It seems impossible, but the evidence is all there. Twenty years have passed since Paul McGann gurned his way into Doctor Who. It shouldn't come as that big a surprise since we've passed the revived show's tenth anniversary, the first episode's fiftieth anniversary and the classic series only ran for 26 years ("only" he says as if it were a blink of an eye!). What I have actually found all the more surprising are the other factors that put the TV Movie into context by also being twenty years old, things that I have just casually come across recently by coincidence. Alisha's Attic for instance. I knew the TV Movie was some time ago but I was shocked to discover "I Am, I Feel" was also from 1996, as was the Ford Ka, the original "Three Lions" single, Take That split up and Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" all over the album chart. In a television context, "The X Files" had already been on air for three years!
So here we are on 27th May 2016 looking back twenty years and celebrating what was a pivotal moment for Doctor Who. The show had been off air for just over six years and the quoted word "indefinitely" was really starting to make itself felt with an emphasis on "ongoing with no sign of ending". We'd been treated, teased and pacified with repeats of classic episodes (which was great, by the way) but it all just reminded us that we were lacking what we really wanted. Continuation. Then suddenly it was promised, almost, with a pilot, so-called, for a new series boosted by American money. The Doctor was returning with what would either secure the show's future or condemn it once and for all...
