For those of you who don't know Paul, he played the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 Doctor Who tele-movie.
When the classic Doctor Who series expired in 1989, it took a joint effort between the Yanks and the Brits to get the show back on the air. This tele-movie was (sort of) a pilot, and they threw everything they could into it, including money.
Long gone were the wonky sets, cheap special effects, and dodgy aliens. Producer Philip Segal, who was the main driving force in this production, tried everything to keep the roots of Doctor Who in tact, whilst updating the story for an American audience. In keeping with tradition, British actor Paul McGann was cast as the The Doctor however when it was decided that The Master was going to be the villain, American Eric Roberts was cast in the role.
The film was also set in the US, San Fransisco to be exact, on 31st December 1999 (back before the Y2K bug was ever mentioned to the mass arena). Yee Jee Tso played the role of Chang Lee, a young man split between his allegance to The Master and The Doctor, and Daphne Ashbrook was cast as Dr Grace Holloway (the Doctor's "companion", and also the person who inadvertantly kills the Seventh Doctor).
Oh yes, Sylvester McCoy makes an appearance at the start of the movie as the Seventh Doctor, who then dies and regenerates into McGann's Eighth Doctor. Without McCoy's involvement, the audience (especially us Who-nerds) may well have discarded this tele-movie as non-cannon, and it wasn't until the show was revived in 2005 that this tele-movie was confirmed as part of the franchise (in the 2008 episode The Next Doctor, and 2010's The Eleventh Hour).
Anyway, back to Paul McGann... whilst the Doctor Who tele-movie was killed in the ratings (in the US, it went up against the final episode of Roseanne) the Eighth Doctor managed to live on in novels, comics, and for McGann's sake, audio plays.
Paul McGann was also cast in Alien 3, and most recently (well... 2009) as The Vicar in Lesbian Vampire Killers. This is a top notch film, a bloody brilliant comedy (well I laughed). This film also stars James Corden, who you Doctor Who fans might recognise as Craig Owens in the 2010 episode The Lodger, and 2011's Closing Time.
Now, on to the autograph! Paul McGann and Star Trek Enterprise's Dominic Keating were the guest at a mini convention here in Melbourne a few years ago. Not only was I lucky enough to interview Paul on behalf of the Doctor Who Club of Victoria, I also obtained this sweet signed photo:
Until next time!
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