Doctor Who (1963): The Five Doctors - Part 3

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still writing about The Five Doctors, the epic crossover event that pulls together heroes from 1 TV series. If you want to return to an earlier part click PART ONE or PART TWO.

This special didn't quite manage to bring the full five Doctors together, but I'm struggling to think of another sci-fi TV series that managed to pack so many main protagonists into one story. I can't remember any Star Trek story that brings more than two lead captains together, and Stargate and Babylon 5 didn't do any better. One of the Star Wars shows must have done it by now though...or maybe not? Oh duh, the Arrowverse did Crisis on Infinite Earths. Still, this was the Avengers of 1983.

This review will be full of SPOILERS, but I'll not give away anything that happens later in the series.

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Previously on Doctor Who:

A mysterious Time Lord (the Castellan perhaps?) has been using their ancient Time Scoop to swipe incarnations of the Doctor and their companions and then place them around the Death Zone to play the Game of Rassilon. Basically, each group has to make their own way to the Dark Tower in the centre, while not getting killed by Daleks, Cybermen and random lasers from nowhere.

I like how we get this map so we can see where they all are in relation to each other and where they're heading. I also like how even with a clear landmark on the horizon, the First Doctor somehow wandered off into another Doctor's zone instead and teamed up with their crew. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor is helping the Time Lord High Council solve the mystery and the Master has made an alliance with the Cybermen.

And now, the continuation:

The Fourth Doctor is currently caught in a time eddy or whatever, so there are four Doctors in play at the moment:

• The First Doctor is hiking to the Dark Tower's front door with Tegan.
  
• The Second Doctor is travelling through underground caves with the Brig.
  
• The Third Doctor is taking a challenging rocky route around the mountains with Sarah Jane.
  
• The Fifth Doctor is warm and cosy with the High Council far from the Death Zone.
  

There's lots of location filming in this story, and it's cool how the characters have been able to see the same tower in the distance as they're walking around. I'm sure the writer was thinking of Lord of the Rings but it reminds me of the Elder Scrolls game Oblivion.

Actually no, I was wrong. I've just looked it up and the journey to the tower was actually inspired by "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", a narrative poem from the 1850s by Robert Browning. The poem also inspired Stephen King's The Dark Tower, so there's some bonus trivia for you.

Unfortunately, it was inevitable that at least one team was going to end up in a quarry and it turns out that it's the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane.

To make things worse, their path forward is blocked by one of the bad guys from Power Rangers.

This is a Rastan Warrior Robot, the most perfect killing machine ever devised. If you ever see another killing machine in Doctor Who, be aware that it's not as good as this thing.

It's a bit, uh, streamlined in design, but if you see it leap around with its arms in the air like this, then it has already teleported behind you and shot a spear through you. It does have one tiny imperfection however: it's like a Jurassic Park Tyrannosaurus and can only see movement. As long as the Doctor and Sarah Jane stay perfectly still they're safe.

Back in the Council Chamber, they've discovered a box of forbidden scrolls in the Castellan's room. They're the Black Scrolls of Rassilon and they're even blacker after they spontaneously combust in their box. It's always fun when actors get to play with fire on a set.

The Castellan protests his innocence but Borusa has him taken away to Security. This leads to perhaps the most famous line in the whole episode, as Borusa tells the guards that they can use the mind probe on him.

"No, not the mind probe!" the Castellan exclaims in horror. Well, he exclaims it at least. It's a hard line to deliver with the correct amount of apprehension.

Wait, they've caught the villain and taken them away? But it's too early! Now I'm confused. One of the few things I remembered about the episode before this rewatch was that the Castellan was secretly the mastermind, but now I'm pretty sure he can't be. Can he?

Whoa, one of the guards just shot him dead for trying to escape! They must have anti-regeneration guns, or maybe he was on his last life.

The Doctor finds his death to be a little bit convenient, but he's in a rush to get back to help his other selves. Borusa won't let him leave however, as they need to figure this mess out first. He asks Flavia to take the Doctor somewhere he can rest, as I guess he hasn't slept enough in this episode yet.

Back in the Death Zone, the Second Doctor and the Brig are in an actual cave holding an actual torch and it looks pretty great, especially compared to the scenes filmed on video in the Council Chambers. The 16mm film they used for location filming didn't give them the sharpness that Star Trek and its spin-offs got with their 35mm cameras, but this is still a lot more cinematic than the previous scene.

