Any Doctor Who fan will know that the 1996 telemovie with Paul McGann was, on the whole, not especially well-received. It did, however, pick up some unexpected praise from the afterlife when two mediums in America called forth the spirit of Patrick Troughton to pass judgment.
The mediums in question, Gerald and Linda Polley, published Troughton’s thoughts in the January 1997 edition of their newsletter Voices from Spirit. In it, Troughton not only gives his own opinion but also passes on the assessment of “all the previous Doctors” (that would be William Hartnell and the recently-departed Jon Pertwee, unless McCoy, Davison and the Bakers were visited by Troughton’s shade):
Patrick Troughton, British actor who was the second Doctor in the famous DOCTOR WHO series asked us to make some comments on the recent DOCTOR WHO movie produced by the Fox network. It was fair, but the general opinion of all the previous Doctors is they don’t like the way they changed the TARDIS. They made it look too primitive. Though it is supposed to be an older model this was a little bit ridiculous. Perhaps in future movies they can return a little bit of its character and dignity. Otherwise than that, they consider the movie a half decent effort, much better than they expected from ‘the Colonials.’
Well, now we know.
If you’d like to know more about the work of Gerald and Linda Polley, I can personally recommend the 2002 documentary Where has Eternity Gone? which documents their attempts to aid George W. Bush’s presidential campaign by channelling right-wing songs from the ghost of John Lennon.
Doris V. Sutherland 