DR WHO

UK, 1996, 100 minutes, Colour.
Paul Mc Gann, Eric Roberts, Daphne Ashbrook.
Directed by Geoffrey Sax.

Dr Who is a classic British television character portrayed by a number of classic British actors including William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. The series was revived in the mid '90s - with the backing of American finance and American television support. The part of Dr Who went to British leading man and character actor, Paul McGann? (The Rainbow).

The film, however, has an American setting with American stars, including Eric Roberts as the villain.

The film relies also on the expectations of the American audience in a post-Star Wars era. Purists were not very happy at this trans-Atlantic migration of Dr Who. Many of the fans, however, were pleased that the series continued in yet another form.

1. The popularity of Dr Who - the television series, the doctor himself and the variety of British actors who portrayed him? The tradition of the character, the time-warp stories? Expectations?

2. A UK-US co-production? Finance? The expectations of the American backers to set the film in Los Angeles and to gear it towards an American audience?

3. The opening and the introduction to the doctor, his assistant and the personification of evil? The build-up to a confrontation? The nature of space and space travel? Time and time travel? Mutations?

4. Los Angeles at the end of the century and the millennium? Civil chaos? The telephone box and the doctor's presence, his assistant? The assistant and his being mugged, going to the hospital? His death, the surgery? The two hearts?

5. The Chinese boy and the gangs, the violence, helping, taking the victim to the hospital, finding the wallet? The emergency room and the control? The pursuit, action? His decisions? His helping the doctor?

6. The surgeon and her skills, the operation, the mystery, the encounter with Dr Who, taking him home? Her work at the hospital, the chase, the action, moving in further dimensions? Her love for Dr Who?

7. Paul McGann? as Dr Who, continuing the tradition, making the doctor his own? Questions of identity, consciousness, having to learn again, the reliance on the surgeon - in the context of Los Angeles in 1999? The villain and the personification of evil? Control, the battle for control, the dangers?

8. Eric Roberts as the villain? The confrontation with the doctor, the death of the assistant? His taking over the personality of the young Chinese boy? Evil, power, the clash with the doctor? Ultimate destruction?

9. The themes of light and darkness, good and evil, shadow and the dark side?

10. A Dr Who for the 1990s - in anticipation of aspects of the millennium and urban chaos as portrayed so often in American futuristic thrillers.