The two of them are a bit alarmed by the growling sounds however. There's a creature in here with them and it's hunting them.

Oh no, it's a... something. This is the danger of filming in a real cave: they're really dark. It's all very authentic though!

This is a Yeti, the first creature that the Brig and Doctor ever faced together, and the production crew apparently found an original costume in storage for the performer to wear. 15 years it had been in that box.

The Doctor pulls a firework out of his pocket to scare it away, but the scheme backfires as the enraged creature collapses their way out. Fortunately, there's another route that leads to a door... and it's unlocked! No puzzle to solve here, they can just walk right in.

So the Second Doctor is the first to reach the Dark Tower! And it only took 52 minutes of episode. Probably longer in the Special Edition.

Back in the TARDIS, Susan and Turlogh are still helplessly watching the Cybermen do whatever they're doing outside. I thought they said they wanted to hijack the TARDIS to get out of the Death Zone but it seems more likely that they just plan to blow it up. Or plan to try anyway; I still don't think it's likely to work.

The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane are having Cybermen problems as well, as a squad marches into their quarry. This really is a Cybermen story, isn't it? Fortunately, the Rastan Warrior Robot is there to kill anything that wanders into its field of view, so it goes after them.

Bloody hell! I always thought that the Cybermen's biggest vulnerability was gold, but nope it turns out that it's having spears fired through them. It's become pretty clear that the Cybermen are superior to the Raston Warrior Robot in only one respect: they are better at dying. Also, they can see things that aren't moving.

The Cyberman massacre was apparently filmed by the second unit and directed by producer John Nathan-Turner himself, which I guess explains why they seem to have spent half the budget on this one scene. One Cyberman gets his arm severed, one has his head explode, and that one on the bottom right is melting. The Cybermen are best used for body horror and I guess this technically counts!

Three and Sarah Jane take the opportunity to sneak into the cave while the Cybermen are keeping the robot busy, and swipe some of its climbing gear. You never know when you're going to need a whole bunch of cable.

It'd be funny if there were books or magazines or something here for the robot to read, but there aren't.

Damn, he just sliced that one's head right off with a knife.

The Rastan Warrior Robot doesn't look like much, but he gets the job done. If I was a Cybermen fan I might point out how childish it was for the writer to go all 'my villain could beat up your villain' and effortlessly wipe out the episode's main threat, but I'm not, so I won't. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing the Rastan Warrior Robot return in a modern story with some modern production values. They should spend that Disney money on him so we can see him properly zipping around like a videogame ninja.

There were no Yetis, Cybermen or Rastan Warrior Robots blocking the First Doctor and Tegan's path, however. They were able to just walk right over to the Dark Tower's main door.

This was a matte painting put in behind the actors digitally using a Quantel Paintbox workstation, which was expensive high-end hardware used all over TV during the 80s. It's the same gear that was used to do effects like phaser beams on Star Trek: The Next Generation four years later, though that was presumably a later version. Then in 1990, a new piece of hardware was introduced that could plug into a humble Amiga home computer and do the same job at a fraction of the price, the Video Toaster! It could even do ray tracing, allowing series like Babylon 5 to have better CGI effects than Tron or The Last Starfighter and still get made on the cheap.

Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh right, the First Doctor finds a bell in front of the door and opens it up to reveal a button! Pressing the button opens the door, making them the second team to enter the Dark Tower.

The Third Doctor's way behind, but that's because he and Sarah Jane had to climb up to the top of a cliff first.

It's hard to spot in this model shot, but the Doctor somehow managed to throw the cable all the way from the cliff to the top of the tower, giving them a zipline to get across. I don't think it's really possible to throw something that far and I don't think it's possible to zip alll the way across with that much slack in the cable either. Gravity's going to turn against them hard, they'll lose all their momentum and get stuck in the middle. But I try to believe three impossible things before breakfast, so I'm just going along with it and stop nitpicking.

The backdrop's a bit creased there on the top left.

Sarah Jane has mentioned that she doesn't like heights, so hanging off the side of a tower like this isn't much fun for her at all. But if you travel with the Action Doctor, you're going to end up involved in thrilling action scenes, that's just how it works.

