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Doctor Who - The Five Doctors
episode 130
UK 1983
produced by John Nathan-Turner for BBC
directed by Peter Moffatt
starring Peter Davison, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Richard Hurndall, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Elisabeth Sladen, Carole Ann Ford, Nicholas Courtney, Anthony Ainley, Philip Latham, Dinah Sheridan, Paul Jerrico, David Banks, Mark Hardy, Richard Mathews, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Caroline John, Richard Franklin, David Savile, John Leeson (voice), Roy Skelton (voice), John Scott Martin, Stuart Blake, Stephen Meredith, Ray Float, John Tallents, William Kenton, Keith hodiak, Tom Baker (archive footage), William Hartnell (archive footage), Lalla Ward (archive footage)
written by Terrance Dicks, Cybermen created by Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis, Daleks created by Terry Nation
TV-series Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Peter Davison), Doctor Who (Jon Pertwee), Doctor Who (Patrick Troughton), Doctor Who (classic series), The Master, The Master (Anthony Ainley), Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sarah Jane Smith, Cybermen, K9 (cameo), Liz Shaw (cameo), Daleks (cameo)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Some evil whatever plucks four of the five regenerations of Doctor Who
(Peter Davison, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, Richard Hurndall) out of
their respective timestreams and places them in the Death Zone of the
Doctor's home planet Gallifrey, together with a bunch of companions (Janet
Fielding as Tegan, Mark Strickson as Turlough, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah
Jane, Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier, Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor's
daughter Susan) and his arch enemies, the Cybermen. For some reason, the
Timelords (= the Doctor's people) are getting totally worked up about this
(even though they hardly gave a ratfart about the Doctor before), so they
have the good idea to send the Doctor's other arch enemy, the
Master (Anthony Ainley) to the Death Zone to save him. Somehow, the latest
version of the Doctor, number five (Peter Davison) gets hold of the
master's teleportation device and teleports out of the Death Zone to
Gallifrey's high council, while the other Doctors and their companions
make their way to the Tomb of Rassilon, where they hope to find the
answers to their questions and a way to get out of the Zone. Soon, they
get to the last resting place of Rassilon, where an inscription promises
them immortality. Doctor number five does a bit of investigating and
finds out there mast be a traiter within the high council - who is soon
enough presented to him on a silver platter in the person of the Castellan
(Paul Jerrico) ... who is conveniently shot though before he can be
questioned. The Doctor soon comes to the conclusion that the Castellan was
too tailor-made a suspect to be the culprit, ande soon enough he suspects
president Borusa (Philip Latham) to be the real baddie of the piece ...
and he wants Rassilon's immortality, and thus teleports to his resting
place with the fifth Doctor to force everyone to let him become immortal. In
the end, he gets what he wants, but Rassilon (Richard Mathews) always had
a bit of a mean but fair streak to him, and he makes Borusa one of his
tomb's petrified guardians. All the rest of the cast are allowed to return
to their old lives ... A TV-special created to celebrate the
20th birthday of Doctor Who, a special that was basically
created to bring as many of the series' regulars as possible and all of
the actors who have ever played the Doctor together - which failed first
and foremost because of the five actors who played the lead one - William
Hartnell - was already dead and substituted not all that greatly by
Richard Hurndall, while another - fan favourite Tom Baker - had no
interest in appearing (which is why the title in itself is misleading). This
however is not the main problem of The Five Doctors, the main
problem is that the whole story is terribly over-crowded on one hand and
very feeble on the other. Plus, there is no real reason to involve all
these people, one of the Doctors would have been quite enough, especially
because other aspects of the story could have been fleshed out much better
as a consequence. As it is though, the whole story is a terrible
hode-podge that offers nothing above and beyond an almost tiring
collection of the series' stars, and it sadly lacks the humour to carry
such an event even - humour that unfortunately had left the series pretty
much altogether with the advent of the 1980's. Not worht your while,
even if you're a Doctor Who-fan.
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