Introduction to the Night (TV story)

Introduction to the Night was a multi-part story that accompanied Doctor Who Night of 1999. It featured Tom Baker as a future incarnation of the Doctor, rather than his usual version. His confirmation as a future incarnation of the Doctor was confirmed when he said he "was once Paul McGann".

The story focuses on the Doctor recalling his past adventures as well as living in a new design version of the TARDIS.

Synopsis
The Doctor introduces an evening of pure entertainment whilst sharing elements of his past.

Plot
A dark empty room slowly pans around and in it we see a familiar man, but older. The man tells an unseen party that he's been expecting them and goes on to say it feels like such a long time since they last met. The man sits down in a brown chair and tells the other party that an awful lot of things have happened to him in the gap they've been apart. The man goes on to say he was thinking of Cleopatra - a wonderful woman - or he could of been thinking of Helen of Troy - who was a woman as well.

All such a long time ago he adds when suddenly his own voice echoes back asking about the Doctor. The man says the Doctor must be getting on a bit - 700 years old - but he has two hearts though. The old man says he knew the Doctor very well and that so did the unseen party going on to add that their knowledge of the Doctor has brought them together. The old man then smiles and laughs as the scene pans out from his chair then down a long corridor slowly lighting up. When the panning out is complete we see the familiar blue police box - the Doctor's TARDIS - for the old man... was the Doctor. The TARDIS sat parked on Theemnite II in the year 59,888. It then dematerialises and flies into the vortex

rest to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker

Crew

 * Titles - voom
 * Camera - Stuart Bourne, Neil Wieteska
 * Sound - Karen Jones
 * Make-up - Beverley Toby, Andrea Dowdall
 * Costume - June Hudson
 * Consultant - Andrew Pixley
 * Original music - Orbital
 * Soloist - Seaming To
 * Dubbing mixer - Tony Greenwood
 * Editors - Ian Wilson, Mark Everson
 * Production assistant - Alma Pegg
 * Production manager - Simon Ashwood
 * Assistant producers - Christine Kenrick, Stephen McGinn
 * Producer/Director - Michael Wadding
 * Executive producer - Alan Brown

Story notes

 * The story was part of Doctor Who Night (1999).
 * According to the official Doctor Who website this story is set on Theemnite II, 59,888.
 * This was one of the few BBC produced live action Doctor Who stories from the 1990s. The others include Search Out Space, Dimensions in Time, The TV Movie, Time Is Everything, Destiny of the Doctors, The Curse of Fatal Death and more.
 * This story featured Tom Baker playing a future version of the Doctor which took the form of an aged version of his fourth incarnation. This had already happened in the linking narration of the 1992 VHS release of Shada, and would happen again in 2013 in The Day of the Doctor. Whether they are intended as the same version is unknown.
 * A new TARDIS interior was designed for this story. It was presented as a large, basic room with ornamental chairs and a grand corridor leading to a hat stand. It similarly introduced a new exterior with a new design police box. The windows top three rectangular panels were black, and the right and left bottom ones were white except for the centre one which was black. This design would be repeated for The Doctor's Wife and numerous stories after.