Doctor Who (1963) 10-04: The Three Doctors, Episode Four

Episode:

333

|

Serial:

65

|

Writers:

Bob Baker and Dave Martin

|

Director:

Lennie Mayne

|

Air Date:

20-Jan-1973

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's episode 333 of Doctor Who. That means the series was averaging 37 episodes a year up to this point, which isn't actually that ridiculous I guess, seeing as they were all 25 minutes long. Star Trek: The Original Series produced an average of 26 stories a year, each 50 minutes long, so when it came to minutes per week it was actually ahead.

Anyway, just have to write a few more words under screencaps and I'm finally done with The Three Doctors! This is part four of four, the conclusion to this anniversary event, and I'm hoping they didn't already blow through their pyrotechnics budget already with the first three parts, as my expectations have been raised. Also, I'm hoping the story's good etc. Click one of these links to jump back to an earlier episode: PART ONE, PART TWO, PART THREE.

You won't be shocked to hear that the heavily promoted season premiere which brought back Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell got the highest viewing figures for the Third Doctor's whole run, averaging 10.3 million on BBC. It had almost twice as many eyes on it as the least watched serial, Inferno. Wait, why didn't anyone watch Inferno? That one was great!

I'll be going through this whole episode scene by scene, so there will be SPOILERS below. I may find reason to mention things that happened in earlier episodes as well, but I won't spoil anything that happens later.

---

Previously on Doctor Who:

Space-time is under threat by Omega: a man who wants revenge on the Time Lords and has the willpower to get it. In fact, the guy's will is so strong that he's managed to survive in an antimatter realm within a black hole, thanks to the region's tendency to manifest his thoughts into reality. Omega has pulled the second and third incarnations of the Doctor over to his antimatter world, along with Jo, the Brig, Benton, and a couple of guest stars, though most of them managed to escape back to UNIT HQ. This isn't as good as it sounds as UNIT HQ got brought over to the antimatter world as well. Meanwhile, the two Doctors figured that they could take Omega with their combined will and now Three is in a mental wrestling match with Omega's dark side. It doesn't seem to be going well.

And now, the conclusion:

The silent slow-motion wrestling match in Three's mind ends when Two convinces Omega to stop beating his future self up. The Doctor has more willpower than most, but there was no way he was going to win that. Omega is a willpower monster, plus I guess he's had a lot of free time to practice wrestling matches in his head during his centuries of solitary exile here.

Meanwhile, the others have found Bessie and they all pile into it. Escape for Ollis, who piles onto the side somehow.

Also, the Brig is the one driving! I shouldn't be so surprised, as he's done it before. He won't be piloting the TARDIS any time soon and he's utterly lost when it comes to what's going on in this story, but he can get them all back to UNIT HQ. Hopefully.

Back in Omega's lair, the Second Doctor is thinking about Omega's ability to use singularity to create things out of thin air. He's also thinking about that recorder he lost and starts pestering Omega to make him a new one. The ancient Time Lord is absolutely disgusted with where this conversation is going, even asking Three if he's sure the two of them have the same intelligence.

The thing about Two, is that he's able to play roles or play up his natural childishness to manipulate or provoke people, and he lets Three in on the fact that he's testing the limits of Omega's self-control. His short fuse might be his only weakness.

Now that's over with, Omega finally explains what he needs them for. The downside of manifesting a world with sheer force of will is that it only exists while you're there, and he needs it to exist long enough for it to get him back home. The two Doctors have already shown that they can influence the world to a degree, so if they stay behind and keep things together then he'll be able to go!

I don't think Omega's really thought this through. If he traps Two here then he'll never regenerate into Three and none of this could've ever happened.

Damn, I thought we were done with scenes of blobs lighting up the quarry with their crab arm cannons, but nope!

Even the best science fiction series struggle with their budgets and the technology available to them (the ones made in the 70s by the BBC more than most), but when it's time to show off what they're good at, these shows get to cut loose and do something genuinely impressive. Red Dwarf had amazing model shots, 90s Star Trek could consistently nail having an actor act against themselves in the same scene, Babylon 5 had great alien makeup, the original Twilight Zone loved doing tricks with mirrors... and classic Doctor Who did not mess around when it came to explosions.

Anyway, the two Doctors agree to stay behind, as it's the smartest play to make at the moment. So Omega explains to them they'll have to both wear an awesome helmet like he does to protect them from the corrosive effect of the light stream, or whatever. He doesn't need one any more though as he's getting out of here! Though he does need help getting the thing off. I guess there are limits to his power.

After a bit of fumbling around the two geniuses eventually figure out how to get the mask to open. Though after getting a look at what's underneath they immediately slam it shut again.

It turns out that the mask hasn't given Omega the protection he thought it did. Sure the helmet itself survived the corrosion just fine, but it was apparently as effective as wearing iron oven gloves or a deep-sea diving suit made from distressed denim.

Omega is really sick of their goofing around now, so he goes over to his mirror and lifts the whole helmet off to see what they're freaking out about.

