Doctor Who's Insane Abandoned Movie
How a Doctor Who movie got Lost in the Dark Dimension...
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00:00When Christopher Eccleston stated that multi-Doctor stories are cash grabs,
00:04he wasn't far wrong. While the show was off the air, BBC Enterprises,
00:08the corporation's marketing arm, went all in on video releases, books on tape,
00:14recorded soundtracks and novels to keep fans appeased during the wilderness years.
00:19Their biggest Doctor Who-related project, however, actually ended up unmade.
00:24Designed as a celebration of the show's 30th anniversary,
00:28Doctor Who The Dark Dimension was intended to be a feature-length straight-to-video movie.
00:33The Dark Dimension, like Sharda, is one of the Doctor Who fandom's great obsessions.
00:38Despite having never fully entered production,
00:41there have been many attempts by fans to realise the story as originally intended.
00:47So, with the 60th anniversary fast approaching and rumours of a multi-Doctor story back in the
00:53news once again, now seems like the perfect time to take a look at this abandoned special.
00:59So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture,
01:02here with the true story behind Doctor Who's abandoned anniversary movie.
01:07Number 10, BBC Enterprises plans an anniversary movie.
01:13According to The Dark Dimension scriptwriter Adrian Rigglesford,
01:16the planned movie was at the behest of Tom Baker.
01:19Speaking to the Space Mountain Convention in Clacton-on-Sea in 1993, Rigglesford told fans that
01:26Tom Baker went to the BBC and said,
01:28I would like to be Doctor Who again and that's the reason why it happened.
01:31Baker also apparently suggested that the script should be written by Douglas Adams.
01:36So, in light of this and the strong performance that Doctor Who was having in the home entertainment
01:41charts, BBC Enterprises started planning something special in September 1992.
01:47A brand new feature-length episode for exclusive home video release to celebrate
01:53Doctor Who's 30th anniversary in 1993. Rigglesford's script was commissioned
01:58about a month later, specifically written with Tom Baker's requests in mind.
02:04The plot revolved around Hawkspur, a villainous alien who murders the 7th Doctor and alters the
02:10Doctor's personal timeline so that Tom Baker's incarnation never regenerated.
02:14This older 4th Doctor would team up with Ace and the Brigadier to put history back on course,
02:20with the other surviving Doctors making brief cameo performances throughout.
02:24Now, while this may have satisfied fans and some BBC high-ups who felt that the series
02:30had lost its way in the 1980s, it was a storyline that proved to be quite
02:34controversial further down the pre-production process.
02:38Now, while BBC Enterprises wrangled over the project with the controller of BBC One,
02:44Jonathan Powell, who is one of Doctor Who's greatest enemies,
02:48Rigglesford had managed to bring a director on board.
02:52And he chose Graham Harper, a fan-favourite director who was responsible for two of Doctor
02:58Who's most atmospheric and acclaimed stories of the 1980s.
03:01Harper was reportedly very excited to make Doctor Who scary again, and was certainly a great choice
03:07for the darker, more grown-up tone that Rigglesford's script was aiming for.
03:11Now, at this stage, the film was planned for exclusive VHS release, which meant that the
03:16target audience were older fans who had paid employment and disposable rights.
03:22And, of course, this meant that the film was going to be a bit more
03:27audience were older fans who had paid employment and disposable income.
03:32But that all changed in early 1993,
03:36when Jonathan Powell was replaced as controller of BBC One by Alan Yentob.
03:41Now, Alan Yentob was a supporter of Doctor Who and cult television in general,
03:47and had actually overseen some classic Who repeats over on BBC Two throughout 1992 and into 1993.
03:55And with the support of Charles Denton, the new head of series and serials,
04:00he gave his blessing for The Dark Dimension to be aired on BBC One,
04:06with the VHS release then potentially including extra footage as an added selling point.
04:11Number 8. Monster redesigns begin in earnest.
04:16Now that the project had the blessing of BBC One, the focus turned back to Rigglesford's script.
04:21As this was to be an anniversary special,
04:23there was a desire to include not just the surviving past Doctors, but several classic
04:28monsters. The sixth Doctor was to meet the Ice Warriors, while the fourth Doctor would
04:33confront a Dalek in a Victorian graveyard, and the fifth Doctor would be thrown into the Cyber Wars.
04:39Now, in order to update some of these classic foes for a 90s audience,
04:44designers were brought in from a variety of sources, including Jim Henson's Creature Workshop.
04:50Henson's team were assigned the Cybermen,
04:53with Rigglesford giving an insight to some of the designs at the Space Mountain Convention,
04:57stating,
04:58The guy who designed it, Nigel Johns, was trained by alien designer H.R. Giger.
05:03So you can imagine that this particular Cyberman looked terrifying.
