Serial 5K, in one (long) part
Written by: Terrance Dicks
Produced by: John-Nathan Turner
Directed by: Peter Moffatt
"I was asked to play the First Doctor because John Nathan-Turner, producer of Doctor Who, saw me as Nebrox in Blake's 7 and thought I looked very like William Hartnell. I remembered William's approach to the part very well and decided it would be stupid to try and 'mimic' him, so I hope I split the difference between his performance - his personality - and mine." - Richard Hurndall, quoted in The Handbook: The First Doctor by Howe, Stammers, and Walker (Virgin: 1994).
"Yes, The Five Doctors is the one that gathers together Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker and Davison, dumps them on some moorland and lets some of the Doctor's greatest enemies take potshots at them..." - from a succinct online summary by Roger Thomas.
The Five Doctors is a somewhat misleading title. Tom Baker doesn’t appear in the episode, aside from a few minutes of witty stock footage from the unbroadcast episode Shada. William Hartnell had died some years before The Five Doctors was filmed, so the role of the First Doctor is played by a stand-in, Richard Hurndall. The only “genuine” Doctors in the episode are Peter Davison, Jon Pertwee, and Patrick Troughton, which according to my math makes three.
Though the episode doesn’t have quite enough Doctors, it compensates with a glut of companions and villains. The Daleks, the Cybermen, and the Yeti all pop up to menace the Doctor before being killed off in various amusing ways. The Brigadier, Sarah Jane, and Jamie take part – to name but a few – and Carol Ann Ford reprises her role as Susan, the only genuine character from the First Doctor’s era to appear in the episode.
The swarm of cameos creates an electric “everything but the kitchen sink” atmosphere that eclipses any kind of solid plot or characterization. Writer Terrance Dicks piles on the action and the nostalgia, glossing over the lack of substance in the story. As in the recent The Sirens of Time, the Doctors are kept apart until the closing scenes of the episode, which I personally think is a disappointing waste of opportunity.
The Troughton segments are the funniest. His interplay with the Brigadier is both affectionate and sarcastic, perfectly suggesting that they have, to borrow a famous phrase, a beautiful friendship. Pertwee’s segments are action-oriented and thus less interesting, especially since the action scenes in Sylvester McCoy’s later episodes are more accomplished. Peter Davison has the unenviable job of moving the plot along, as he gets bogged down at length in a Gallifreyan conference room.
The revelation of Borusa as the “surprise” villain doesn’t really work. Because he’s played by a different actor in each of his four appearances, it’s hard for me to think of him as the same character I’ve seen before. One consistent thing about Borusa’s portrayal before The Five Doctors was that he was a pretty straight arrow – certainly in The Invasion of Time and Arc of Infinity he’s a good guy without any megalomaniacal ambitions. So, to suddenly turn him into a ranting villain makes very little sense to me.
There’s not too much here to interest Hartnell fans, since the First Doctor is not faithfully written or acted. I know some fans who dislike the First Doctor just on the basis of watching The Five Doctors, which is pretty silly; the First Doctor ain’t in it.
A good "popcorn" episode and a logical choice for DVD release, The Five Doctors will amuse fans and non-fans alike by condensing every famous element of Doctor Who into a neat, 90-minute package.
OVERALL RATING: B
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