Petition To Give Paul McGann His Own Doctor Who Spinoff Doesn’t Have Nearly As Many Signatures As Eight Deserves

12,000 signatures is wonderful. But this petition deserves to get to six figures. Seven figures. Infinity figures.

In the wake of Paul McGann‘s Eight making a surprise appearance in that wonderful prequel minisode, a petition has popped up on Change.org in favor of Eight getting his own live-action adventures. Sure, in the years since McGann’s sole on-camera doctoral outing, a disastrous 1996 made-for-TV movie, Eight has had his own books, audio stories, and comic strips. But that’s not enough McGann. There can never be enough McGann.

Says petition creator Theodore Stone:

For 17 years, we only had the TV Movie to satisfy our appetite for a Live-Action Eighth Doctor. On the 14th November 2013, we were granted the minisode, the “Night of the Doctor”. Although we do possess a vast number of Big Finish Audio-Dramas and books, it would be a shame to never see McGann as the Time Lord on-screen again. Therefore, I have created this petition in order to drum up interest and support in order to pressure both [Steven] Moffat and McGann into making a live-action series, featuring the Eighth Doctor. It would be a shame for such a fantastic actor and Doctor to be once again confined to the past yet again. Even a web series would suffice!
This will probably never happen, but you never know unless you try!

Kudos to Stone for highlighting the web series option. A Sarah Jane Adventures-style TV spinoff is probably never going to happen, but a few more webisodes seems well within the realm of possibility. And hey, McGann said an interview with Doctor Who Online that he’d be open to it:

Well that’s the thing, they want to know if you were offered to do a mini series would you do a mini series?

Well, it’s like with the mini episode – if they send you the script and it’s good, you’ll do it. So, you know, these things are only as good as the material. So the real question is if the material was good enough and if you were available, you’d do it – cos it’s a Who!

McGann’s TV movie may be bad (And it is. Oh, it is.), but that’s not because of McGann, who was an excellent Doctor despite having very little to work with. And in the past 17 years the man has not aged—it’s almost like he really is an alien time traveller. Giving us a sweet, sweet taste of Eight with the minisode only to whisk him away again after would be too cruel. Which is very fitting with Moffat’s style, actually. But all the same, we can hope.

(via: The Hollywood Reporter)

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