The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 7 - Victory and Despair

By the time approval in principle came, in late January, 1992, none of the Millenium principals were speaking to each other.

The final phases of the project had been accompanied by acrimonius disputes and seething resentment, particularly from Ian Levine. The truth was that while they'd managed to complete a pilot and a short, there was a general feeling of disappointment, of expectations not being met, and of directions clashing. The early enthusiasm had faded away, leaving cold bitterness.

But ambition makes friends out of the bitterest enemies, or at least gets them to set aside their differences. Ian Levine was suddenly faced with the prospect of realizing his personal dream and of recovering some of the not inconsiderable funds he had sunk into the project. Even if Bernard and Burton had deeply disappointed him, he could put that aside.

There were further hurdles. Approval was still only in principal, the BBC was offering a nine episode contract, but these would be subject to further negotiations on fees, licenses, and contingent on the approval of BBC Enterprises.

BBC Enterprises was the marketing and licensing arm of the BBC, and Doctor Who was far and away its most valuable product. Indeed, the revenues earned from marketing and merchandising Doctor Who had actually exceeded the costs of making the program. The cancellation of the series in 1989 had triggered a minor crisis within BBC Enterprises - their cash cow was drying up. But there was a back up plan. If the series was dead... Well, why not take it up to the next level.

Back in 1986, when the television series was originally in danger of cancellation, the Daltenreys Group, consisting of Peter Litten, John Humphries and George Dugdale, also known as 'Coast to Coast' had purchased the rights to a big screen motion picture version of Doctor Who. The proposed feature film was budgeted for thirty million dollars, scripts were developed and the Daltenreys spent several years looking for funding in Hollywood.

The first script was commissioned for 1986, thereafter, the project morphed continually, new producers, new scripts, new partners, with the movie always just another meeting away. With the series cancelled in 1989, the Daltenreys project was front and center for BBC Enterprises. And it was precarious, being perpetually one meeting away from success also meant that anything, any obstacle, any bit of bad press, could mean failure.

So BBC Enterprises were of seriously mixed minds as to whether the Millenium Doctor Who series would hurt or help them. On the one hand, a new television series offered some merchandising potential. But the Doctor Who backlog of 26 seasons was already huge, it wasn't lacking for product. On the other hand, the Millenium series, produced outside of the BBC had the potential to tarnish the brand and worst of all, might derail the Daltenrays project. With no actual Doctor Who being made, BBC Enterprises had to straddle two possible projects going in very different directions.

The existence of the Daltenreys project, and its struggles, made negotiations difficult. In order to avoid conflicts, the BBC placed numerous restrictions and compromises on the license.

'Doctor Who' was reserved for the Daltenreys feature film. The principal character would be called 'Doctor' but the series could not be called 'Doctor Who', and the name could not be used in the series or listed in the credits. The series was renamed 'The New Doctor.'

The blue police box could not be used, nor could the name Tardis, again, reserved for the Daltenreys project. But the red British phone booth was accepted as a substitute. The Millenium design of the Tardis console was accepted. The theme music could not be used, nor could any version of the opening credits. No other properties owned by the BBC were licensed, there could be no references to Time Lords, Gallifrey or other elements of the Doctors continuity and in particular, the Master, the Daleks and the Cybermen were explicitly excluded.