Doctor Who: The Five Doctors Review

Multi Doctor stories are a very rare thing as alot of the time they are saved for the big anniversary episodes of the show with there being one exception to this rule. With the shows most ambitious special at the very least when it comes to the amount of returning characters being the very episode that i'm going to be talking to you all about today and so then join me as I review the episode that really should have been called The Four Doctors with the episode in question being called simply just "The Five Doctors" enjoy.

The plot of this episode is when someone starts taking all pf the previous Doctors out of there own timeline and placing them on Gallifrey it's to the Fifth Doctor to team up with his previous selfs and work out what is actually going on before its far to late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With this episodes plot being epic enough to justify it being the plot for a special episode of the show let alone one that celebrates twenty years of the shows history. With it being helped by the fact that this episode was written by Terrence Dicks who wrote many Doctor Who episodes in the past alot of which are very well regarded with this episode being one of them. As the plot of this episode does feel like a timeless plot as it is one that could have been made during any era of the show and it would still work and while yes there are some faults with the plot like the fact that the Fifth Doctor does get lost in the shuffle despite him being the then current Doctor but on the whole given the fact that the show was being treated that greatly by the BBC at the time no one would have expected this episodes plot to be as good as it ended being and while yes there are certain aspects of the episodes plot that could have been done better like the big reveal of who the villain actually is the plot on the whole was one that was handled really well with the plot of this episode also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Starring in this episode is Peter Davison as The Doctor , Jon Pertwee as The Doctor and Patrick Troughton as The Doctor. Also starring in this episode is Richard Hurndall as The Doctor , Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka , Mark Strickson as Vislor Turlough , Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith , Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman , Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart , 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 A Cyber Lieutenant , Richard Mathews as Rassilon , Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon , Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot , Caroline John as Liz Shaw , Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates , David Savile as Colonel Crichton , John Leeson as The voice of K9 and Roy Skelton as The voice of the Dalek.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. The fact that this episode does have some good acting in it is something that is to be expected from this show as all you have to do is look at who us starring in this episode and you know right away that your going to be getting alot of really good acting in it as alot of this episodes are some really good actors in there won right. With the best actors in this episode oddly enough not being one of the actors playing The Doctor nor is it any of the actors playing the companions rather its Anthony Ainley as The Master as while Jon Pertwee does with ease slip back into his role and Richard Hurndall does a good enough job of mimicking what William Hartnell did as the character Anthony is clearly having the time of life in this episode with him and Peter Davidson just eating up all of the scenery in all of the scenes that they are in with it being helped by the fact that Anthony does have some really good chemistry with alot of the actors in this episode with the only thing that does let his acting down being the fact that he does play the role of The Master a bit to much like a Pantomime villain when he should been playing alot more seriously as this is something that would have helped with the more urgent nature of the episodes plot but at the same time it was still fun seeing him clearly having a blast in making this episode with that kind of infectious energy being something that really does shine through in his performance in this episode. With the acting in this episode really being helped by the fact that this episodes script is just so good that all this episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very episode.

In a move that is to be expected we do get alot of returning both interms of the shows hero characters and as well as some of the shows more well known villains. With The Yeti , Cybermen and of course The Daleks all making an appearance in this episode and while none of them get alot to do in the episode it is nice to see this episode tip its hat to to the foes that helped to make the show scary for little kids and out of those three characters its oddly enough the Cybermen and not the Daleks that get the biggest role in the episode as you would expect the Daleks to get more of the limelight given the fact that they are perhaps the most well known creature in Doctor Who but they just get the one scene in the whole episode and that's that whereas the Cybermen have an entire subplot with them trying to take over Gallifrey and destroy The Doctors TARDIS. It is weird that the makers of this episode would give the Cybermen the bigger roles to play in the episode as while they are just as well known as the Daleks it is the Daleks that did help to put this show on the map and therefor it would have been understandable if the makers of this episode did give them the bigger role of the episode and heck they could have had the Daleks and Cybermen switch roles and nothing would be altered about the plot of the episode with the only thing that the episode would need to explain being how they managed to climb up the rockface to take on the robot which even then you could very easily just revert that to the Cybermen, while it was great to see alot of the more well known monsters that the show has had it would have been nice to see alot of the more goofier monsters as well just to show that even tho the show did make alot of really good scary monsters there were also a few misfires like for example The Zarbi or The Macra for example both of which are things that could have been given the fact that the episode did have a bigger budget then the usual series of the show got. 

Just to be clear this review is being based on the version that is up on BBC IPlayer with this being mentioned because of the fact that they did make a few changes to the cut that was on the original DVD version of the episode. As in the original DVD version the Time Scoop went from looking like a triangle to an upside down twister that actually moved and the image that they use to represent Tom Baker is just from a random serial with both of these things being changed to now just having the original triangle back with the difference not being that we see a picture of whom ever it has captured and the image of Tom Baker now also featuring Lalla Ward which was taken oddly enough from Shada. This is something that does make sense as Shada was a mostly unfinished serial and therefor when Tom decided not to come back they could use some of that footage to explain why he and Romana weren't in the episode but here it does feel out of place as it does remind you that you could be watching that series and while yes the makers of this episode had there hands tied and did try to do the best that they could have done in that situation which is fair enough but whoever was in charge of the effects for this episode could have done alot more better job as the the effects used in the original DVD version where alot more better with it feeling like that the makers of that DVD did go out of there way to make the effects look better and make changes that worked for the serial. However that's not the only change made as for some odd reason the only piece of William Hartnell footage at the start of the episode has gone from being black and white to having this weird orange tinge over it which just looks at of place and while it doesn't detract from the episode in the slightest it is something that does stand out and was something that the BBC really didn't need to do as they already have the source material for that scene in there archives.

