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First Transmitted:
On the planet Skaro, the renegade Time Lord known as the Master is put on trial by the Daleks, and exterminated. His last wish is for his remains to be returned to Gallifrey by his greatest enemy, the Doctor. In the TARDIS, the Seventh Doctor stows the urn containing the Master's remains in a container, locking it with his sonic screwdriver, then settles in for the trip back to the Time Lords' planet. As he relaxes with a copy of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells and listens to a jazz record, he does not see the container shake and shatter. A gelatinous slug-like creature oozes out of the container and enters the TARDIS console, causing sparks to fly out. The Doctor tries to compensate, but the TARDIS systems indicate a critical timing malfunction and initiate an emergency landing. The Doctor finds, to his horror, that the Master's container is cracked open. On December 30, 1999 in San Francisco, a Chinese-American teenager named Chang Lee and his two friends run from rival gang members. An ambush opens fire on them, and as Lee is about to be shot, a high wind whips up in the alley and a police box materialises in front of him. The Doctor steps out only to be shot by the startled gang, and he falls. Lee finds his friends dead and the Doctor gravely wounded. He is unable to warn Lee about the worm oozing out of the TARDIS lock and following Lee as he calls for an ambulance. In the ambulance, Lee signs the paperwork that Bruce, the paramedic, gives him, putting the Doctor's name as "John Smith". The Doctor is wheeled into the operating theatre while the worm hides in the ambulance, and then in Bruce's uniform. The medical staff are puzzled by the fact that the Doctor's X-rays reveal two hearts which are racing wildly. They decide to page the on-call cardiologist, Dr. Grace Holloway, who is at a performance of Madame Butterfly. To the annoyance of her boyfriend, Brian, she rushes back to the hospital, still in her evening wear. Puccini plays as Grace starts to operate. The Doctor's eyes snap open and he tries to tell Grace that he is not human, and that he needs a beryllium atomic clock, but the staff puts him back under. The use of a cardiac probe goes wrong as Grace is unfamiliar with the Doctor's physiology. The Doctor goes into a seizure and flatlines. Grace is angry and upset, demanding to see the patient's X-rays, and is disturbed when she sees the two hearts and realizes it is not a double exposure as assumed. Grace tells Lee that "Mr. Smith" is dead, and when Grace figures out that he does not really know the dead man, Lee takes the Doctor's belongings and runs off. Now past midnight on December 31, the Doctor's body is put in the morgue freezer. In Bruce's house, the now cobra-like manifestation of the Master creeps out of his uniform and forces itself into Bruce's mouth while he is sleeping next to his wife. The Master has taken over his body. In the mortuary, the body of the Doctor crackles with electricity, and he regenerates into the Eighth Doctor, who rises from the gurney, disoriented and amnesiac. The Doctor manages to pound the door of the storage chamber off its hinges, frightening the morgue attendant into a faint. Confused, he staggers into a disused section of the hospital, clad only in a sheet and the tag still on his toe. As he spies his reflection, he cries out in anguish, "Who...am...I?" As dawn comes to San Francisco, the Doctor rummages through the worker's lockers, finding pieces of costumes for the New Year's Party. Lee searches through the Doctor's things and finds the TARDIS key (as well as the sonic screwdriver and a pocket watch). The Master awakens in Bruce's body, saying that he needs to find the Doctor, and that the body will not last long. When Bruce's wife sees the green glow of his eyes, he kills her. The hospital administrator discusses the Doctor with Grace, and burns the X-rays so that they can cover up the death of the patient. Grace is indignant and threatens to resign. She gathers her things and leaves the hospital, followed by the Doctor, who in his confused state latches on to her as someone he recognizes. Grace tries to fob him off, thinking that he is insane, but he climbs into her car anyway. Suddenly the Doctor screams as he removes the remains of the cardiac probe from his chest. As the Doctor tells her that he has two hearts, Grace begins to realize that this might be the same man, impossible as it seems. The Doctor cries for Grace to drive off and she does. The Master goes to the hospital to find the Doctor's body but is told it is missing. A nurse tells "Bruce" that the Doctor's property is with the Asian youth, and the Master thanks her and goes off. When Grace and the Doctor arrive at her home, she finds that Brian has moved out and taken most of the furniture. Grace listens to the Doctor's chest and confirms that he has two hearts. The Doctor starts to remember details, saying that he was dead too long this time — the anaesthetic nearly destroyed the regenerative process. Grace asks the Doctor not to talk to her like she is a child; the dead stay dead. However, she is startled when he tells her about the dream she had as a child to hold back death, and that she will do great things. In Chinatown, Lee uses the key to enter the TARDIS, and is shocked when he sees its dimensionally transcendental interior. The TARDIS also seems to respond to Lee, powering itself on when he touches the console. Somehow, the Master is already there, and hypnotises Lee into giving him the Doctor's belongings. He tells Lee that the "dead man" has stolen his body and they need to find him before the Master dies. Grace and the Doctor go for a walk, and she theorises that he might be the product of a genetic experiment. The Doctor remembers more details — he is from Gallifrey, and remembers a meteor storm he saw with his father. In the TARDIS, the Master convinces Lee that the Doctor is the evil one and that they must stop him. The Master brings him to the Cloister Room, where the Eye of Harmony is housed. The Master uses Lee's retinal pattern to open the Eye. As the Eye opens, the Doctor's memories start flooding back and he kisses Grace in joy. The Eye projects images, first of the Seventh, then the Eighth Doctor — and his retinal structure, which is human. The Master concludes that the Doctor is half-human. Meanwhile, the Doctor senses that the Master has opened the Eye, and that he will be able to see through the Doctor's eyes. He shuts them, but not before the Master spots Grace. The Doctor tells Grace that the Master wants to force him to look into the Eye, so that the Doctor's soul will be destroyed and the Master can take his body. He explains that if the Eye is not closed, the planet will soon be sucked through it, and that he needs an atomic clock to fix the timing mechanism on the TARDIS to prevent this. They have until midnight. Grace, now believing the Doctor to be insane, runs back into the house to call an ambulance to take the Doctor away. The Doctor convinces her, showing that the molecular structure of the planet is changing by walking through her picture window. The Master hears all this and goes with Lee to drive the ambulance to Grace's house as "Bruce". On the television, the Doctor sees reports of weather patterns changing around the world, and then a report of an event in San Francisco showcasing the unveiling of an atomic clock at the Institute of Technological Advancement and Research. The Master arrives at the door but the Doctor does not recognize him. They ask him to take them to the Institute. The ambulance lurches as they stop for a traffic jam, and the Master's sunglasses fall, revealing his alien eyes. The Doctor takes a fire extinguisher and fires it in the Master's face as he spits burning, bile-like venom at them, hitting Grace in the wrist. Grace and the Doctor escape from the ambulance. The Doctor commandeers a police motorcycle by threatening to shoot himself. The ambulance, driven by Lee, races the Doctor and Grace on the motorcycle towards the Institute.
