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Since 1989, Philip David Segal had been trying, on and off, to negotiate
a co-production deal for Doctor Who. Finally, in 1995, he forged
a partnership between the BBC and Universal Pictures to make a
ninety-minute Doctor Who movie for broadcast on both BBC1 and the
FOX network. The movie would serve as a “backdoor pilot”,
possibly giving rise to a new ongoing series should ratings warrant it.
Unfortunately, although Doctor Who
(1996) was successful in the United Kingdom, it was a disappointment
in North America, where it was broadcast during the fierce May
“sweeps” ratings period. FOX passed on Doctor Who
and, although Universal maintained their option until the end of 1997,
they were unsuccessful in finding other interested parties. Doctor
Who would lay fallow as a television property until the early years
of the twenty-first century, when the seeds would be sown for its
rebirth...
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