Review Lost in the Dark Dimension (1993)

Doctor Omega

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The Dark Dimension, written by fan scholar Adrian Rigelsford, was a planned direct-to-video film commissioned by BBC Enterprises that was to have been released in 1993 to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Doctor Who.

Contents

Initial production

Cancellation

The Dark Dimension (later known as Lost in the Dark Dimension ran into obstacles which prevented it from being produced.

Some of the actors, particularly Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker, were not pleased that their roles were so small (the script featured the Fourth Doctor prominently while the others had small scenes).

The main cancellation of the project fell to a miscalculation in the cost of the program. A large sum of money had not been added to both the cost and revenue of the project — that of the cost of putting the show on the air. When the calculations were corrected, it became clear that it was no longer viable to produce the film financially.

Attempts were made afterward to lighten the cost of the film by cutting key scenes and restructuring the film entirely - but these eventually fell through. Some minor elements of the scripts - such as characters not being able to be visible because of being in another level of time — were later used in the television story Dimensions in Time.





On to the next story......


DOCTOR WHO THE MOVIE.....

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/doctor-who-the-movie-1996.3652/


Back to the previous story......

SURVIVAL.....

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/survival-1989.3683/
 
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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
The story

Far in the future of Earth, most humans have been wiped out. The Earth is left in ruins, the only people left on the planet being a resistance group which has been trying to hunt the creature that has done this to the planet. The group is searching an area, and their leader, Summerfield, suddenly finds a body. It is the Seventh Doctor — murdered by the creature. The Doctor is given a funeral which Summerfield finds fitting, as they are sent floating into sea and lit aflame. With the Doctor gone, Summerfield tells the others that they have to finish what the Doctor started on their own.

The story would have centred on an older version of the Fourth Doctor, the Brigadier and Ace with shorter appearances by the other surviving Doctors, though in more minor roles. Classic monsters would have included the Cybermen, Daleks, the Ice Warriors and the Yeti.

The central idea to the story was that of the alteration of time by an evil creature so that the Fourth Doctor would have died instead of regenerating after falling from the Pharos Project (as seen in Logopolis). In doing so, the creature created a "Dark Dimension". The Doctor had to revert back the timeline before he and his future incarnations were erased from time by the effect.

The production would have also featured "Summerfield", who would have been the Seventh Doctor's companion Bernice Summerfield from the New Adventures book series.

Furthermore Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's son Alexander Stewart would have an appearance in the film. In the alternative timeline he would have been the boyfriend of Ace. The couple would have had several children. In the later restored timeline Alexander would have died in 1979 at the age of ten.

Monsters

Along with the inclusion of almost all the classic monsters, many of them were to be redesigned or feature totally new developments of the original design.

"'The Cybermen were not like any we've ever seen before,' says Rigelsford. 'There was a specific Cyberman who was being made by the people at Henson's Creature Workshop. The guy who designed it was Chris Fitzgerald . It had holes in its knuckles and there was a point where it held up its hand, made a fist, and six-inch blades shot out of its knuckles! It was like Wolverine out of the X-Men comics; Cyberrine!'"
The Daleks also were to have featured a redesign featuring a new special weapons Dalek. A design of the supposed Dalek was passed amoung fans for years afterwards and multiple fan recreations have been a result. Despite this, this was not the official redesign, which has not been released to the public.

"'The Daleks were going to have laser-guns that were going to be done with computer animation so the laser bolts would be in 3-D rather than just going 'Zap!' with a blue line. The bolts were going to be like spears coming out in 3-D.'"[1]
Characters
Production

Graeme Harper was scheduled to direct the story.

"About three weeks worth of test filming was done including model and titles effects, and some location filming was also undertaken. 'We were going to go down to Shepperton film studios,' says Rigelsford, 'and have it shot on film on one of the largest sound-stages on Shepperton.'"

Further development

Adrian Rigelsford wrote a book entitled The Making of the Dark Dimension which contained scripts and concept drawings. However, it repeatedly ran into release problems and has never been published. The Dark Dimension and its production were briefly mentioned in Rigelsford's own Classic Who: The Harper Classics.
 
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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
But now, finally, we can see a version of LOST IN THE DARK DIMENSION, in six parts, as it has been animated - working from the original script - by enterprising fans.....
 
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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Funny how Colin (and Jon) condemned this at the time as having been written by "a glorified fan", when that surely pretty much sums up the entirety of BIG FINISH too. :emoji_disappointed:

Jon wanted them to bring in Barry Letts to write a special for them instead....


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Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Doctor Who Lost in the Dark Dimension THE MOVIE



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Well, I have finally laid a 26 year old ghost to rest by just watching this animated omnibus version of LOST IN THE DARK DIMENSION. It is done well enough to give you a really good sense of how it would have been on screen back in 1993.