When the Doctor and Grace reach the Institute, they see the ambulance in the parking lot. Grace and the Doctor mingle at the reception, introducing the Doctor as "Doctor Bowman" from London, but are blocked from entering the room containing the clock. They manage to sneak in anyway, and the Doctor removes the timing chip. As they make their way out, they see Lee and the Master and try to avoid them, running into a group of security guards who have been paralysed by the Master's venom. The Doctor triggers the fire alarm as he and Grace head for the roof, descending to the ground using a fire hose. They get back on the motorcycle and ride back towards Chinatown and the TARDIS. They gain access to the TARDIS with the spare key the Doctor keeps in a cubbyhole above the 'P' in the "POLICE BOX" sign. As they enter, they hear the cloister bell signalling disaster. The Doctor installs the beryllium chip into the console and closes the Eye, but it may be too late — the Eye has been open too long. The only way to prevent the destruction of Earth is to go back before the Eye was opened, but the TARDIS is out of power. Grace challenges the Doctor to think - his knowledge of what happens to her in the future must come from somewhere. The Doctor proposes directing residual power from the Eye directly into the time rotor, jump starting the TARDIS. But as the Doctor sets things up below the console, the Master's venom takes effect on Grace, making her take up a tool and knock the Doctor out, just as the Master and Lee enter the console room.
The Doctor wakes up in the TARDIS cloisters, strapped down. He tries (apparently) unsuccessfully to convince Lee that the Master has been lying to him. The Master, in the meantime, has changed into Gallifreyan garb. Grace, still possessed by the Master, chains the Doctor on the upper balcony, attaching to his head a metal harness designed to keep his eyes open while he stares into the Eye of Harmony. The Master tries to get Lee to open the eye but makes a slip which makes Lee realize the Master has lied. The Master breaks Lee's neck, and uses Grace to open the Eye instead. The glow from the Eye focuses onto the Doctor and the Master, linking them both, and starts to transfer the Doctor's regenerations to the Master. The Doctor shouts for Grace to go to the console room and divert the power to start the TARDIS or everyone will die. As the clock counts down to midnight, Grace struggles with the console circuitry, and manages to connect the wires just as the clock strikes midnight. The time column starts to move and the TARDIS goes into a temporal orbit, suspending everything at the moment of destruction. Grace runs back to the Cloister Room and tries to free the Doctor from his chains but the Master pushes her over the side of the balcony and kills her.
The Doctor and the Master battle over the Eye of Harmony, and in the struggle, the Master gets sucked into the Eye and is seemingly destroyed. The clocks on the TARDIS continue ticking backwards, and a glow from the TARDIS washes over the bodies of Grace and Lee, bringing them back to life as the Eye closes once more. The Doctor then resets the console and brings them back to December 31, just before the stroke of midnight in San Francisco, and time proceeds again as normal. Back in San Francisco, Lee returns the Doctor's things to him. The Doctor tells Lee not to be around next Christmas, and the teen leaves. The Doctor asks Grace to go with him, but she declines, saying that she's not afraid of life anymore. The Doctor kisses her goodbye, and enters the TARDIS, which then dematerialises. The Doctor settles back in his chair in the console room, picks up the H.G. Wells book he was reading earlier, replays the record, and heads off for further adventures.
Analysis by Cuisle After seven years in the wilderness, Doctor Who fans were excited
to have a movie to look forward to. The DVD cover states that at 9
million British viewers it was an instant hit. The Fox promotion for
US broadcast called it the TV Event of the Year! Whether it lived
up to the expectations of those 9 million has been argued about ever
since. For myself, it DID live up to expectations. From the start I was impressed. The revamped theme tune gripped the heart and reminded us what it was all about. I thought the new look TARDIS was beautiful, a wonderful contrast to the white, clinical and technological console room of old. The incidental music was bigger than it ever was, but this was a movie, of course, so that is only to be expected. Occasionally it seemed to overwhelm the dialogue, but as I always watch films with subtitles it never bothered me. Perhaps those who don’t might have had a problem.
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