Doctor Who (1963): The Five Doctors - Part 2

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm continuing with Doctor Who's 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors! This is going to drag on for four parts, and if you want to jump back to part 1, CLICK HERE.

The Five Doctors was the final story by the legendary Terrance Dicks, who'd been writing Doctor Who episodes since the Second Doctor's era. His contributions to the series spanned 14 years, which is a long time... though not quite as long as Russell T Davies' incredible 18 years on the show (with a 12 year break in the middle).

It was hoped that they could get Waris Hussein to direct, as he'd directed the very first serial, An Unearthly Child, 20 years earlier. Unfortunately, he was in America, so the job ultimately went to Peter Moffatt, who'd already directed Peter Davison in a few episodes of All Creatures Great and Small.

Past this point you'll be flooded with SPOILERS for the episode and maybe a few earlier stories as well. I'll not spoil anything that comes later however.

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Previously on Doctor Who:

A mysterious figure keeps kidnapping the Doctor. He's got four of them so far (well, three and a half, as one of them got stuck), and all this messing with the timeline is a real strain on the Fifth Doctor, who's currently lying unconscious on the TARDIS floor. Well, during the times that he exists at all.

The first three Doctors have been taken to the Death Zone on Gallifrey, each joined by a companion from their past. The TARDIS has ended up there as well, as has The Master, who's on a mission from the Time Lords to save the Doctor! They should've sent him to save Sarah Jane however, as she's fallen down a gentle grassy slope and is in incredibly minor peril.

And now, the continuation:

The Third Doctor leaps into action, throwing a rope down to Sarah Jane, running it behind a rock, and using Bessie to pull her back up the slope. She probably could've just walked, but this is more thrilling.

They'd thought about pairing the Third Doctor with his second companion, Jo (like in The Three Doctors), but Katy Manning was in Australia at the time so we missed out on that reunion. I suppose in a perfect world Three would've been joined by Jo and Four would've been with Sarah Jane. They were always a better fit.

Speaking of Four, Sarah Jane tries to describe him to Three, but it seems that Pertwee had a fondness for Elisabeth Sladen's line and took it for himself, so she mimes a bit until he figures out she means "Teeth and curls".

Meanwhile, the First Doctor and his granddaughter are experiencing some of the worst directing in this whole episode. I don't know what went wrong during filming here, but the scene's even more absurd than Sarah Jane rolling down a hill.

It starts with the two of them hiking across the Death Zone and the Doctor stopping to take a rest. Susan goes on a little ahead to look around and then spots the TARDIS! Being a companion is like riding a bike, you never lose those observation skills. The thing is, this is where she was standing when she spotted it. And when she calls her grandfather over to see it only takes him a few steps to catch up, so it wasn't around a corner or over a hill or five miles down the road or anything like that. It wasn't even outside of their field of view.

I know the TARDIS is designed to blend in and be unnoticed, but this is taking the piss.

The two of them enter the TARDIS to discover that it's occupied. Also, the console room has changed appearance since their time (which was established in the first two scenes of the episode), but it doesn't seem like they've even noticed. I guess I'll never know whether they like how Five has redecorated it.

This is where the Fifth Doctor's been during the story, by the way, lying on the floor. He did try to go find his other selves, but the best he managed was to get the TARDIS stuck in the Death Zone so there wasn't much for me to talk about.

There was an episode called Mawdryn Undead recently that revealed what happens if a person comes in physical contact with themselves from another time, but this isn't the kind of story to worry about trivialities like that, so the First Doctor helps Five up to his feet. The current Doctor has been given a bit of a boost by the presence of his earliest incarnation, so he's back in the story now! Also, they specifically mention in dialogue that he's the fourth regeneration and there are five Doctors, in case that was in doubt.

There's no dialogue between the Fifth Doctor and his long-lost granddaughter though. The best we get is an acknowledgement that he knows her name!

It's kind of hard for me to process how this is written to be honest, as a fan who started watching during Matt Smith's run. Any showrunner from the modern era would have done something with this reunion, and I'm not just talking about Doctor Who showrunners. It doesn't matter if people who started watching three years ago don't know who Susan is, they know what a granddaughter is! The cold open showed him leaving her!

Here's what I'd do, even if it's cliché and obvious: The First Doctor and Susan come into the TARDIS and find the Doctor unconscious. They introduce themselves to his companions, Susan mentions her name and the Doctor suddenly darts up in shock. He rattles off some technobabble about how the First Doctor's presence must have given him a tether to reality, or whatever, and then admits that he's happy to see her.

But what actually happens in the scene, is that the First Doctor sends Tegan off to the kitchen to get them some refreshments.

The First Doctor was from the early '60s, so he never really had a female companion who would push back against him. Someone who was an educated woman with a career of her own and an area of expertise. Someone who would smash evil brains and trick Daleks. So I can forgive him for just assuming he could order Tegan around in her own TARDIS right after meeting her.

Sorry, I just had this urge to be really sarcastic and also show a picture of Barbara.

