the Rani and the Rogue looking over him. The Keeper states he has done it. A yellow glow covers the Doctor’s face as he regenerates into his next incarnation: the Eleventh Doctor.

The Keeper and Sandra enter the hanger. The Keeper tells the rest of the Doctors that they have done it and that he thanks them deeply and the only way to repay them is to make their latest incarnation Lord President of Gallifrey. The Fourth Doctor walks up to the Keeper and states that they don’t want that. It’s a duty they do not desire but the Keeper clicks his fingers and they all disappear back to their own TARDISes in their own times. He remains with Sandra who tells him that he’s a monster. He replies that he is 'fixing the universe'. They walk back into the throne room where he tells the Doctor that this is now his and he is Lord President of Gallifrey. The Doctor forbids this, but the Keeper tells him that as of now he is sworn to never leave Gallifrey and if he did he would be erased from history with the Sufricq device. He tells the Doctor that he will work closely with his deputy, the Rogue, and the Leader of the Opposition, The Rani, to ensure the safety of Gallifrey forevermore. Sandra repeats her line that he is a monster with the Keeper replying with the same response. He then tells the Doctor to say goodbye to Sandra as she will return shortly. Sandra asks what he means but the Doctor just simply apologises. Sandra then vanishes with the burst of electricity and appears in Exotract 42, her space station that the Doctor rescued her from that was burning up and about to explode as she is about to die. The Doctor just looks at the Keeper with distaste asking if those actions were necessary. The Keeper expresses that he is Lord President now, and can't have any distractions.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Richard E. Grant
 * The Doctor - Michael French
 * The Doctor - Richard Griffiths
 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * The Doctor - Peter Davison
 * The Doctor - Tom Baker
 * The Keeper - Don Warrington
 * The Rogue - Derek Jacobi
 * The Rani - Kate O'Mara
 * Omega - Patrick Stewart
 * Commander Sandra Armstrong - Anna Hope
 * Janet Wells - Rakie Ayola
 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Ace McShane - Sophie Aldred
 * Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
 * Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
 * Romana - Mary Tamm
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
 * Sergeant John Benton - John Levene
 * Ian Chesterton - William Russell
 * Susan Campbell - Carole Ann Ford
 * Katie Tollinger - Julia Sawalha
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Jo Jones - Katy Manning
 * Doctor Elizabeth Shaw - Caroline John
 * Voice of K-9 - John Leeson
 * Voice of the Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
 * Michael - Robert Eggworth
 * Dasyt'op - Fredrick Boulevard
 * Francis - Christopher Biggins
 * Timelord - Patrick Alexander
 * Timelord - Graham Samuels
 * The Doctor - Anthony Head (uncredited)

Crew

 * Doctor Who Created by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber
 * Executive Producers - David Renwick, David M. Thompson and Ira Steven Behr


 * Director - Nicholas Meyer
 * Producer - Tony Redston
 * Screenplay by Russell T Davies & Nicholas Meyer
 * Story by Russell T Davies & Nicholas Meyer
 * additional material by David Renwick


 * Director of Photography - Jeffrey L. Kimball
 * Production Designer - Edward Thomas
 * Visual Effects - Industrial Light & Magic
 * Make-Up Designer - Davy Jones
 * Casting Director - Andy Pryor
 * Music - Murray Gold
 * Costume Designer - Lucinda Wright
 * Edited by - Dallas Puett
 * Special Effects - Bryan Stanislas


 * Original Theme Music - Ron Grainer
 * Title Music - Murray Gold
 * Title Sequence designed by Tiger Hare Studios


 * With thanks to Verity Lambert, Terrance Dicks and Clayton Hickman

Memorable Quotes
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Background Information
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Development
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Pre-Production
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Production
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Post-Production
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Reaction

 * Doctor Who premiered in cinemas on 21 November 2003, number one at the box office. With a budget of around US$120,000,000, it opened on 3,337 screens and went on to garner US$173,398,518 domestically. This gave the film a gross margin of 30.8%, a markup of 44.5% and a gross profit of US$53,398,518.

Story Notes

 * This is the final story to feature the Tenth Doctor and the first to feature the Eleventh Doctor.
 * This is also the last story to feature Sandra Armstrong until The Confrontation of the Wicked in Season 43.
 * This is the first story to feature Bessie since Battlefield in Season 26.
 * This also marks the first and, so far, only time that a Doctor has met a villain who he wouldn't properly meet until a future incarnation, in this case the Sixth Doctor meeting the Rogue.
 * This is the first story to feature an Emperor Dalek since The Evil Of The Daleks in Season 4.
 * The Fifth Doctor's subplot is based on an unproduced story named 'The Elite' that was proposed for Season 20.
 * In the original unmade TV version of this plot the Fifth Doctor would have made Animal Baloons, in the subplot he goes around sharing Chocolate.
 * A new arrangement of the theme tune composed by Murray Gold was used for the movie for both the opening (mixed with the original 1963 theme) and closing credits. Even though future movies would use different theme tunes, the theme used for this film was used on the first part of the closing credits for Doctor Who: Revelation and Doctor Who: Vengeance as well as the end credits of Seasons 41 and 42.
 * The 2003 re-release of the Elton John song Rocket Man was used for the end credits and features in the scene where Omega launches Pathfinder.
 * This film began a tradition of the Doctor regenerating in each new film, this was done by Paramount to keep continuity between the films so that they would be easily accessible for non-fans.

Continuity

 * The Keeper has been acting as Lord President since the failed Destruction of Gallifrey by a resurrected Rassilon.
 * When Rassilon was killed it caused severe time distortions to occur all throughout time and space.
 * The Tenth Doctor and Sandra had previously met Omega during the creation of Pathfinder.
 * The Third Doctor had intended to take Sarah Jane Smith on a visit to Florena.
 * Tegan refers to her possession by the Mara and her subsequent attempt to kill the Fifth Doctor.

TV Spots
During the lead up to the film, a 60 second TV spot was broadcasted on both BBC One and UPN.