Whoops, no head. Just the faintest edge of the bag the actor was wearing to make him disappear against the background.

In any other story, this might seem kind of ridiculous, but I can kind of buy it here. The whole gimmick of this world is that you can make things exist with your willpower alone, so if a man slowly Ship of Theseus'd himself over time, replacing destroyed flesh with imaginary matter, his consciousness could continue on in the mind of a new entity that has to continually will itself to exist. Plus it's appropriate that a story all about the Doctor's regenerations features the most hardcore regeneration yet.

The really unbelievable part for me is that for all these centuries it never occurred to Omega that he should open the mask to have a shave, or brush his teeth, or eat.

He has no mouth, but he screams an epic "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" so dramatically that even Darth Vader couldn't match it. Though he will try.

In fact, Omega throws so much of a tantrum here that his mask accidentally lifts up, revealing a bit of the actor's face. The Doctors throw some more fuel on the fire, telling him that he can never leave this place as outside it he won't exist at all, and then they make a run for it while he's freaking out.

The two of them race outside to where Bessie was parked, finding only tyre tracks. The Brig stole their ride!

The others have already made it to UNIT HQ, but without a plan they're all just talking over each other... until the Brig tells them to knock it off. There are no Doctors on this side of the plot right now, so he finally gets to be the intelligent leader who asks the right questions and chooses the smart course of action. It seems to him that...

Oh hang on, never mind, the Doctors are back now. They caught up pretty damn quickly without a car, though to be fair they were highly motivated by the army of blobs in pursuit. Two unlocks the TARDIS door faster than anyone's unlocked a door before and everyone piles inside with him.

So now they're under siege inside the TARDIS again. Fortunately One's on the TV again and this time he'll have to do better than telling them to surrender to a blob. Hopefully.

The three of them end up putting their heads together to come up with a solution. I mean, they do the 'connect' thing again, where the editor quickly flips between each of their faces so fast the episode should come with an epilepsy warning.

Man, their telepathy must be way more powerful than I realised if they can even connect to the First Doctor in his time bubble. Or maybe the TARDIS screen can just stream telepathic signals along with the sound and video. That's actually really plausible for Time Lord technology now that I think about it.

Unfortunately, the rules of TV state that if you tell the audience what the plan is, you'll doom it to fail. In fact, the Doctors aren't even going to tell their audience in the TARDIS what they're up to.

At least the Brig is currently open-minded enough to figure out all by himself that the guy on the monitor was another Doctor and there are three of them now. Plus we get the line "I didn't know when I was well off."

The two Doctors open up the console to get started on their secret plan and find the heavily foreshadowed recorder in there, along with some test tubes and noodles.

I can suspend my disbelief and accept that an alien who exists as pure willpower sent an antimatter blob to Earth in order to teleport a Time Lord through a black hole and accidently kidnapped two of him. I can even accept that Patrick Troughton can grow up to become Jon Pertwee. But the idea that this recorder somehow fell inside the TARDIS console and landed right in the middle of the forcefield generator is too much for me. 

The Third Doctor realises that this will actually work out great for them... but we're not allowed to know why, as that'd give away the plan. Though the thing about setting up a Chekhov's gun, is that the audience already understands that it shoots bullets. The mystery isn't what it does, it's how it will come into play.

Anyway, they call Omega up and tell him they've come up with a way to give him his freedom. It's a long walk back though so they'd appreciate it if he'd allow their TARDIS to move again.

The Doctors bring the TARDIS over to Omega's lair and offer him a deal: they'll give him his freedom if he allows their friends to take the smoky dry ice portal back to Earth. Omega doesn't actually believe that they've found a way to free him but he'll spare them if the Doctors stay and keep him company. He didn't even want these people here anyway!

They give Omega their word that they won't attempt to leave this world before he does, and that's enough to satisfy him. I still don't think he's thought this through. If the Second Doctor stays then the Third Doctor was never here at all and none of this happened.

The different characters have different reactions to going through the mysterious smoke. Ollis doesn't want to go near it, Dr Tyler is curious, Jo doesn't want to leave the Doctor, and the Brig is going to make damn sure he's the last one out.

He even gives the Doctors a salute on the way out, showing that he really does respect them and he's not sure they're going to make it out of this. It's a nice scene I reckon. I mean drags on forever, two and a half minutes of people walking up to a smoky platform one at a time and disappearing with a twinkle sound, but it's nice to have a bit of an emotional moment here after all the exposition and explosions.

It's a nice teleport effect as well, much better than the blobs popping into existence in part one. This time there are no trees in the background to give the game away and it fades between shots instead of cutting so that the smoke's not abruptly different. Usually.

Now that everyone else is safe, the Doctors start trying to convince Omega that they really have brought him a way out of his nightmarish existence. Omega couldn't be less impressed with this box they just pulled out of the TARDIS, but they insist that he takes it. Then they do the 'contact' thing again, presumably trying to will him to grab the recorder.

