The Five Doctors

This anniversary special is quite interesting as it features excellent performances from all involved. The natural chemistry of Patrick Troughton and Nicholas Courtney for instance is one of the truly shining elements of this production. Also Richard Hurdnall does a remarkably good and under rated version of the 1st Doctor. It is most interesting to see the 1st Doctor paired up with Tegan as they both have intense egos which work brilliantly in tandem. Meanwhile we have the familiar couplings of the 3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane along with just strange choices - Turlough and Susan. This adventures captures the spirit of Doctor Who at it's finest, and is quite well written, acted, and executed for an anniversary special!

It would have been more fun if they could have gotten Tom Baker instead of just using a couple clips of him, but it was a very fun adventure. It also gave me exposure to some of the other Doctors that I had never seen before.

The Five Doctors has a lot to live up to in its 90-odd minutes of air-time, and it succeeds in part. After all, no-one should really expect such a short program to truly represent a series that was - at the time of filming - 20 years old. There were probably many ways the show could have been made, but in the end, its writer chose a very straightforward tale which tries to cram as many Doctors, companions, concepts, monsters and enemies into the same story and, like I said earlier, it succeeds in part. It's great to see all the old Doctors, for example (even if the first Doctor was dead and is played here by a lookalike and the fourth Doctor rather childishly didn't want to be in the show, so is featured via old, unused TV footage), but it's still a bit cheesy to have simply SO MUCH Doctor Who crammed into one show. Sure, it's better than the 10th anniversary story "The Three Doctors," but it's definitely not as good as the latter story, "The Two Doctors," made a few years after this, and which I recommend wholeheartedly.

This particular Dr Who episode, which screened during Peter Davison's (the 5th Doctor) tenure, was intended to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Dr Who. The plot - a mysterious individual has summoned all incarnations of the Doctor to the Death Zone on Gallifrey for some unknown purpose. The Doctors, unsure of why they are here try to reach the Tower of Rasselon (sp?) to find answers, where along the way they confront various obstacles (a Daalek, Cybermen, a Yeti etc.) Apparently the mysterious individual wants something within the tower and is using the Doctors to get it - one Doctor would not have been enough, but FIVE doctors might be (well 4 really, read below).

It's pretty much well known that Tom Baker (the 4th Doctor) declined to appear in this special episode so the producers were forced to use some old footage from Baker's tenure as the Doctor and then use the plot device of having him 'stuck' in the vortex (or whatever they called it) to explain his absence, so contrary to the title the story from the outset only really involves 4 doctors. In addition William Hartnell (the 1st Doctor) had passed away in 1975 so a replacement in Richard Hurndall had to be found. Hurndall does a good job in keeping to the character as originally played by Hartnell but it's pretty obvious to all that it's another actor, but that couldn't be helped.

As far as the quality of the episode goes, it depends on what you want to get out of it. As an exercise in seeing all of the Doctors (well 4 of them - and 1 with a replacement actor) it's not too bad, especially seeing how each Doctor reacts to the others being present (the verbal sparring between Patrick Troughton (the 2nd Doctor) and Jon Pertwee (the 3rd Doctor) is hilarious). However as far as plot goes its pretty weak on the ground - 90% of the episode seems to be made up of shots of each of the respective Doctors running from something, with the 5th Doctor killing time outside the zone trying to figure it all out and token references being made concerning the 4t Doctor being 'stuck' and thus not present. And the Master has a few scenes too. Clearly for the amount of Doctors involved (not counting all the sidekicks they bring along) 90 mins is nowhere long enough to adequately tell a story involving all of them (or 4 of them)

Worth a look to see all 5 (sorry, 4 ::sigh::) Doctors together in action, just don't expect anything major in the plot department.

This is as happy a celebration as a 20 year old science fiction programme could hope to have. A mish-mash of Doctors and monsters, it works better as a series of character vignettes than a dramatic story. The episode (it is best viewed as the 90 minute film of the original transmission) ambles spendidly through mini-adventures for all concerned, sort of aiming towards the showdown at the end, but with no great tension for the audience.

It's a little odd to think that we're now another 16 years on.