Remember the Doctor Who TV movie from 1996? The one with Paul McGann from Withnail and I and Eric Roberts as The Master? Yeah, it’s little loved, but it did spawn the new documentary Doctor Who Am I, which is currently screening in UK cinemas.
With the TARDIS doors having been closed since the end of Sylvester McCoy’s tenure in 1989, the TV movie was intended to be a reboot, and was a BBC/Universal co-production with an eye to introducing the Doctor, then all but unknown in the U.S., to American audiences. But American viewers were cool on the film, while hardcore UK fans were outraged, especially because the film had the Doctor kissing a girl (seems quaint now, doesn’t it?) and revealing his mother is human.
Which was not a good time for British screenwriter Matthew Jacobs, who wrote the thing. Fearful that he’d be torn limb from limb, Jacobs has avoided Doctor Who fandom ever since. But at the urging of his friend Vanessa Yuille, with whom he co-directs here, he began to engage with the fan community, hitting the convention circuit and discovering to his surprise and pleasure a very warm welcome awaiting him.
Doctor Who Am I is a feel-good look at the positive side of fandom in general and Doctor Who in particular, and fans will be happy to know that McGann and Roberts, along with co-star Daphne Ashbrook show up for talking head duties. But it’s also an examination of why we love this stuff. Jacobs reckons with his own difficult childhood and connection to Doctor Who—his father, actor Anthony Jacobs, worked on a Doctor Who serial, “The Gunfighters”, in 1966, and took his young son along to the set one day. If that sounds good to you, set the TARDIS controls for your local cinema.