For some odd reason this episode does have alot of The Doctors and there respective companions not meet up until near the end of the episode. This is something that does feel weird as the whole point of these multi doctor stories is to see the various incarnations of The Doctor interacting with each other and yet it is something that the makers of this episode do hold off on showing us and while this is something that does make sense plot wise as the episode does explain that the Fifth Doctor was unable to send out a call that would alert all of the previous incarnations of where he is and we do see all of the other versions get scooped up and placed somewhere near a friend of theirs or in the case with the Second Doctor get scooped with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart therefor they would of course be unable to meet up with the Fifth Doctor, however if the First Doctor and Susan were able to do so just by luck then surely the rest of them should have been able to do so as well as then we could have had some banter between not only the Second and Third doctors but also the rest of them as well which is something that would have been quite fun to see yet for one reason or another the makers of this episode seemed bent on not giving us that as even when the First , Second and Third Doctors all meet up then then current Doctor gets put under a mind control with this whole episode leaving him feeling more like an afterthought when it should have been him that played a vital part in saving the day but on the flip side of that is the fact that having him be the one to get mind controlled is a great way to add tension to the episode as it does say to us the audience that if it could happen to him then it could happen to any of them and the episode doesn't really linger on it that much and even when the Fifth Doctor is away from the group he is still very much active in the main plot of the episode as he does find out who the true villain of the episode is.

Rather shockingly this episode does have a really creepy ending to it as when it is revealed that the main villain of this episode is Lord President Borusa with him getting The Doctors and there companions to play the deadly game of rassilon for him so that he can claim its prize of immortality. However Rassilon does flip this on his head as while he does make him immortal it's not in the way that he wanted as he turns him into a statue that appears on the side of Rassilons own tomb with this being something that the First Doctor had worked out and even told Rassilon that he does believe that Lord President Borusa should be made immortal as a way to defeat Borusa for good. This is something that is quite creepy as we do get to see the three faces of the other people that have tried to make this claim before now on the side of his tomb and while Doctor Who has never and will never shy away from showing us scary images it is still something that is creepy to look at as all of the faces are human with us being able to see there eyes moving with the whole thing being such a creative and creepy image, with it even being a tragic end for Borusa as did technically get his wish of wanting immortality it's just that no one will ever get to see him again and heck this is an images that does make you wonder why the makers of this episode didn't try to include more creepy visuals like this one in the show as it is something that the show is known for doing with the whole thing being more then creepy enough that it will get people diving head first behind the sofa as it were. Yet this type of scare is something that could only have worked with a master writer like Terence Dicks as with any one else it would have just fell flat on it's face but with him doing it both the scare and the mystery as whom the main villain even is work really well as he does have a clear love of all things science fiction.

Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and thirty minuets and twenty three seconds. With this episode being a feature length special episode of the show and was for the longest time the only episode of this show to have that kind of running time until the 1996 Doctor Who: The Movie as while there have been other serials that have reached that running time those were exactly that serials this one is just the one episode and by god it really did need that running time as it does have so many characters to both reintroduce and introduce and still have to tell a good story and it wouldn't be able to do any of those things in a shorter running time or even if it did go back to the serial format of the show as something would eventually get lost in the shuffle with the episode having more then enough plot there to really cover that amount of running time. Yet even with this in mind the episode still doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as the episode doesn't take the time to fully develop its plot as the episode does have perhaps a bit to much to do interms of reintroduce the previous versions of The Doctor which is understandable as he is the main character of the show but then the episode does waste alot of time in also reintroducing alot of the companions as well and that's before they even get the plot of the episode properly started with it feelin like that this episode would have been alot more better of if the episode was a little bit longer as while the episode does try to add in things that are key to plot like both the Third and Fifth Doctors turning down The Masters help that idea can't be fully developed as the episode is alot more focused on showing us how each of The Doctors and most of the companions got captured in the first place. This is something that does kind of effect the episodes characters development as while alot of the episodes characters don't really need character development as alot of them either will get or already did get there development in other episodes of the show it still would have been nice to show characters like the Time Lords getting some character development or even one of the versions of The Doctor getting some character development but the episode does seem more focused on showing us The Doctor turning down The Masters help twice in a row that it does leave very little time for the characters to get any kind of character development but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.  

So now then as this is an action show that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in his very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally tought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / resented t us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. While classic Doctor Who never really had the time or money to give us alot of really exciting like the more modern episodes of the show do we did still get some really good action and while the action in this episode is still pretty good it does oddly feel like that the makers of this episode are either being held back for whatever reason or are holding themselves back as alot of the time this episodes action just isn't as exciting as it should have been. With the best action scene in the whole episode being when Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart sneaks up on The Master who is holding the four Doctors hostage at gun point and just flat out punches him knocking him out cold and whole that might not seem like much it is something that does make The Brigadier look like a total bada*s as nine times out of ten it was always either The Doctor defeating the foe or The Doctor tricking the foe into defeating themselves it was never really The Brigadier doing it and therefor to see him be the one the knocks out The Maser does remind us that this person is an action man essentially and while it of course would have been nice to see any one of the The Doctors be the ones to knock him having it be The Brigadier is one that does oddly make alot of sense for his character with some of the episodes action being just as good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Overall this is a really good special that did honor Doctor Who's then twenty year legacy with there technically being a Doctor from every decade at that point in time and while The Day Of The Doctor is the better made special this one does have its own charms to it that do work really well for the episode in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I person ally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Amazon . Co . Uk , IMP Awards . Com and Tardis . Wiki. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very post being the really great Tardis . Wiki really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Tardis . Wiki really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.