Personal headcanon, this incarnation of the Doctor later becomes the one seen in Introduction to the Night, and even later, when his body starts failing him and prevent him from doing more adventures, actually uses his plan for the future and retires to become the Curator.
I've seen a lot of Doctor Who ads, and these ones are weirdly well-written. You can tell that it wasn't a purely mercenary idea, and that someone involved in this marketing department actually really loved the show and wanted to get the Doctor back again, if only for a few minutes.
I quite agree - in the late 90s Doctor Who wasn't a big name anywhere, especially New Zealand, so it's pretty clear somebody just wanted to give Tom Baker a free holiday and make him say some Doctory things
Am I the only one who actually loves the effect of the TARDIS landing by just glitching into existence instead of slowly fading in like it usually does? It makes it seem like the TARDIS just warps and distorts time around it wherever it goes.
So obviously low budget, but so classy and produced with so much care. I always loved these ads. Tom is really in his element and sinks back into the role so effortlessly. Thanks for decent quality versions!
It ain't no Star Trek Voyager, but it's got a charm that you can't deny is so wonderful. Maximizing the Low budget... that's exactly what was done for Doctor Who every single time. So it's an effective metaphor for needing to have money for the 21st Century. That's why these ads seem to work so well
For at least one person on earth, this was their first introduction to Doctor Who. Imagine being this person, thinking "Hey, that phone commercial from way back was pretty cool ! And the actor was very good, I wonder if they ever went further with this 'Time Lord' idea ?" and then discovering it's THE BIGGEST SCI-FI TV SHOW OF ALL TIME.
For anyone's who's interested in these ads. I was given the whole set of ads in 1996 from Tiger Films (the production company who produced the ads).They were straight from the Betacam broadcast masters. . Last year I digitised them from on the best S-VHS player I had at home (an Industrial quality Panasonic AG7750.) And sent them to BBC Enterprises via Wesendit as a zip file. They re-encoded it in the UK and put it on the Season 18 Box set.
You gotta love how in the first commercial, the Doctor slamming on the TARDIS is just something all fans can smirk at knowing how every Doctor has done it.
apart from the controversie, this was actually better than Doctor Who back in the 90s, in terms of visual effects, which is no surprise actually for BBC back in the 90s.
I wonder what might've happened if they had been able to get Tom Baker back as The Doctor for the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie. He could've easily slipped back into the role.
🎉 But then we would have had To make the eighth doctor non cannon. This actually does fit into cannon because the curator a doctor From the far future of visiting a favorite face.
@@plantainsame2049 No, Tom baker would then have become both the 4th Doctor AND the 8th. The TV movie would have led to a revived series with the possibility of Paul McGann becoming the 9th Doctor. The result would have been that Doctor Who's revival would have come much earlier than 2005.
@@plantainsame2049 Sylvester was the 7th Doctor. Therefore, it would have to be him in the beginning. I don't think Tom Baker would have come back only to have himself written out. In fact, the whole script might've been changed if he had been involved.
I mean to say, I've never been one for advertising, and everybody saying this is canon are talking out of their hats because the Doctor would never advertise anything for anyone. But I do get the spirit of the ad is literally just "Oh, we have to make *something*, so why not just use it as an opportunity to have fun with Tom Baker?", so I can't complain much. My favourite bit is where the "Doctor" (c'mon guys, it's so obviously the Monk in disguise) implies that the human race will go extinct if you don't buy that blasted retirement plan - "You never can know..."
Everything just cannon And there is a lot of slightly meta advertisements With tom baker as the doctor and I like to think that they're all the curator and he can just straight up, break the fourth wall Since you know the doctor at the end of the line
@@adamo1528 no, because the 4th doctor died young, so it is obvious that he is the curator. (I don't doubt they got the idea of this commercial, and canonized it)
