Doctor Who fans it's been well over a month since we last spoke and well I thought that i'd spend the next few days talking about the programme that we all love. Since we are just a few short years away from the shows sixtieth anniversary it seemed oddly right that I take a look back at one of the previous anniversary specials which is also the only anniversary special that I own on DVD and so here is my review of "The Five Doctors" enjoy.
The plot of this feature length special is that someone is recruiting all of The Doctor's past lives and forcing them to play a deadly game and it's up to The Doctor's to find out who recruited them and what there goal is. In all honesty the plot is honestly really good and it does a good job of bringing the doctors and the companions together in a way that feels natural and it helps that the story is generally interesting.
Playing The Doctor are Peter Davison as The Fifth Doctor , Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor , Jon Pertwee as The Third Doctor , Patrick Troughton as The Second Doctor and both Richard Hurndall and William Hartnell as The First Doctor. Now even tho Richard does play the first doctor for the special there is a clip shown at the start of the episode with William Hartnell in the role and so that was why i chose to credit him as the character and I credited Tom Baker because he does appear in archive footage.
Also starring in this episode is Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka , Mark Strickson as Vislor Turlough , Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman , the late Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the late Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. Also starring in the episode are Anthony Ainley as The Master , Philip Latham as Lord President Borusa , Dinah Sheridan as Chancellor Flavia , Paul Jerricho as The Castellan , David Banks as The Cyber Leader , Mark Hardy as The Cyber Lieutenant , Richard Mathews as Rassilon , Frazer Hines as Jamie , Wendy Padbury as Zoe , David Savile as Colonel Crichton , Caroline John as Liz Shaw , Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates , John Leeson as The Voice of K9 and Roy Skelton as The Voice Of The Daleks.
As for what I thought about the acting in the episode I honestly thought that it was really good with all of the actors playing The Doctor doing a good job of putting across what there doctor is like. Even Richard Hurndall who has to do an impression of William Hartnell still manages to turn in a solid performance , the same thing can also be said for this episodes guest cast who are given alot to work with in the script and are able to give a truly solid performance.
As you all no doubt noticed when I was doing the cast list for this episode there are alot of companions that are brought back and while alot of them do get on screen explanations as to where they are in life at least for the past companions there is one that doesn't. That being Susan which is a shame because her character really needed one since when we last saw her she was in the future with her future husband and it would have been nice to see what her life is like now but nope we don't get any of that whatsoever.
Now alot of the praise that gave both the script and the story is due to the fact that it was written by the late and great Terrance Dicks. This man is a genius he knows how to craft a good story which while it is the first lesson in writing it's something that not alot of writers seem to do and it helps here that his concepts and ideas not only live up to what he sets up in the story but are also really interesting and leave you wanting more I honestly want to see and hear more about this death zone it is a good idea but sadly I don't think there are any plans to bring this concept back in someway shape or form.
As well as having several doctors and companions feature in the special this special also features a few classic foes which apart from The Master all of them are there for fanservice and nothing more. You could remove the scene with the Dalek and nothing would be lost and you remove the scene with the Cybermen trying to blow up the TARDIS and again nothing would be lost while you can't remove the Cybermen entirely since they do play a part in the third act you can cut down on alot of there useless scenes.
As an anniversary episode this special does hold up really well since it doesn't really require you to do any homework. Which is a good thing because it can then just go about celebrating all of the aspects of the show and show us what made us fall in love with the show in the first place and that's sadly something that alot of Doctor Who anniversary specials don't do at least in my opinion they don't anyways.
Now this episode is I believe to be to the first episode in the classic era to be over an hour long with the final running time being just over an hour and a half long. Which for an anniversary special it's something that is really needed because you have to reintroduce all of these characters have them meet up and still tell a good story which is something that you really cannot do in the standard twenty five minuet running time but with that said this episode does drag on a bit near the end as such I do feel that the ending could have been trimmed down a bit.
Overall this isn't that bad of a special I don't know if it's a fan favourite or not but I honestly hope that it is since it's that good. Yes there are some bad things about the special alot of which i've mentioned in this review but for me alot of those issues while they are issues that can be fixed easily with a rewrite of the script they don't take away from my overall enjoyment of the episode as such this episode gets an 8.5 out of 10 from me.
All images used in this review were gathered from either the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page or Google Images. Yeah honestly I can't recommend either website for high definition when it comes to this episode just because there really aren't any but at the same time there are some high definition images there and son I have to say feel free to use either website and yes the above picture is a huge clue as to my next review.