05:07It had holes in its knuckles, and there was a point where it held up its hand,
05:11made a fist, and six-inch blades shot out of its knuckles.
05:15It was like Wolverine out of the X-Men comics.
05:18Cyberine. Now, these new Cybermen are the overriding image of the Abandoned Project,
05:24and they really give an insight into the more horror-inducing
05:28adult tones that they were clearly aiming for.
05:31Number seven, Rick Mayall, David Bowie, and Brian Blessed were tipped to play the villain.
05:37There were a number of enticing star names linked to the role of the central villain Hawkspur.
05:42Rigglesford had previously written a book with Brian Blessed, so had suggested him for the role.
05:47Another name, David Bowie, was of course familiar to the team
05:50from Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, who had worked with him on Labyrinth.
05:54Now, it's not clear how advanced these discussions were past names on a list,
05:59and given how Enterprises approached the casting of The Doctors,
06:03but more on that later, it's highly likely that they didn't get very far.
06:07Now, one of the most enticing names for potential actors to play the villain was Rick Mayall,
06:13and Graham Harper had worked with Mayall on the new Statesman,
06:16where Mayall had played the role Alan Bastard.
06:19So, given their working relationship,
06:21it's highly likely that Mayall was Harper's top choice for the role.
06:25But the prospect of Rick Mayall killing Sylvester McCoy,
06:29and then facing off against Tom Baker in a Doctor Who story,
06:33is one of the series' greatest what-ifs.
06:36And despite the clear flaws in the project,
06:39having Rick Mayall and Tom Baker involved would have at least ensured
06:43that it was nothing less than memorable.
06:46Number six, pre-production begins, casting does not.
06:52Establishing a production office in June 1993,
06:56BBC Enterprises won the bid to produce the project,
07:00with a tender of £75,000.
07:03But BBC TV were concerned that the budget was too low,
07:08and that Enterprises had no experience in producing original drama.
07:12But despite this, design work continued on the monsters,
07:16updating the Daleks' extermination effects to 3D bolts.
07:21Test shoots began, costumes and sets were being designed for the special,
07:25the Pertwee era variation of the theme tune was decided upon,
07:29and a new title sequence concept was being drawn up.
07:33Kevin Davies, who would later direct the fondly remembered
07:36anniversary documentary, More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS,
07:40was put in charge of realising the concept of incorporating
07:44all five Doctors' faces into the old-fashioned howl-around intro.
07:48The only problem was, no one had contacted the five Doctors.
07:52In an interview with TV Zone, fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison said that
07:57they never returned my agent's calls when this project was floating around.
08:00I was then sent a script later on saying
08:03we hope you like the script, we look forward to working with you,
08:05and still no one had contacted my agent.
08:08And it would only get worse from there.
08:11Number five, most of the Doctors aren't impressed.
08:15As news of the project started to filter around fan circles in June,
08:20it wasn't until July that the news of the project was broken
08:24in the 202nd issue of Doctor Who magazine.
08:28Now fans were incredibly excited about the prospect of Doctor Who
08:32returning to BBC One after three years,
08:34but most of the Doctors were less excited.
08:38In the years following the project, John Pertwee, Peter Davison,
08:41Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy have been vocal on the script's many problems,
08:46not least the fact that they were all overshadowed by Tom Baker.
08:50As Colin Baker remembered in an interview with TV Zone magazine,
08:54it's not a very sound strategy to present it in.
08:57The way it was presented, i.e. that one is much more important than the other four.
09:01John Pertwee, meanwhile, objected to how the script approached Doctor Who in general,
09:06telling Starburst magazine,
09:08it should have been given to a writer that knows something about what we're doing,
09:11someone like Barry Letts.
09:13Sylvester McCoy later tapped into the inherent problem with the proposed story.
09:18He told TV Zone,
09:19I don't think it was even the kind of story fans would want to see for the 30th anniversary.
09:24They want to see all the Doctors together.
09:27Number four, budget miscalculations lead the project to be abandoned.
09:32Fan excitement over the project was short-lived.
09:35A BBC board meeting held on the 10th of July
09:38decided that the anniversary multi-Doctor story was just a hastily cobbled cash grab.
09:45Citing the upset the project caused for past Doctors and the unrealistic production schedule,
09:51the board decided to send BBC Enterprises a memo that cancelled the dark dimension
09:57for financial and logistical reasons.
09:59And rumour has it that those financial reasons
10:02related to the fact that the broadcasting costs hadn't been factored into BBC Enterprises' budget.
10:09Now, this wasn't quite the end of the project, however,
10:12and Rigglesford set about rewriting his script for a potential Christmas 1993 release.
10:18Meanwhile, in America, Philip Segal,
10:21working at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment,
10:24had heard about the project and was concerned.
