"Starring Paul McGann as the Doctor"

TV Aha, it's the great debate. Does the Eighth Doctor Belong in Classic or New Who?

"This seems like an obvious answer, he’s part of Classic Doctor Who. New Who began in 2005 with the Ninth Doctor. How could a TV movie made nine years earlier be a part of the new series? Well, if New Who started in 1996, that means the current show came nine years after. Never mind, let’s move on.

What are some of the things that make New Who not Classic Who? Here’s everything I could think of."

If one is to follow the classic dvd range, it's firmly in the old Who category, with its apt use of the Pertwee logo from the TV movie and reminder that it's "Starring Paul McGann as the Doctor" in a TARDIS blue bar at the bottom of the cover.

One might wondered why it doesn't say "The Paul McGann Years" like the rest of them because what the linked blog post doesn't take into account is everything which came after the TV movie: the novels, the comics, the audios.

This was a Doctor who really existed away from the television for nine whole years. 

S/he looks for influences on nuWho from the TV movie.

Really the influences are more prominently from the novels, the comics, the audios not least because writers who partook in all three went on to work on the new series, including its show runners.

I've always thought of this as three movements rather than two.

It's perhaps clearer to say that there's olWho, nuWho and this rather wonderful, other thing in-between.

BetWhoon, if you will.  MidWho.  OtherWho.  DifWho.  McWho.  OctoWho [via].

Update!  As has already been pointed out to me via social networking, the TV movie has to be classic Who because Sylv's in it.  But that ignores the thrumpty years worth of Virgin New Adventures which weren't really anything to do with Classic Who either.  Four movements?  Less a concerto, more a symphony?