Verdict.

Average. Painfully average. In the same way that a lot of those BBV type dramas like SHAKEDOWN and DOWNTIME are now when I look back at those.

Doubtless, if it had been made, it would have been lapped up like manna from Heaven by starving fans at the time. DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE would have largely raved over it and done endless articles and interviews, before disillusionment set in and a backlash began.

The script says more about the author as a fan than it does about a thirty year old series.

Two echoes of the show in this story that I noticed.....




  • Main villain has been scattered throughout time in different forms and is engineering the end of humanity. (Author has seen and liked CITY OF DEATH)
  • Fourth Doctor has a swordfight with the main villain. (Author has seen and liked THE ANDROIDS OF TARA)
  • A group of mercenaries have travelled back in time to kill a politician. (Author has seen and liked THE DAY OF THE DALEKS)
Ah yes, the Fourth Doctor.

The main heroes of this drama are The Fourth Doctor and his companion Ace, along with The Brigadier and Summerfield, one of the aforementioned adversaries. (Ace is going out with the Brig's son, Alex by the way.)


The other actors to have played the Doctor are - apart from tacked on appearances - genuinely irrelevant to the plot, save for token appearances, which the stroke of a writer's pen could have chopped out of the story at anytime.

So you don't have to sit through this 1 hour and 50 minute "epic" (surely the broadcast version would have been a more tightly compressed 90 mins?) I will give you the time codes for where other Doctor's appear and their entire contributions to this story celebrating 30 years.....:


PERTWEE: 56:40..... Appears as a ghostly figure in the "limbo" of the "vortex" and starts chatting to the start of the show, Tom, for a few moments.
1:00:15.... Chats some more to Tom, offering him a morale boosting pep-talk to aid Teeth and Curls on his continuing mission. Then fades and vanishes.
Errm.... That's it.....

DAVISON: 49:25.... Our heroes, Ace and the Brig are being chased by Cybermen, when Doctor 5 suddenly appears and stuns the silver fools with a large gun.
53:15..... Has a completely irrelevant (to the plot) argument with an imprisoned Cyberman about why the Cyber-race will logically destroy itself one day after they have conquered the universe.
57:00..... Talks about entropy, timelines and alternative realities to The Brig and Ace for only a few sentences, before more Cybermen arrive, followed by Daleks. The Daleks have a momentary dust up with the Cybers, then the Daleks "intercept the Doctor" and vanish into thin air with old Fivey.
1:03:30..... In background of scene in cryotube, alongside Colin. Unconscious while Tom plays out huge showdown with main villain in same room. Never wakes and fades away eventually, when timeline is restored, thanks to Tom.


COLIN: 1:02:25.... Colin is the defence judge in a trial (yawn!), defending the Ice Warriors from being framed for something. Said trial is completely irrelevant to the plot. The Brig walks in, just as the Doc is building up to his main point.
1:09:50.... Sixey has a chat with the Brig in the corridor outside about the need for Tom to locate the missing Tardis, then the Daleks turn up and fade away with him as they did Davison. Brig has leapt back into the vortex by this point.
1:03:30..... In background of scene in cryotube, alongside Davison. Unconscious while Tom plays out huge showdown with main villain in same room. Never wakes and fades away eventually, when timeline is restored, thanks to Tom.



MCCOY: 1:10.....Dead at start.... and given a Viking burial after credits.
1:05:50.... Ace meets him in the vortex/limbo.... He chats to her around a campfire for a few broken up moments.....during which he info. dumps all the explanations for the mysteries of what has been happening to Ace so far.
1:16:05..... Tom turns up to collect his companion, Ace, and the Mcoy Doctor promptly collapses, dies again, and fades away at their feet.
1:44:45..... Back from dead after Tom has finished his full-blown action/adventure.... .... then gets - admittedly - the closing scenes with Ace and final Tardis fade away.


I have little doubt that the script sent to the Pertwee home ended up nailed to the loo wall.I can't believe the Adrian Rigglesford was so dumb that he thought the other actors would be fine with Tom getting, not only the lion's share of the action as the blatant main star of the show, but a full on sword-fight at the end (while Colin and Peter look on, unconscious in cryotubes) while adopting Ace as his companion.

No other companions make an appearance.

So no, I don't think we were robbed. And I don't think this is a very good drama in it's own right. It reminds me of that AIRZONE SOLUTION in being kinda lame and indebted to past stories, just as AIRZONE was clearly riffing on EDGE OF DARKNESS. In fact, this throws in a heavy-handed subtext about the damaging of the environment.

DIMENSIONS IN TIME, for all it's faults, was at least made with an undercurrent of love for the entire past of the show itself and did not favour one contributor over any others.

Not a lost classic.
 
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