Saturday Night Showcase> The Five Doctors (Who)

“The Five Doctors” is my favorite of the Classic Who crossovers. For one it debuts my favorite TARDIS console and my favorite classic Doctor, the Fifth. It also brings all the Doctors that existed together…or at least tried to. William Hartnell had passed away at this point, his role taken over by Richard Hurdnall. He does a fair job as the Doctor but he’s not the same as Hartnell. He’s taller and his performance isn’t trying to emulate Hartnell. So based on your opinion on that you’ll have to decide if you’re okay with it. To their credit, he’s not a bad Doctor and we do get the scene where he says goodbye to Susan, the “one day I’ll come back” part matching up with the character at least coming back. It’s a nice tribute.

We also don’t get Tom Baker’s return. Due to scheduling conflicts, Baker was unable to attend. Even in promotional images they used a wax mannequin in place of Baker, and you can tell if you see a good enough quality picture. Instead, footage from the then unfinished “Shada” was used to show the Fifth’s abduction with Romana, with something going wrong for our villain as it did getting the First Doctor into the previous incarnations. Originally unfinished due to strikes, the episode would later get a video release with Baker narrating the unfilmed parts, and years later would get a semi-animated completion thanks to Cosgrove Hall, who already did the lost episode remakes, filling in the gaps with as many of the same actors as they could get. Also, Baker doesn’t seem to like having his Doctor work with others, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of it.

The story: someone is taking the previous lives of the Fifth Doctor, sending them and fan favorite Companions (though some have a different way of making a cameo) to the “Dead Zone” on Gallifrey. Who is behind this, and can the current Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough bring the other Doctors together? Enjoy.

It was nice to see the Brigadier, but he did more with the Third Doctor even though he debuted with the Second. Maybe Second and Jaime, as they were a great pairing and we would get more of Troughton and Frazer Hines, but there’s always our next crossover to try again. The Brigadier would show up in the Seventh Doctor episode “Battlefield” where he finally gets to kill a monster with a bullet. A special bullet, but given his years dealing with bulletproof monsters, he’ll take it. It should have been the last appearance, but sadly it’s one where he’s turned into a Cyberman but retains his free will somehow. A better showing was an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

By the way, Sarah Jane was supposed to be the one who does the “teeth and curls” line, but Pertwee really wanted to say it. It’s too bad Baker couldn’t show up. Both Sara Jane and Tegan travelled with the Fourth Doctor and I’m sure they’d have stories for Romana, who would go on to become the President of Gallifrey in extended media.

Next time we have one more crossover. This time all the Doctors listed will show up. Which given that they only brought out two, is a good thing. That’d be a hard one to lie through.