Though this was apparently the second idea that the production team had to get them over there. Originally the Third Doctor was going to construct a glider out of the Raston Warrior Robot's gear and his own cloak, and then use that to get across. But Pertwee thought that was ridiculous so they reworked it. I'd believe it if Batman used his own cape as a glider to get across, but I don't think the Doctor's flying anywhere with that coat, especially not with Sarah Jane along for the ride.

The door up here isn't locked either, so all three of them have made it inside the Dark Tower! Now the real challenges begin. Maybe.

The First Doctor and Tegan enter the Tower's anteroom and find an ominous chequered floor. This has to be a callback to the infamous "Stop, don't move" cliffhanger in Death to the Daleks, where an episode just ends with a close-up of a floor like this, with no explanation for why it's a problem. Or maybe it's not, I don't know.

If I was playing Baldur's Gate, I wouldn't take another step here without getting my thief to check it out for traps. Fortunately, the Doctor has the same idea and starts tossing coins on the floor to see if he can trigger anything.

The Doctor gets as far as figuring out that you can go halfway across before the trap activates, but he's interrupted by the Master strolling in with his new Cybermen buddies.

The Master hasn't actually switched sides, however! He still wants to save the Doctor and get his reward. So he tells the Doctor to run and hide before they see him. It's lucky that the Cybermen have worse eyesight than Susan does and can't spot two people right in front of them, in motion.

The Cybermen aren't idiots and can see the obvious trap, but the Master assures them it's fine. He even steps out onto the board himself. He'd overheard the Doctor talking and knows that he can go halfway before it activates.

But then he goes to the other side and comes skipping back again! The guy's gone and figured the puzzle out somehow, without any clues.

The Cybermen are satisfied by this and start to cross the board...

... and they get torn apart by lasers as soon as one of them makes it halfway. The moral of the story: never trust the Master. Actually, the moral of the story is: don't worry about the Cybermen, they're rubbish. The Master grabs a gun to finish off the Cyberman leader and that's that.

I like this version of the Master. He's the Doctor's chaotic ally, gleefully screwing everyone else over to help him survive. He even gives him the clue to solve the riddle, saying that it's "As easy as pi".

Generally, when a character is given a clue to a puzzle, viewers are supposed to understand how they applied it to find the solution. But not here!

Tegan tells us that pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, the Doctor says that the number is 3.14159265... and then he just walks across in a straight line. The actor was apparently supposed to take a more serpentine path, but he messed up and they were running late so they didn't have enough time for another take.

Though even if he had lept from square to square, that still wouldn't have explained the pattern, or how the Master knew what the pattern was. It's like the writer put down "The Doctor solves an Indiana Jones riddle," in the script and no one gave it any further thought. Incidentally, this aired two years after the first Indiana Jones film, just to put it into its historical context.

Up at the top of the tower, Three has ran into two more old friends: Mike Yates and Liz Shaw!

Liz was the Third Doctor's first companion and was only there for one season, so her appearance here would have been a bit of a surprise. Well, it's a surprise to me and I've seen this before.

They're not really there however, they're just mental illusions created to lure the Doctor... somewhere. Probably somewhere he doesn't want to be. The Doctor figures it out and goes back the way he came, causing Liz to yell "STOP HIIIIIIIM!" Even the Doctor is wondering who she's talking to, as there's no one here who can stop him.

The First Doctor comes to the same conclusion as he walks further in with Tegan. Rassilon is attempting to push them away with his mind, making them feel overwhelming fear and tricking them with phantoms. He tells Tegan to ignore it, and I guess she does!

But oh no, the Master is here as well! Which we already knew, as we saw him come in. In fact, he's been working to help the Doctor because he wants the reward for saving him.

It's kind of a strange place to put a cliffhanger really. I'm watching the original version on iPlayer, so I can just keep going, but the four-part edit ends its third episode on this dramatic moment and so does this four-part article.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4

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COMING SOON

Next on Super Adventures, it's the end of The Five Doctors, where the heroes team up with a waxwork figure of the Fourth Doctor to end the mysterious villain's mysterious plot. At least that's what I assume after looking at the publicity photos.

You can leave a comment if you like, but no pressure.