Who Review: The Three Doctors

Strange lights, disappearances, and the sudden appearance of deadly blobby creatures capture the attention of U.N.I.T., but it’s not just on Earth that weird things are happening. The home planet of the Time Lords is experiencing a critical power drainage, and the source seems to be a black hole. With all their resources tied up on the problem, the Time Lords send the Doctor’s second incarnation into the Third Doctor’s time stream to help him figure out what’s going on. However, their constant bickering requires the intervention of a third party: the First Doctor. But he is caught in a time eddy and can only appear on the TARDIS scanner. Nevertheless, he is able to get his two other selves cooperating. They determine that the blobs are energy creatures chasing after him. The only way to get to the source of the blobs is to allow himself to be captured. But the world they are entering is controlled by an evil genius that might be more than a match for even three Doctors…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

As 1973 approached, those astute minds behind Doctor Who realized this would be the tenth anniversary year. How to celebrate? Why not have a story that brings all three of the Doctors together! So script editor Terrance Dicks, and producer Barry Letts, called in Bob Baker and Dave Martin (who had previously penned “The Claws of Axos” and “The Mutants”) to come up with a script. They contrived the black hole crisis as a way to force the Time Lords to break the laws of time and get the Doctors together. Initially the First Doctor was going to be running around with his two successors, however illness meant that William Hartnell couldn’t sustain the stress of the shooting schedule. Terrance Dicks, therefore, rewrote the script to allow Hartnell a cameo part, appearing on the TARDIS scanner to guide his other selves.

The story gets mixed reviews from the fans, but on the whole I like it. One interesting creative decision was to have a Time Lord villain other than the Master. Instead, they introduce us to Omega, a Time Lord of legend, who gave up his freedom so that the Time Lords could have the energy they needed for time travel. They thought he had died in the supernova Omega created to provide this power, but he had in fact been trapped in an antimatter universe, where everything that exists does so by the power of his will. By tapping into the black hole’s singularity, Omega is able to convert matter into a form that can exist within his antimatter world. That’s how the Doctors (and Jo, and the Brig, and Benton, et al.) are able to be there. Omega’s plan for revenge centers on convincing the Doctor to take over sustaining this world so he can be free to leave.

I think the resolution to the story was cleverly executed. After the TARDIS and U.N.I.T. HQ is transported to the antimatter world, the Second Doctor complains that he can’t find his recorder. After this he periodically makes mention that he wants to find his recorder. His almost childish attachment to the instrument seems a bit pointless, until we get to episode four, and we see that the Second Doctor’s recorder had fallen into the TARDIS’s force field generator. In there, it was protected from the antimatter conversion, so it was still matter. When Omega knocks it out of the force field generator, it destroys Omega’s world–but not before the Doctors jump in the TARDIS and escape, of course.

That brings me to some of the story’s weak points. First, in reality, I doubt the Doctors would have had time to escape in the TARDIS once the matter recorder interacted with the antimatter world. But that’s where the “fiction” in “science fiction” kicks in. After all, it would hardly be a good birthday celebration if they killed off the Doctor.

Also, when the Doctor discovers that the blobby creatures are after him, his first thought is to escape Earth in the TARDIS to draw them away. How would he have done this? He’s still exiled to Earth. The only way he has been able to travel in the TARDIS before now was either because the Time Lords controlled the TARDIS, or he hopped a ride with the Master’s TARDIS. And then, later in the story, the Doctors travel to Omega’s place in the TARDIS. How? Did Omega control the TARDIS? If we’re being consistent, the Doctor certainly couldn’t have done it.

When the Doctor takes on Omega in a battle of wills, we see the Third Doctor and Omega wrestle. Literally. I thought this very strange. Why couldn’t it have been a mental battle, like the Fourth Doctor will do with Morbius in a later story? Making it an actual, physical fight makes no sense to me. These are two scientists, not WWE wrestlers duking it out.

On the plus side, “The Three Doctors” is a good Jo and Benton story. Jo shows initiative and comes up with some helpful ideas. Benton shows himself to be a good U.N.I.T. soldier, able to accommodate the strange things happening, and not lose his head. It appears Fraser Hines had been asked to reprise his role as Jamie McCrimmon, the Second Doctor’s long-standing companion. However, Hines’s schedule prevented him appearing, so Benton got a lot of Jamie’s lines. Shame. It would have been fun to have Jamie in the mix.

I also noted that the Second Doctor offers the Brigadier a jelly baby. Was this the first time the Fourth Doctor’s confection of choice was mentioned? I don’t recall, but since we’re only a few years from the Fourth Doctor’s first appearance, I think this is significant.

Finally, I liked the ending, with Ollis and his wife. After all the sci-fi shenanigans and explanations, this was a nice exchange. “Where have you been?” “You’d never believe me woman. Supper ready?” 🙂

While not the best Who story, I would call it must-see Who. After all, it’s the first anniversary special, and the first (and last) time we see Hartnell, Troughton, and Petwee together, so it’s a significant piece of Who history. Also, the squabbling between Troughton and Pertwee is priceless. They play off each other so well, it’s a shame we have to wait another ten years to see them together again.