2016 marks 20 years since Doctor Who returned to our screens for a one-off TV movie, starring Paul McGann as the Time Lord’s eighth incarnation.

Paul McGann has reflected on his experiences shooting the film – and how “things have worked out for the best”.

“What I was asked to do by Fox and the Beeb and Universal, back on the pilot, was actually really specific,” he explained. “It was quite strict. I had to do as I was told – but with good reason. They were taking a punt. It was very speculative.

“When we made it, we were following a pretty strict edict. It’s got to do this, it’s got to include that, he must wear this. But with the proviso that, if it did go, we’d then get more latitude, and get to include some of my own ideas. But it’s all hypothetical, because it never happened.”

McGann admitted that his Doctor Who debut – a co-production between the BBC and Fox in the US – “feels like a bit of a dream now”.

“Back in ’96 / ’97, when the pilot failed to go to a series, sure you’re disappointed for a day but only ‘cos maybe you saw pound signs,” he admitted. “My kids were little and that might’ve taken care of them – it was a nice big contract.

“But that’s what living in the arts is like. One minute it’s there, the next it’s gone and you’re doing something else – and suddenly your kids don’t have to be Canadians, and you can stay home, and three weeks later you’re doing something else.

“People say it’s a shame that it never went to series and I go, ‘OK, well, let’s just take a minute to imagine that it had. How much do you like Matt Smith and David Tennant? They might never have happened if there’d be some other history!’

“So you’ve got to be careful what you wish for. It happened the way it happened. But it’s fun to speculate and theorise on those kinds of things.”

The Doctor Who movie aired May 27, 1996 in the UK – almost seven years after the final ‘classic’ episode starring Sylvester McCoy had aired in ’89.

“Of course, when I joined, there was nothing – it had just been booted into the long grass. So there was disappointment and a bit of gloom and uncertainty,” McGann said.

“Now it’s not just certainty, it’s great, happy days, and there’s all this lovely speculation – where’s it going to go next? And my Doctor of course is part of that.”It would be a further 17 years before McGann would play the Doctor again on-screen – reprising the part for an online minisode as part of the show’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

“I’d sort of given up on ever expecting the phone to ring,” he said of his big comeback in 2013. “We were busy making that Five Doctors thing [Peter Davison’s skit ‘The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot’] predicated precisely on the idea that none of us were ever going to get asked back to do anything – we were taking the piss out of it.

“Then in the middle of it, I’m asked back and I couldn’t tell the others, so I felt a bit of a heel. But I was saved in my shame by Tom Baker going one better and not telling them he was actually in the 50th – so that sort of deflected from my fibs!

“Suddenly now I’m signing photographs where the Eighth is in the middle of the photo and you’ve got Matt Smith slightly behind.

“I used to be like the afterthought in a school photograph – where they put your heads in a cloud because you weren’t there on the day! So it was all change. There was that nice sense of his being accepted.”McGann’s minisode, ‘The Night of the Doctor’, proved an enormous success – earning 2.5 million views across YouTube, iPlayer and the BBC Red Button in its first week alone.

“I don’t mind doing a little bit every now and again and stealing all the glory!” he joked. “It’s quite fun. You’re coming in at the 89th minute and scoring the winning penalty – yeah, I’ll do that.

“Whereas poor old [Peter] Capaldi’s gotta do nine months and 16-hour days. Yeah, OK, let him do that. Let someone else do the heavy lifting!

“Just on a personal level, if I ever had misgivings – just about being in Doctor Who in the first place, or the nature of it – they’ve long since gone. I really enjoy it. It’s a good family to be part of – and it’s still going places. It’s a lovely thing to be associated with.”

Paul McGann returns as the Eighth Doctor – opposite Alex Kingston as River Song – in The Diary of River Song: Series One, out now and available to buy frombigfinish.com.