Omega absolutely loses his rag at these two thinking they can order him around and he knocks the box right out of Two's hands. This is apparently exactly what the Doctors were hoping for! The recorder hits the floor, causing a massive explosion, and the folks at Time Lord HQ see a new supernova in the sky. The energy drain is finally over, and they may have even gotten some bonus energy.

The trouble I have with this scene is that we can't be satisfied by the solution because we weren't given enough information to understand it, never mind predict it. There's no cathartic moment of revelation. We did get told that the recorder is special and that this world is made of animatter, but it's never said that a forcefield could prevent an object from getting the special protection from being annihilated on contact that they've all been blessed with.

Also why did Omega have to be the one to knock it to the floor? Surely Two could've just tossed the box.

Everyone was sent home one at a time, but they land in UNIT HQ at the same time for some reason. And I mean really land, as the actors were told to jump on the spot. Also, UNIT HQ got back to Earth before them, with all its furniture back in place and the wall reattached. Hopefully the door's not still locked or else they'll have to get out through the window.

Their simultaneous appearance means that the Doctors' absence is a bit of a concern. They should've come back at the same time the rest of them did. At least this gets us another classic line from the Brig: "Wonderful chap, both of them".

But then the TARDIS materialises next to them and everyone gets a celebratory handshake.

The Brig actually wants to hear the Doctor's explanation for how they just won, so now we get to learn about the recorder being the only unprotected bit of regular matter on the planet. The moment it touched the antimatter floor the two opposite kinds of matter annihilated each other, breaking Omega's control over the world. Everything was instantly snapped back to where it was taken from, except for the Doctors who belong in the TARDIS.

Explaining the climax after the fact is like explaining a punchline after telling the joke. It doesn't matter how clever it is, no one's going to be amused.

So I guess now they have to make sure all the gas and water pipes are reattached correctly and get the electricity and phones wired up again. Though the Brig's more concerned about making sure that nothing went missing.

The Second Doctor disappears back to his own time, and the Third Doctor is left feeling a bit melancholy about Omega's fate. He promised him freedom and he gave it to him, but death was the only way he could escape that world.

Speaking of freedom, a bit of hardware materialises on the console.

It's a new dematerialisation circuit for the TARDIS! Plus the Doctor suddenly remembers everything he used to know about time travel. The Time Lords have forgiven him and ended his exile! In fact, they've given him something he never had before: permission to keep his TARDIS and go adventuring across space and time.

It's the end of an era… well almost. He won't be racing off and leaving his UNIT friends right away. He needs to build a new forcefield generator first for one thing.

And the episode ends with Ollis coming home to his wife. She asks where he's been all this time and he thinks about it for a while before saying "You'd never believe me, woman. Supper ready?" Cut to credits!

This scene was filmed on location, so they had to drive the production crew and actors out to wherever and shoot on actual 16 mm film just to end this huge important serial with another chapter of the Arthur Ollis saga. Totally worth it.


CONCLUSION

---

I'll say this about The Three Doctors, it's way better than Star Trek's attempt to tell a tale about a vindictive man from an antimatter universe coming to threaten our reality because he's gone a bit loopy. The serial succeeds where The Alternative Factor fails, because it at least manages to have a coherent story. Sure there's a lot of running around between the lair, the lab and the console room, but it doesn't feel repetitive or disjointed.

Plus The Three Doctors actually has a pretty good villain. Omega is a grumpy arrogant genius Time Lord with a flamboyant fashion sense who's understandably frustrated by his years of exile and the clownish antics of the Second Doctor. Though if that reminds you of anyone, don't think too much about it, because the writers apparently didn't. If this had been written as part of the 2005 revival series, it would've been filled with dialogue drawing attention to the similarities between Three and Omega, and exploring why Three is different to Two. It's right there and the episode does nothing with it.

Instead, we just get comedic bickering for the most part, but I'm actually fine with that. The story is of its time, that's part of its charm. That said, the Pertwee era was originally supposed to have a more realistic Quatermass feel to it, appealing to a more mature and sophisticated audience, so they clearly went a bit off-track along the way. There's no meaning, or moral dilemmas, or allegory here, just antics. You look inside and there's nothing, it's held together by force of personality alone.

It also completely ignores the fact that we're seeing one person experience the same day three times. The 2005 series explains how this works well enough, but here there's no reason given for why Two and Three don't already know what happens. Or why the First Doctor is acting like their wise mentor.

So was the serial a success? I'd say... yes. Its primary goal was to put three Doctors on screen together and it didn't quite manage it due to unavoidable real-life issues. But it did put Pertwee and Troughton together long enough for viewers to not feel short-changed, while also giving them enough time in separate spotlights to allow them to be THE Doctor for a bit. Not too much time though. At four-parts this is mercifully short for a Pertwee serial and after a shaky start it kept my interest all the way through to the unsatisfying resolution. And the happy, status-quo shattering twist at the end.

---

COMING SOON

Next on Super Adventures, I'll be reviewing another anniversary story. I'm going to see how many of these I have time to get through before Doctor Who's 60th anniversary specials start.

The next serial is going to be... not a serial at all. It's the feature-length special The Five Doctors!

Please leave a comment if you feel like it!