Doctor Who 50th not to feature living Doctors?
by Doc on Jul.06, 2012, under Television
We already know Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston wants no part of a Doctor Who reunion special, should that be the plan for the expected 50th Anniversary special. But if that IS the plan, it seems that the producers may not be talking to several of the surviving previous Doctors – if any of them.
The Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, in an interview with The Independent about his time on Doctor Who where he appeared in the 1996 TV movie, and it appears that he’s never been asked to have any part in Doctor Who since finishing the movie.
When asked if he had been talked to about the 2005 reboot, he said, “No, I didn’t and in fact since we’d filmed the pilot, since ending the film, no one’s ever called me. I’ve never been invited aside from the audios which I do with Big Finish.” And when asked specifically about the 50th, “No, I mean, I know it’s imminent but no, there’s been no invites to or sounding out taking place but maybe it will happen, we don’t know.”
Sixth Doctor Colin Baker doesn’t think it will happen.
“They don’t need us – the programme is doing extremely well without us,” he said in an interview with Cambridge News. ” Also, every time someone asks me that question I hold up a photograph of myself when I played the part, compared to what I look like now, and say, ‘OK, how do you deal with that?'”
But assuming that problem can be solved, would he be in? “I’m neither for nor against it. There would be two big questions I would ask: The first is, is my Doctor going to get a fair crack of the whip in the story, and not be eclipsed by anybody else? Because you want parity. And the other one is, what vast fortune are you offering me? I’d be quite brutal about myself and say, if they offered me a million quid, I’d go on and say one line for them. If they offered me a tenner, I wouldn’t.”
Not exactly a surprising answer – certainly all the participating actors would like their moments to shine, as was done with “The Five Doctors”, where each of the four participating Doctors (Fourth Doctor Tom Baker declined to appear and did so only in unused footage from the incomplete episode “Shada”) had their own problems to solve before meeting up with each other. And if they ALL chose to participate, it could get crowded (there are eight surviving actors, and they did replace the late William Hartnell in “The Five Doctors” with lookalike actor Richard Hurndall.)
Still, it would be nice to see a mix of classic and contemporary Doctors together – Fifth Doctor Peter Davison made an appearance with David Tennant in the Children In Need mini-episode “Time Crash”.
But we will have to wait and see what the plans are.