Myth Runner (home video)

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The Myth Runner Tapes (home video)

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Myth Runner
Main character(s):	Myth Runner/Nicholas Briggs
Key crew
Publisher:	Reeltime Pictures
Writer:	Nicholas Briggs
Director:	Nicholas Briggs
Producer:	Keith Barnfather
Release details
Release date:	1987
Format:	home video

The Myth Runner Tapes originally known as Myth Runner was a special episode in the made-for-video Myth Makers series by Reeltime Pictures. The film builds a Blade Runner-inspired storyline around outtakes and bloopers from previous Myth Makers interviews. Released prior to the original short film Wartime, Myth Runner stands as the first independently produced "original" film based upon Doctor Who, albeit only as a parody of the show's fandom, as opposed to the later Wartime which was a dramatic continuation of the original series.

Synopsis

In the near future Briggs, a down-on-his-luck detective, is assigned by a mysterious man to track down the "Myth Runner", an insidious interviewer who has a tendency to kill his subjects — all Doctor Who veterans — with insane questions.

Plot

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Cast

• Briggs/Myth Runner/Himself - Nicholas Briggs
• The Boss/Himself - Michael Wisher
• The Injured Party/Himself - Michael Craze
• The Celebrity - Andrew Grant
• About a dozen Doctor Who actors and crew in outtake footage, including Ian Marter, Nicola Bryant, Nicholas Courtney, Janet Fielding, Carole Ann Ford, John Levene, John Leeson, Wendy Padbury, Deborah Watling, and Sarah Sutton.
• Special guest - Jon Pertwee

Crew

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Worldbuilding

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Story notes

• Jon Pertwee's appearance at the very end of the film is a joke appearance in which he swears to never appear in a Myth Makers interview. About a year later, he actually did appear in one (which opens with footage shot at a convention suggesting he was tricked into it). At the time of compiling Myth Runner, no Doctor actor had yet appeared in one of the interviews, making this is the first appearance of one of the Doctors in the series. Pertwee would later participate in several independent Doctor Who-related or inspired spinoffs playing other characters, for Reeltime and other companies. This is his first appearance in such a production.
• Since the story is set in the future, one faux interview is included, with an unidentified actor (referred to in the credits as "The Celebrity") who talks about his role in a story called Deuteronomy of the Daleks before being either killed or rendered a mental vegetable by the Myth Runner.
• Several outtakes feature Ian Marter, who died a year before this film was released. One of Marter's outtakes is a "gag take" in which Marter pretends to be annoyed by Briggs' questions and pretends to strangle him. Not all the clips are bloopers; for example, Marter is also shown discussing the challenges of adapting a Doctor Who episode into a novelisation.
• Sample bloopers: John Leeson correcting an interviewer who asks about Leeson's work recording "talking books for the deaf"; Sarah Sutton chiding Briggs for asking a particularly awkward-sounding question that she can't answer, and also fighting a sudden gust of wind; a couple of gags in which John Levene playfully tries to avoid answering Briggs' questions, and Nicola Bryant becoming tongue-tied when performing a mini-scene with Briggs at one of the filming locations for Attack of the Cybermen.
• Nicholas Briggs, besides being the ubiquitous interviewer for the Myth Makers series also helped pioneer the Doctor Who audio drama, playing a version of the Doctor in the Audio Visuals series. During the interregnum between the original series' cancellation, Briggs wrote, directed, and made occasional acting appearances in many of the independent made-for-video spin-off productions, as well as "arms-length" series such as The Stranger (in particular playing a major role in In Memory Alone). He later became involved in the prolific line of BBC-licensed audio dramas from Big Finish Productions and as of 2009 serves as its producer. He also became involved with the main BBC Doctor Who series, becoming the show's resident alien voice artiste beginning in 2005; his repertoire includes Daleks, Cybermen and Judoon, among others. He made his first (undeniably valid) on-screen appearance in a supporting role in TV: Children of Earth: Day Four as Rick Yates.
• Despite playing roles in the film, Wisher and Craze are also seen in interview footage.
• Several scene transitions are done in the same format as in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.
• At the very end, as Michael Wisher's character and Nicholas Briggs walk away, Wisher begins talking like Davros, the character he was best known for playing (albeit only once) in Doctor Who.

Filming locations

to be added

DVD, video, and other releases

• Released to VHS as Myth Makers Vol. 7: Myth Runner by Reeltime Pictures. A North American edition was distributed by Pleiades Home Entertainment and was actually one of the first Myth Makers releases to be issued in North America; ironically, many of the episodes featured in Myth Runner were never made available by Pleiades.
• A DVD edition, retitled The Myth Runner Tapes, has been issued in the UK.
• It was reissued on DVD and VOD on 5 December 2015.