Leonard Nimoy Almost Helped Bring ‘Doctor Who’ Back—Inside the Lost Movie That Never Happened

Before Paul McGann became the Eighth Doctor in 1996’s Doctor Who television movie, another science-fiction legend nearly became part of the Time Lord’s universe: Star Trek icon Leonard Nimoy. And for the record, this was not simply just on somebody’s wish list.

Nimoy, who had successfully moved behind the camera as director of such films as Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Three Men and a Baby, was attached to direct an earlier proposed theatrical Doctor Who. Producer Philip Segal, who spent years attempting to bring Doctor Who back to television, actually found himself dealing directly with Nimoy.

PHILIP SEGAL (producer, Doctor Who: The Movie): “For the TV movie I was working on, there was one hurdle left. There was a movie that was supposed to be made, or was in pre-production. They had a deal to do a movie with Leonard Nimoy attached to direct it—and I think maybe even starring in it. I don’t know. I actually didn’t know about this until the lawyers got involved. In those days, it was very important when you were going to get rights to something, you needed to make sure you had all the rights, not just some of them. So it couldn’t be encumbered or clouded. You couldn’t have any loose strings. The idea that there was a movie deal floating around out there did not make the lawyers happy, and there was no way I was going to get this done if that didn’t go away.”

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“They had to start pre-production by a certain date. Otherwise, those rights reverted back to the BBC and then I was fully clear. And they kept promising—this movie company kept promising—that they were scouting locations with Leonard and all this stuff. And I thought, ‘Okay, well, I’ll have a meeting with Leonard Nimoy and see exactly what’s going on.’ He came to Amblin, where I was working, and we had a meeting and we talked about it. And I found out from him that there wasn’t really pre-production going on. They were kind of bamboozling everybody, trying to figure out how to get enough money to even start.”

One point that Segal emphasizes is that Nimoy’s interest was absolutely genuine and not some passing fancy

PHILIP SEGAL: “Oh, it was very serious. I think in that moment in time, he was exploring wanting to be a director very seriously and they thought it was a great name at the time to attach. But as serious as he was, they just didn’t have the financing. On top of that, I knew just from reading that script and also from understanding who the players were, that they just couldn’t get it done. Remember, I worked for Amblin, so I had access to all kinds of intelligence—intelligence gathering from other studios, from agencies. There wasn’t any piece of information I didn’t know about a deal, and I knew that it was never going to get made. Not like that.”

“Eventually, the clock ran out and we were able to move forward. But as I said, there was a script for that version, which I read. And it was awful. It literally made those two Peter Cushing movies from the 1960s look like Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, it was bad.”

Leonard Nimoy quick facts

• Full name: Leonard Simon Nimoy
• Born: March 26, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts
• Died: February 27, 2015, at age 83
• Best known for: Playing Spock in Star Trek, beginning with the original 1960s science fiction series
• First Star Trek movie: Reprised Spock in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
• Famous sequel: Returned in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which featured Spock’s memorable sacrifice
• Behind the camera: Directed Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Other Star Trek appearances: Nimoy played Spock in Star Trek V, Star Trek VI and later appeared in the J.J. Abrams-era films
• Beyond Star Trek: Had a major role on Mission: Impossible, playing Paris from 1969 to 1971
• Other directing work: Directed the hit 1987 comedy Three Men and a Baby
• Signature phrase: Spock’s Vulcan greeting, “Live long and prosper,” became inseparable from Nimoy and his legacy
• William Shatner connection: Nimoy and William Shatner became television icons as Spock and Captain Kirk, a partnership that continued through multiple Star Trek films