The Five Doctors

Easy as Pi!

The Five Doctors is a decent twentieth anniversary story. I'm not sure it would stand that well without knowing that it was a large piece of fan service.

The plot line is very simple as the Doctors are taken out of their respective timestreams with one of their previous companions, brought to the Death Zone on Gallifrey and must enter the tower of Rassilon. There, President Barusa uses their work to claim immortality, but instead falls into a trap and is imprisoned.

It really isn't so much of a story as it is a series of vignettes of each Doctor interacting with a paired companion and overcoming the various obstacles put in their way. There is only a little interaction between the Fifth Doctor and the First Doctor in the beginning and then the grand meet up of all the Doctors in the last fifteen minutes. But the vignettes are both well written and well acted. They are enjoyable both for those of us who have seen a lot of the past, and probably even more enjoyable for those who had seen very little of the First and Second, as would have applied to a lot of people when this was first broadcast in 1983.

I have two quibbles about the story overall, neither of which could really be helped at the time. First is the special effects. The production team is trying hard but the story is very ambitious for 1983 capabilities. You can gloss over it by in large, but there are a few moments where you wince a little when you see what actually shows up.

The second is the companion utilization. The story was ambitious in trying to bring back whomever they could but when Tom Baker bowed out, that created a bit of a hurdle. Tegan and Turlough were the companions at the time so they were givens. That Susan would come back with the First Doctor was also obvious. I don't know for certain, but I'm guessing that the original plan had been for the Fourth Doctor to be with Sarah Jane, the Third Doctor with the Brigadier, and then have the Second Doctor with Jamie. But when the Fourth Doctor was unrealized, things got shuffled and because it was so important to keep Sarah Jane and the Brigadier in prominent roles, Jamie got relegated to a bit part with Zoe.

As I said before, the pairings worked well because of the quality of the writing, but the Second Doctor only interacted with the Brigadier in The Web of Fear, The Invasion and The Three Doctors where the Third Doctor spent nearly his entire time in the company of the Brigadier. Likewise, Sarah Jane was the Third Doctor's companion for his final season but then spent an additional two seasons as the Fourth Doctor's companion. It worked, but it would have worked better if the full compliment of the Doctors was there.

Two other small notes on the companions. Swapping out Susan for Tegan in the First Doctor's march to the tower worked very well. Playing up the sexism of the 1960's in the form of the First Doctor's personality and then meshing that with an independently minded Tegan was quite amusing. The downside of that was that Susan was once again relegated to do nothing status, much like her original time on the series. It's my understanding that originally the Fifth Doctor would have been too weak and would have stayed in the TARDIS so Susan and Turlough would have been looking after him and it would have been the Fourth Doctor to head back to the Panopticon with the Master's recall device. But as it was, the Fifth Doctor goes and Turlough and Susan have to babysit the TARDIS while the Cybermen prepare to bomb it. I would have at least like to see Susan talk about engaging the HADS system since she should have been aware of it. It would have given her and Turlough something to do instead of staring at a screen and looking helpless.

All that said, this was a fun story and if I wasn't already fairly well versed in First and Second Doctor stories, I would have appreciated it even more. There are a few warts, but not enough to detract from my overall enjoyment of it. Nor to make me hesitate from pulling it out for another watch.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5