10:27In a DVD interview for 1996's Doctor Who TV movie,
10:31Segal said,
10:32I read the script and it was awful.
10:34It was really embarrassing and it was silly
10:37and we were going to march out all of the old Doctors and it just felt wrong.
10:41It was going to muddy the waters and confuse people,
10:44especially as we were so close to delivering our Bible and our script.
10:49Segal requested that the BBC Enterprises' senior manager,
10:53Tony Greenwood, put a stop to the project
10:56and thus the final nail was put in the Dark Dimensions coffin.
11:07Now, if Segal was concerned that the script for The Dark Dimension was silly,
11:12then who knows what he must have thought about the script for its replacement,
11:17the infamous Dimensions in Time.
11:20Fans were understandably disappointed that a dark and brooding
11:2396-minute feature-length movie special
11:25was replaced by a light and fluffy romp through Albert Square
11:29in 3D for 1993's Children in Need telethon.
11:33Viewed through the prism of an anniversary special,
11:35Dimensions in Time is unbelievably disappointing.
11:39It's a crossover with BBC soap EastEnders.
11:41The Doctors don't quite feel right,
11:43the companions are thumbnail sketches of how the characters are remembered
11:47by writers John Nathan-Turner and David Roden
11:50and worse than that,
11:51Tom Baker still doesn't share screen time with the other Doctors.
11:55But really, fans should have just lightened up.
11:58Dimensions in Time was just a bit of daft fun for a really good cause.
12:02And actually, funnily enough, Adrian Rigglesford's wish
12:06for light entertainment host Noel Edmonds
12:08to introduce the Dark Dimensions in Noel's Who Party actually came true.
12:14Edmonds announced the winner of the phone vote
12:16that would decide which EastEnders character
12:18would save the Doctor from the part one cliffhanger.
12:21He was then joined by John Pertwee in character as the Doctor,
12:25who instructed audiences to put on their 3D glasses.
12:29Look, it wasn't a feature-length movie, but it was still a good laugh.
12:33Number two, Adrian Rigglesford unsuccessfully tries
12:36to publish the making of the Dark Dimension book.
12:40Now, before the Dark Dimension was abandoned,
12:43Virgin Publishing were interested in publishing a novelization.
12:47But when Greenwood pulled the plug on the project,
12:49the publishers decided it wasn't really worth it anymore.
12:52After all, they had several seventh Doctor stories to be working with
12:57and were starting to create new stories for the previous six incarnations.
13:01But undeterred, Rigglesford continued to seek publishing opportunities
13:05for his unmade Doctor Who story.
13:08He considered a script book with Titan Books,
13:11but then the BBC clamped down on making the script public.
13:15And it was this clamp down that also ensured
13:18that the unofficial making of book failed to surface
13:21on the three potential publishing dates between 1994 and 1995,
13:27despite a dust jacket featuring the new style Cyberman being designed.
13:31Eventually, details of the Dark Dimension appeared in Virgin's reference book,
13:36The Nth Doctor by Jean-Marc Leficier.
13:39The book contained various background notes
13:41and a full synopsis for the unmade adventure,
13:44which sparked the imagination of several creatively minded fans.
13:50Number one, the project is eventually realized by fans.
13:54Now, if we learned anything during the wilderness years of the 1990s,
13:58it's that if Doctor Who fans aren't satisfied with existing Doctor Who,
14:02then they make it themselves.
14:04Doctor Who DJ, Missing Episode Hunter and continuity advisor Ian Levine
14:10has funded many such projects for his own private collection.
14:14He finished work on his version of the Dark Dimension back in 2012,
14:18and he even managed to secure Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred
14:23to voice their respective characters.
14:25And there have been many other similar attempts
14:27to realize the potential of Rigglesford's script over the years.
14:32Now, the most high profile and accessible of these
14:35is Faros Features' audio adaptation of a leaked version of the Dark Dimension script.
14:41Featuring a cast of fans and realized by fan artists,
14:46the 2021 adaptation of the abandoned project was recorded during the pandemic.
14:52Script editor and 4th Doctor Matthew Toffolo told We Are Cold,
14:56it's been a great pleasure playing a weary 90s era 4th Doctor
15:00and hearing the project come together with incredibly talented voice acting,
15:05editing, sound design and an equally impressive soundtrack.
15:09Now, it is still available on YouTube
15:11and it's likely the closest fans will ever get to the Dark Dimension.
15:16And there you have it, the true story behind the abandoned Doctor Who movie.
15:21Now, if we missed out any details, then do let us know in the comments below.
15:25And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe
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15:29Also head over to Twitter and follow us there at WhoCulture
15:33and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
15:37I've been Ellie with WhoCulture and in the words of River Song herself,
15:40goodbye, sweeties.