I mentioned in part 1 that the First Doctor era was pretty much a distant memory at this point in the '80s. You couldn't get these episodes on VHS and the only serial to get a repeat on the BBC was An Unearthly Child. William Hartnell's last appearance was 10 years ago in The Three Doctors, where he bossed his older selves around, and the character came from a more sexist time, it's not hard to understand why the First Doctor is acting this way. (Also Richard Hurndall apparently declined to watch recordings of the person he was portraying).

Hang on, it's just occurred to me how weird it is that they're all standing in a line.

Anyway, Tegan is predictably a bit pissed off by the First Doctor asking her to bring them refreshments (though to be fair she was a flight attendant...) and actor Janet Fielding was apparently unhappy about it as well when she saw the script. In the final episode, the scene continues with the Doctor sending Turlough to go with her, which takes the smile off his face. It gives him something to do in the scene though.

The Master is still getting ready for his mission to the Death Zone to rescue the Doctor, which means we get a rare glimpse of a Time Lord wristwatch.

He's given the Seal of the High Council and a device that will signal them to teleport him back out. Then he steps into their power-boosted, open-ended transmat beam and vanishes. They didn't give him a coat though, so he may be a little underdressed for his hike.

That's a nice looking shot, with the tower on the horizon. And not a Cyberman in sight.

This means that The Brig and the Second Doctor have a bit of time for exposition. As a younger man, the Brig might have immediately rejected the suggestion that he'd been teleported to an alien world and then wandered off looking for a payphone, but now he's curious about where they are.

The Doctor explains that before the time of Rassilon, his ancestors on Gallifrey kidnapped beings and brought them here to the Death Zone... and that's all the Brig's getting out of him right now. He'll explain the rest as they walk to the Tomb of Rassilon, the resting place of the greatest figure in Time Lord history.

Damn, that's the best revenge for being told to go off and make a snack and cup of tea. The companions are just chilling out with cocktails and ice cream, having their own little party. Feeling very refreshed.

One and Five are having a bit of an argument over there about whether they should use a signal to draw their other selves to the TARDIS, or head out to the Tomb of Rassilon to prevent their antagonist from tapping his power.

The episode passes the exposition over to Three next, who's still driving around with Sarah Jane. He explains that Rassilon ended the games in the Death Zone and banned the Time Scoop. Now I'm thinking of ice cream again.

Suddenly Dracula pops out from behind a rock and calls the Doctor's name. Oh hang on, it's just the Master with a cape on he wasn't wearing a minute ago. I'd say it must be bloody cold there, but Sarah Jane's taken her coat off.

The Third Doctor's never met this incarnation of his greatest nemesis, but he figures out who it is pretty quickly, because... look at him. Unfortunately, he also figures that everything that the Master says is a lie and everything he shows him is a forgery, because when is it not?

He swipes the Seal of Rassilon off him, which then never comes back in the story. Though theoretically the Fifth Doctor could still have it, which raises the question of whether he can remember how he got it.

Suddenly lasers! From out of nowhere!

The Master makes a run for it and Sarah Jane says they can't leave him here. The Doctor's totally going to leave him here though, and he drives off.

Sarah Jane was one of the longest-running companions and started during the Pertwee era, so you might expect her to have encountered the Master at least once before in one of her 80 episodes, but nope they never met. In fact, the Master disappeared the year she joined the series and then returned in the very next story after she left. Then Leela turned up and he vanished again until she and Romana had gone away. And K-9.

Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion etc. have all met him though. And half of them lost a family member because of it.

Back at Time Lord HQ, they're trying to stabilise the Fourth Doctor's wibbliness to give the others more time. Well, the Fifth Doctor more time, as the other three came before him.

No one mentions Romana, by the way. She's a formidable Time Lady in her own right and she's stuck there along with the Doctor.

Oh no, Bessie got hit by a laser off-screen! Still, I suppose it could've been worse. If they'd been driving a little faster then three Doctors and a companion would've just ceased to exist.

Well, there probably aren't many roads like this on Gallifrey anyway. It's all grass and hills where the Second Doctor and the Brig are. There isn't even anything to threaten them or challenge them, so Two tells the Brig a bit more about Rassilon.

It's hard to know for sure what he was like, as there's the official story and there are rumours. He could be dead or he could be alive and sleeping. He could've been a good guy who stopped the Death Zone games, or he could've been cruel and they could be playing the Game of Rassilon at this very moment. All they know is that you don't want to be playing the Game of Rassilon.

Over on the TARDIS, Five is examining a computer-generated image of the Tomb of Rassilon, and I have a feeling that computer was a BBC Micro.

These were actually cutting-edge visuals in 1983... for a home computer. Movies had access to considerably more expensive hardware however. Star Trek II's groundbreaking Genesis simulation came a year earlier, Tron as well, and The Last Starfighter's 3D rendered space battles reached cinemas in 1984.

The Fifth Doctor has detected that there are three entrances, one at the top, one underground, and the main door. He's going to keep things simple and walk in through the front door. His plan is to disable the force field generator so they can release the TARDIS and Susan volunteers to join him. Tegan's coming too, even though the First Doctor tells her to stay in the TARDIS where it's safe!

(Turlough's staying in the TARDIS where it's safe)

That's some familiar-looking framing. It's a good thing I had that image of the TARDIS screen in between or else it would've looked like these two had teleported from the road to a hill.

