The Three Doctors

Doctor Who managed to overcome the problem of how to survive after the lead actor left with immense creativity. Yet there must have still been some who missed Patrick Troughton and some (many of whom were now adults) who still remembered William Hartnell fondly. Both groups wondered what ‘their’ Doctor would have made of their successors and the start of the tenth season gave these fans what they had been hoping for. It is this aspect of the story that must be looked at first. There is a plot, but the plot is not the point of this story. There is a guest cast, but only two of them really matter. This is about fondly looking at the past, about younger siblings bonding with their older ones, of parents watching a programme with their children for exactly the same reason.

From the second he materialises, Patrick Troughton plays the Doctor like he’d never been away. Whatever the quality of the story (and he was in quite a few stinkers) Troughton was never less than excellent as the Doctor. His interpretation of the Doctor as someone who acted the fool in order to get his enemies to underestimate him makes an interesting contrast with the more diplomatic, yet confrontational Doctor as played by Jon Pertwee. The interaction between the two of them is utterly fantastic and is enough to make this story worth watching on its own. Then, of course, there is William Hartnell. One thing I have come to realise in this little project of mine is that the Hartnell era was the best, one of the many reasons for which being Hartnell’s consistently outstanding performance. Unfortunately, Hartnell’s declining health led to him having a very restricted role in the story. The fact that his performance is still thoroughly convincing despite the fact that he was reading from cue cards is testament to the great skill of the actor. Even in such a limited capacity, it is truly joyous seeing William Hartnell as Doctor Who for the last time.

The script by Bob Baker and Dave Martin is very interesting. The Time Lords are having their power drained into a universe of anti-matter. The culprit is discovered to be Omega, a stellar engineer who created the immense power source needed to fuel time travel, but trapping himself in a black hole in the process. The only option for the Time Lords is to pit the three Doctors against Omega, and the denizens of the anti-matter universe that he has created. Baker/Martin scripts usually demand a great deal on the production side and one can imagine what Cardiff today could do with anti-matter creatures, black holes and singularities and the like. It is, therefore, remarkable that the visualisation of Omega and his world is (although far from ideal) capable of suspending our disbelief. The Gel-Guards are, of course, utterly rubbish, with their ridiculous appearance and the ridiculous ‘blobby-blobby’ noises they make. However, although the sets are a bit garish, they are reasonably effective. The realisation of the singularity as a column of smoke works well- we are in Omega’s world and can accept such figurative realisations better. The success of the visual side is also helped by the fact that Lennie Mayne directs. Mayne never let the fact that he was working on a tiny budget in a television studio stop him from creating interesting shots and compositions. The one creative decision I find fault with is that we only see Hartnell on a TV screen by shooting the screen itself and we never see the actual footage shot of Hartnell on its own.

The regulars are on good form. Katy Manning seems to mesh well with Mayne’s directorial style and Benton is given much more to do than usual, which John Levene takes full advantage of. There has been much criticism of the treatment of the Brigadier’s character, but I found that to mainly refer to the scene where UNIT HQ is transported to Omega’s world. In the rest of the story, the Brig is resourceful and shows great humanity in the scene where they have to part with the Doctors. Stephen Thorne brings a great deal of energy into the role of Omega, together with some amount of pathos. His shouting is sometimes ineffective, though.

This story is hugely enjoyable throughout, well worth investing 100 minutes in!

NEXT: Carnival of Monsters