Doctor Who's Insane Abandoned Movie
How a Doctor Who movie got Lost in the Dark Dimension...
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00:00 When Christopher Eccleston stated that multi-Doctor stories are cash grabs,
00:04 he wasn't far wrong. While the show was off the air, BBC Enterprises,
00:08 the corporation's marketing arm, went all in on video releases, books on tape,
00:14 recorded soundtracks and novels to keep fans appeased during the wilderness years.
00:19 Their biggest Doctor Who-related project, however, actually ended up unmade.
00:24 Designed as a celebration of the show's 30th anniversary, Doctor Who The Dark Dimension
00:30 was intended to be a feature-length straight-to-video movie. The Dark Dimension, like
00:34 Sharda, is one of the Doctor Who fandom's great obsessions. Despite having never fully entered
00:40 production, there have been many attempts by fans to realise the story as originally intended.
00:47 So, with the 60th anniversary fast approaching and rumours of a multi-Doctor story back in the
00:53 news once again, now seems like the perfect time to take a look at this abandoned special.
00:59 So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture, here with the true story behind
01:04 Doctor Who's abandoned anniversary movie. Number 10, BBC Enterprises plans an anniversary movie.
01:12 According to The Dark Dimension scriptwriter Adrian Rigglesford, the planned movie was at
01:18 the behest of Tom Baker. Speaking to the Space Mountain Convention in Clacton-on-Sea in 1993,
01:24 Rigglesford told fans that "Tom Baker went to the BBC and said, 'I would like to be Doctor Who
01:29 again,' and that's the reason why it happened." Baker also apparently suggested that the script
01:34 should be written by Douglas Adams. So, in light of this and the strong performance that Doctor
01:39 Who was having in the home entertainment charts, BBC Enterprises started planning something special
01:45 in September 1992, a brand new feature-length episode for exclusive home video release to
01:52 celebrate Doctor Who's 30th anniversary in 1993. Rigglesford's script was commissioned about a
01:59 month later, specifically written with Tom Baker's requests in mind. The plot revolved around Hawkspur,
02:06 a villainous alien who murders the Seventh Doctor and alters the Doctor's personal timeline so that
02:12 Tom Baker's incarnation never regenerated. This older Fourth Doctor would team up with Ace and
02:17 the Brigadier to put history back on course, with the other surviving Doctors making brief
02:22 cameo performances throughout. Now, while this may have satisfied fans and some BBC high-ups who felt
02:29 that the series had lost its way in the 1980s, it was a storyline that proved to be quite controversial
02:35 further down the pre-production process. Number 9. Graham Harper comes on board to make Doctor Who
02:43 scary again. Now, while BBC Enterprises wrangled over the project with the controller of BBC One,
02:50 Jonathan Powell, who is one of Doctor Who's greatest enemies, Rigglesford had managed to
02:55 bring a director on board. And he chose Graham Harper, a fan-favourite director who was responsible
03:02 for two of Doctor Who's most atmospheric and acclaimed stories of the 1980s, "The Caves of
03:07 Androzani" and "Revelation of the Daleks". Harper was reportedly very excited to make Doctor Who
03:14 scary again, and was certainly a great choice for the darker, more grown-up tone that Rigglesford's
03:19 script was aiming for. Now, at this stage, the film was planned for exclusive VHS release,
03:25 which meant that the target audience were older fans who had paid employment and disposable
03:32 income. But that all changed in early 1993, when Jonathan Powell was replaced as controller of BBC
03:39 One by Alan Yentob. Now, Alan Yentob was a supporter of Doctor Who and cult television in
03:46 general, and had actually overseen some classic Who repeats over on BBC Two throughout 1992 and
03:53 into 1993. And with the support of Charles Denton, the new head of series and serials,
04:00 he gave his blessing for "The Dark Dimension" to be aired on BBC One, with the VHS release then
04:07 potentially including extra footage as an added selling point. Number eight, monster redesigns
04:14 begin in earnest. Now that the project had the blessing of BBC One, the focus turned back to
04:20 Rigglesford's script. As this was to be an anniversary special, there was a desire to
04:24 include not just the surviving past Doctors, but several classic monsters. The sixth Doctor was to
04:30 meet the Ice Warriors, while the fourth Doctor would confront a Dalek in a Victorian graveyard,
04:36 and the fifth Doctor would be thrown into the Cyber Wars. Now, in order to update some of
04:41 these classic foes for a 90s audience, designers were brought in from a variety of sources,
04:47 including Jim Henson's Creature Workshop. Henson's team were assigned the Cybermen,
04:53 with Rigglesford giving an insight to some of the designs at the Space Mountain Convention, stating
04:58 "The guy who designed it, Nigel Johns, was trained by alien designer H.R. Giger. So you can imagine
05:04 that this particular Cyberman looked terrifying. It had holes in its knuckles and there was a point
