The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond
The Doctors (sometimes known by its subtitle, 30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond) was a 1995 documentary produced by BBV Productions. It was a 65-minute retrospective on the entire history of Doctor Who from 1963 to 1995. In its concluding chapter, it made reference to a then-almost-greenlit project that would become the 1996 Paul McGann telemovie. Although completely unofficial, it nevertheless included interviews with many famous Doctor Who personalities still alive in 1995. It was partially compiled from previous interviews that had been conducted by Bill Baggs and his associates.
It was notable for featuring home movies of the filming of several Doctor Who serials, and included the debut of some color footage of a few missing episodes from the 1960s. It also contained large portions of what was likely John Nathan-Turner's longest filmed interview about Doctor Who before his death. Furthermore, it offered rare interviews with two members of the production team of The Dark Dimension — a 1993 project that came close to reviving Doctor Who before the 1996 tele-film.
Overview
The Doctors interviewed people important to the first 32 years of the franchise's history. It was arranged in mostly chronological order, and took its viewers through a brief overview of each Doctor's "era" on the programme. In its concluding chapter, it discussed things that had happened to the franchise since its cancellation — such as the continuing life of Doctor Who Magazine and the Virgin New Adventures series. It ended by discussing the recent failure of The Dark Dimension project and hinting at a possible new film for the FOX network in the United States.
Amateur video
Though published professionally, The Doctors was an amateur production. This was obvious in many interviews, where microphone booms were clearly in shot. At one point, as well, Peter Davison and Mark Strickson were walking at the location of Mawdryn Undead, and they had to alert the cameraman that he was about to back into a park bench. Furthermore, there was no attempt at grading the raw footage, or at improving technical flaws in the recording. The DVD version, in particular, entirely failed to meet the usual technical specifications of the medium.
Home movies
Aside from the interviews themselves, the only moving pictures in the documentary were home movies of location filming of Doctor Who. As these were not made by the BBC, it cannot exercise any control over their dissemination. The movies on this volume are some of the few published glimpses of the filming of Doctor Who in the 1960s and 1970s. What is believed to be the full, unexpurgated versions of some of the movies were presented as the DVD's only special feature. These movies were further remarkable for being entirely in colour — all the more unusual since some of the filming was of the traditionally monochromatic First and Second Doctors. Serials represented by the home movies included: The Smugglers, The Abominable Snowmen, The Demons, City of Death and Shada'. None of the Fourth Doctor's home movies were included in the special features.
Since the DVD was published, however, these movies gradually made their way onto official BBC DVD releases — most notably as a part of the Lost in Time box set.
Unofficial status
Because the producers had no relationship to the British Broadcasting Corporation, they were unable to use any footage from Doctor Who. Still photography was limited to use of only production and advertising stills. Thus, the original interviews which form the basis of the documentary are interspliced with home movies made of the filming of certain episodes of Doctor Who. As a result, the documentary was, at the time of its release, famous for being the first home of some never-before-seen footage, particularly involving the filming of The Smugglers and The Abominable Snowmen, two serials with missing episodes.
Curiously, though, the cover design features the BBC's trademarked police box design, and the DVD menu utilizes images of Daleks, whose design is also copyrighted to the BBC.
The Eighth Doctor
The length of time between completion of the documentary and release of the DVD set up an interesting phenomenon on the DVD menu. While the cover has images of only the first seven Doctors, the menu contains a picture of Paul McGann. His name is never even mentioned in the documentary, as all interviews were completed before he had been cast. Nevertheless, the interview with Doctor Who Magazine staff does touch briefly on the possibility of a project for Fox Broadcasting in the United States.