They've spotted Cybermen walking by! Fortunately, the Cybermen haven't spotted them and they're going the other way, so this shouldn't be a problem. The Cybermen had four stories with the Second Doctor and then disappeared entirely for the Third Doctor's run, so this is actually the first time Three has encountered them. Sarah Jane's seen them before though.

The Brig catches Two mumbling a the Nursery Rhyme of Rassilon, which mentions the three different ways to get inside the Dark Tower. There are convenient torches here next to a conveniently lit fire, so he's going to take the hint and head inside this actual Welsh cave.

Meanwhile, the Master has run into the Fifth incarnation of the Doctor.

Five is one of the least intimidating of the Doctors, but he's doing a good job here of standing up to the Master. He's willing to hear him out, because "Like Alice, I try to believe three impossible things before breakfast," and I guess he hasn't had breakfast yet.

But the two of them are unaware that they're being spied on by the Cybermen, who are planning to capture them for interrogation. They also need one of them to pilot the TARDIS, because some jerk kidnapped them and dropped them into the Death Zone to fight. I'm suddenly starting to notice how similar this is to The War Games.

Fortunately the Doctor has lookouts up on the hill.

Tegan's had a lot of history with the Master, he murdered her aunt and stole her best friend's dad's body, but that doesn't mean she wants to keep an eye on him or anything. So she completely misses the squad of shiny Cybermen marching in plain sight across the moor until it's too late.

The Doctor's doing a pretty good job of blending in there though as you can barely see him. The Fifth Doctor is easily the most inconspicious of all his incarnations, able to disappear into any background as long as it's sufficiently beige.

"We must warn the others!" says Tegan, which is totally how a real person would phrase that.

The Master's knocked over by the blast from one of their weapons so the Doctor runs over and robs him, finding the recall device. The Cybermen just let him do this without shooting him, but that actually makes sense as they're supposed to be capturing him and those guns don't have a stun setting. That I'm aware of.

The Time Lords get the signal, assume it's the Master, and maximum-transmat the Doctor through the Death Zone's forcefield back to their HQ. Well, at least one of the Doctors is going to know that the Master was telling the truth now.

Meanwhile, Susan's gone and tripped over a tiny bush, hurting her ankle! It's a homage to her time as a companion... and it sucked when it happened back then as well.

The funny thing is that Tegan went out wearing heels, so if anyone was going to trip it should've been her. Janet Fielding makes sprinting across the grass in stiletto heels look easy though.

With the Fifth Doctor AWOL, the First Doctor realises that he's now the protagonist of this part of the story so he's going to have to go out to the Dark Tower himself.

Tegan immediately volunteers to go with him and he actually thanks her... in the Special Edition. In the version I'm watching he just grumbles a bit. I guess he's grateful that Turlough's not the one coming with him and I imagine that Turlough's grateful too.

Now the Fifth Doctor's been teleported to the Gallifrey side of the story, where he wastes no time piecing the puzzle together. If someone used the Time Scoop to kidnap his past selves then an important Time Lord is likely the one responsible.

The Cybermen and Daleks were never allowed to play the Game of Rassilon in the ancient times as they play too well, so they must have been brought here recently as well. And they were given help... a tracking device hidden in the recall device that the Castellan gave to the Master! Borusa has the Castellan investigated immediately.

Damn, the Fifth Doctor got effective all of a sudden. From the moment he met the Master he's been great. The funny thing is, this was originally going to be the Fourth Doctor's role in the story, as he was the one most associated with Gallifrey after The Deadly Assassin and the Invasion of Time. Five would've continued to the Dark Tower and gone in through the front door, with the First Doctor staying in the TARDIS. I'm not saying that they inadvertantly made Five better by giving him Four's lines, I don't know what the original version was like... but it'd be funny if that's what happened.

Meanwhile, the Master has immediately allied with the Cybermen, because that's his M.O. He's lying his ass off however, telling them that the Time Lords brought them there to destroy each other, but they can go to their fortress and destroy them instead!

You know, the Master's pretty good in this story too. He's been dropped into someone else's evil plot, so he's having to come up with plans and think on his feet. I'm less keen on this moustache-twirling version of the Cybermen, but it is funny that they basically turn to the camera and say "He has no idea that when the Tower is in our hands, he will also be destroyed!" B'wahaha!

By the way, do you think they've got enough fog here? You can barely tell they're out on location.

It's just Turlough and Susan in the TARDIS at this point, but they hear banging outside and turn on the scanner to find out what it is. There are Cybermen out there and they're trying to untangle a cable!

Most versions of the story (like the one I'm watching on iPlayer) continue on after this scene, but in the four-part edit this is the gripping cliffhanger to part two! We don't even see what they're doing out there, though I'm sure they could totally blast their way right into the TARDIS. Sorry, I'm being really sarcastic today, I don't know what's up with me.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3

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COMING SOON

Next on Super Adventures, I'm continuing with the third part of The Five Doctors. It's the bit with the Rastan Warrior Robot, the scariest being to guard a cave since the Rabbit of Caerbannog.

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