05:10 where it held up its hand, made a fist and six-inch blades shot out of its knuckles. It was like
05:15 Wolverine out of the X-Men comics. Cyberene." Now these new Cybermen are the overriding image
05:22 of the Abandoned Project, and they really give an insight into the more horror-inducing adult
05:28 tones that they were clearly aiming for. Number seven, Rick Mayall, David Bowie and
05:33 Brian Blessed were tipped to play the villain. There were a number of enticing star names linked
05:39 to the role of the central villain Hawkspur. Rigglesford had previously written a book with
05:44 Brian Blessed, so had suggested him for the role. Another name, David Bowie, was of course familiar
05:50 to the team from Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, who had worked with him on Labyrinth. Now it's
05:55 not clear how advanced these discussions were past names on a list, and given how Enterprises
06:01 approached the casting of the Doctors, but more on that later, it's highly likely that they didn't
06:06 get very far. Now one of the most enticing names for potential actors to play the villain was Rick
06:12 Mayall, and Graham Harper had worked with Mayall on the new Statesman, where Mayall had played the
06:17 role Alan Bestard. So given their working relationship, it's highly likely that Mayall
06:23 was Harper's top choice for the role. But the prospect of Rick Mayall killing Sylvester McCoy
06:29 and then facing off against Tom Baker in a Doctor Who story is one of the series' greatest what-ifs.
06:36 And despite the clear flaws in the project, having Rick Mayall and Tom Baker involved would have at
06:42 least ensured that it was nothing less than memorable. Number six, pre-production begins,
06:49 casting does not. Establishing a production office in June 1993, BBC Enterprises won the bid to
06:58 produce the project with a tender of £75,000. But BBC TV were concerned that the budget was too low
07:08 and the enterprises had no experience in producing original drama. But despite this, design work
07:14 continued on the monsters, updating the Daleks' extermination effects to 3D bolts. Test shoots
07:21 began, costumes and sets were being designed for the special, the Pertwee era variation of the
07:27 theme tune was decided upon, and a new title sequence concept was being drawn up. Kevin Davies,
07:34 who would later direct the fondly remembered anniversary documentary "More Than 30 Years in
07:40 the TARDIS", was put in charge of realising the concept of incorporating all five Doctor's faces
07:46 into the old-fashioned howl-around intro. The only problem was no one had contacted the five
07:51 Doctors. In an interview with TV Zone, fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison said that "they never
07:57 returned my agents' calls when this project was floating around. I was then sent a script later
08:02 on saying 'we hope you like the script, we look forward to working with you' and still no one had
08:07 contacted my agent." And it would only get worse from there. Number five, most of the Doctors
08:14 aren't impressed. As news of the project started to filter around fan circles in June, it wasn't
08:21 until July that the news of the project was broken in the 202nd issue of Doctor Who magazine. Now,
08:28 fans were incredibly excited about the prospect of Doctor Who returning to BBC One after three
08:34 years, but most of the Doctors were less excited. In the years following the project, John Pertwee,
08:40 Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy have been vocal on the script's many problems,
08:46 not least the fact that they were all overshadowed by Tom Baker. As Colin Baker remembered in an
08:52 interview with TV Zone magazine, "it's not a very sound strategy to present it in. The way it was
08:57 presented, i.e. that one is much more important than the other four." John Pertwee, meanwhile,
09:03 objected to how the script approached Doctor Who in general, telling Starburst magazine,
09:08 "It should have been given to a writer that knows something about what we're doing,
09:11 someone like Barry Letts." Sylvester McCoy later tapped into the inherent problem with the
09:16 proposed story. He told TV Zone, "I don't think it was even the kind of story fans would want to
09:22 see for the 30th anniversary. They want to see all the Doctors together." Number four,
09:28 budget miscalculations lead the project to be abandoned. Fan excitement over the project was
09:35 short-lived. A BBC board meeting held on the 10th of July decided that the anniversary multi-Doctor
09:41 story was just a hastily cobbled cash grab. Citing the upset the project caused for past Doctors and
09:48 the unrealistic production schedule, the board decided to send BBC Enterprises a memo that
09:55 cancelled the Dark Dimension for financial and logistical reasons. And rumour has it that those
10:01 financial reasons related to the fact that the broadcasting costs hadn't been factored
10:07 into BBC Enterprises' budget. Now this wasn't quite the end of the project, however, and
10:12 Rigglesford set about rewriting his script for a potential Christmas 1993 release. Meanwhile in
10:19 America, Philip Siegel, working at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, had heard about
