Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

I’ve seen the latest documentary film ‘Doctor Who Am I’! 🙂 I’ve been meaning to check this out for quite some time since I got the Blu-ray for Christmas last year. This is a good place to talk about the documentary film in the Paul McGann/Eighth Doctor era of the ‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon.

‘Doctor Who Am I’ stars Matthew Jacobs, the writer of the ‘Doctor Who’ TV movie. It focuses on him and the legacy of the TV movie as well as American ‘Doctor Who’ fandom in general. It was very interesting to see this documentary film and learn more about who Matthew Jacobs is as a person. 🙂

I didn’t know much about Matthew Jacobs apart from being the writer of the TV movie and the son of Anthony Jacobs, who played Doc Holliday in the ‘Doctor Who’ story ‘The Gunfighters’ with William Hartnell. It was nice to see Matthew’s father in ‘The Gunfighters’ being talked about during the film.

Apparently, Matthew Jacobs co-wrote the original story for ‘Kingdom of the Sun’ that eventually became the Disney film ‘The Emperor’s New Grove’. I must revisit that film on Disney+ sometime. He’s also written three episodes and three films for ‘The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles’ TV series. 🙂

Beforehand, I’d seen Matthew be interviewed for ‘The Seven Year Hitch’ documentary on the DVD for the ‘Doctor Who’ TV movie. I’m glad I’ve seen this extra ‘Doctor Who’ item to explore more about Matthew and his relationship to ‘Doctor Who’ and it was good to see him interact with the fans. 🙂

At the time of its transmissions in 1996, the ‘Doctor Who’ TV movie wasn’t well-received by many fans. There might have been some who enjoyed the TV movie (I personally quite like it), but there’s no denying the TV movie sparked controversies when reintroducing ‘Doctor Who’ to new audiences.

Two major aspects of the TV movie that fans objected to, which Matthew mentions, is the Doctor kissing a woman and the Doctor being half-human. I like how Matthew addresses these criticisms and how he interacts with the fans who argue that these things should not have happened in ‘Who’.

Personally, I didn’t mind the Doctor kissing Grace in the TV movie, since I’d seen the Doctor kissing women in the new TV series and it’s interesting the TV movie was a forerunner for that. However, I’m not a fan of the Doctor being half-human, as it sounds like Spock in ‘Star Trek’ being half-human.

There has been speculation on why the Doctor would be half-human in the TV movie (I think it was part of one of the Seventh Doctor’s master plans before he regenerated into Eight), although the half-human stance hasn’t been carried over into the Big Finish audios, nor has it in the new TV show.

In a way, it’s a relief, but it’s interesting how Matthew defends his stance on making the Doctor half-human and giving him the opportunity to kiss a woman. Maybe if an American ‘Doctor Who’ TV series was given the go-ahead, these aspects that were introduced could have been expanded upon.

It was very interesting to see the American ‘Doctor Who’ fandom when Matthew meets fans at conventions in places like Los Angeles and Long Island in New York. In some ways, I admire the fandom. There seems to be plenty of people dedicated to the TV series in quite a ‘religious’ manner.

I’m not sure how I would cope with interacting with the American fandom if I attended conventions in the USA compared to attending conventions in the UK. I would like to find out, especially after watching how American conventions are organized in Mark Strickson’s ‘An Englishman on Gallifrey’.

It was nice to see Matthew Jacobs reunite with ‘Doctor Who’ luminaries at conventions, especially from the TV movie, including Paul McGann (the Eighth Doctor) and Daphne Ashbrook (Grace). It was very nice to see Matthew visiting Eric Roberts (the Master) and his wife Eliza Roberts at their home.

Matthew Jacobs even reunites with executive producer Philip Segal at his office in the film. It’s a shame Matthew didn’t meet up with director Geoffrey Sax or Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor), but then, they probably weren’t in the USA at the time Matthew was making this documentary film. 😐

It was nice to see Nicholas Briggs (the voice of the Daleks) being interviewed in the film as well as briefly seeing Sophie Aldred, Angela Bruce, Terry Molloy, writer/visual effects supervisor Mike Tucker, writer/director Gary Russell and Yee Jee Tso (I’m quite surprised Yee Jee Tso wasn’t interviewed in the ‘Doctor Who Am I’ film).

I enjoyed seeing Matthew’s family life being touched upon in the film, especially when seeing home videos of him with his children. He even gets to reunite with his children when they’re all grown-up in the film. It’s sad to hear that Matthew’s mother committed suicide and he reads a poem by her. 🙂

‘Doctor Who Am I’ has been an enjoyable documentary film to check out on Blu-ray. There are times when the documentary film can be emotional, especially when exploring Matthew Jacobs’ family history and his relationship with ‘Doctor Who’. I’m glad he co-produced this film with Vanessa Yuille. 🙂

Incidentally, I’m wondering if the ‘Doctor Who’ TV movie took place in San Francisco because Matthew Jacobs lives in San Francisco (even though the film was made in Vancouver).

You can check out ‘Doctor Who Am I’ on DVD, Blu-ray and Britbox.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