10:25 the project and was concerned. In a DVD interview for 1996's Doctor Who TV movie, Siegel said,
10:32 "I read the script and it was awful. It was really embarrassing and it was silly and we were going to
10:38 march out all of the old Doctors and it just felt wrong. It was going to muddy the waters and
10:43 confuse people, especially as we were so close to delivering our Bible and our script." Siegel
10:49 requested that the BBC Enterprises' senior manager Tony Greenwood put a stop to the project and thus
10:57 the final nail was put in the Dark Dimension's coffin. Number three, Dimensions in Time replaces
11:05 the Dark Dimension. Now if Siegel was concerned that the script for the Dark Dimension was silly,
11:12 then who knows what he must have thought about the script for its replacement,
11:17 the infamous Dimensions in Time. Fans were understandably disappointed that a dark and
11:22 brooding 96-minute feature-length movie special was replaced by a light and fluffy romp through
11:28 Albert Square in 3D for 1993's Children in Need telethon. Few drew the prism of an anniversary
11:34 special, Dimensions in Time is unbelievably disappointing. It's a crossover with BBC soap
11:40 EastEnders. The Doctors don't quite feel right, the companions are thumbnail sketches of how the
11:46 characters are remembered by writers John Nathan-Turner and David Roden and worse than that,
11:51 Tom Baker still doesn't share screen time with the other Doctors. But really fans should have
11:56 just lightened up. Dimensions in Time was just a bit of daft fun for a really good cause and
12:02 actually funnily enough Adrian Rigglesford's wish for light entertainment host Noel Edmonds to
12:09 introduce the Dark Dimensions in Noel's Who Party actually came true. Edmonds announced the winner
12:15 of the phone vote that would decide which EastEnders character would save the Doctor from
12:20 the part one cliffhanger. He was then joined by John Pertwee in character as the Doctor,
12:25 who instructed audiences to put on their 3D glasses. Look it wasn't a feature-length movie
12:31 but it was still a good laugh. Number two, Adrian Rigglesford unsuccessfully tries to publish the
12:37 making of the Dark Dimension book. Now before the Dark Dimension was abandoned, Virgin Publishing
12:44 were interested in publishing a novelization. But when Greenwood pulled the plug on the project,
12:49 the publishers decided it wasn't really worth it anymore. After all, they had several seventh
12:55 Doctor stories to be working with and were starting to create new stories for the previous
13:00 six incarnations. But undeterred, Rigglesford continued to seek publishing opportunities for
13:06 his unmade Doctor Who story. He considered a script book with Titan Books but then the BBC
13:12 clamped down on making the script public. And it was this clampdown that also ensured that the
13:18 unofficial making of book failed to surface on the three potential publishing dates between 1994
13:25 and 1995, despite a dust jacket featuring the new style Cyberman being designed. Eventually,
13:32 details of the Dark Dimension appeared in Virgin's reference book, The Nth Doctor by
13:37 Jean-Marc Le Fessier. The book contained various background notes and a full synopsis for the
13:43 unmade adventure, which sparked the imagination of several creatively minded fans. Number one,
13:50 the project is eventually realized by fans. Now, if we learned anything during the wilderness
13:57 years of the 1990s, it's that if Doctor Who fans aren't satisfied with existing Doctor Who,
14:02 then they make it themselves. Doctor Who DJ, Missing Episode Hunter and Continuity Advisor
14:09 Ian Levine has funded many such projects for his own private collection. He finished work on his
14:15 version of the Dark Dimension back in 2012 and he even managed to secure Sylvester McCoy and Sophie
14:22 Aldred to voice their respective characters. And there have been many other similar attempts to
14:28 realize the potential of Rigglesford's script over the years. Now, the most high profile and
14:34 accessible of these is Farros Features audio adaptation of a leaked version of the Dark
14:39 Dimension script. Featuring a cast of fans and realized by fan artists, the 2021 adaptation of
14:48 the abandoned project was recorded during the pandemic. Script editor and Fourth Doctor Matthew
14:54 Toffolo told We Are Cold, "It's been a great pleasure playing a weary 90s era Fourth Doctor
15:00 and hearing the project come together with incredibly talented voice acting, editing,
15:06 sound design and an equally impressive soundtrack." Now, it is still available on YouTube and it's
15:12 likely the closest fans will ever get to the Dark Dimension. And there you have it, the true story
15:18 behind the abandoned Doctor Who movie. Now, if we missed out any details, then do let us know in the
15:24 comments below and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification
15:29 bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there @WhoCulture and I can be found across
15:34 various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Who Culture
15:38 and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye sweeties.