Review of 'Doctor Who: The Five Doctors', 30th Anniversary Special

Now, some of you will be reading this and straight away thinking, "This man's insane! One minute he's telling us about the latest speculation of 'Human Nature' with David Tennant and now he's going all retro again to a long-forgotten Doctor Who story of more than TEN YEARS AGO!!".

Ah, my friends, I am quite sane I assure you. Why dismiss what is part of a long-running and classic period of Doctor Who history? Why criticise the BBC's effort in bringing together the Doctors of the peiod to celebrate the magnificence of what, effectively, we still have today? And anyway, this was more my era of Doctor Who.

But why I wanted to write this was that it was the first time I watched this the other day. And HOW it contrasts with what we have NOW is incredible in SO MANY WAYS!

First things first though. Yes, it actually wasn't that great a Doctor Who story. Rather slow-moving and somewhat plot-less and an ending that was just a little predictable. Has to be said.

But it was, in OTHER ways, a really GREAT Doctor Who story. Just think! For anyone who had not seen Doctor Who before, it gave so MANY things. We got to see Daleks (well, ONE Dalek anyway!), Cybermen and a strange thing called a Yeti (from the Patrick Troughton era). AND we had a new Doctor Who adversary called a 'Raston Warrior Robot'. Not sure if this is a Good Guy or bad-to-the-bone Bad Guy, or if its main function in life is to kill everything that moves (which it does with incredible speed and menace). But it was a great new creature. Wikipedia says it is found only in the Gallifrey Death Zone, so if that is the case then it is surely no more since Gallifrey is gone forever. But maybe someone could revive it! ...... Or maybe it is just too deadly to be useful. Anyway, GREAT to see it!

It was also my first look at Patrick Troughton playing The Doctor on screen. And oh, I wish I could see more of his Doctor Who adventures. Totally superb - a Doctor with ATTITUDE, knowledge and a complete oversized fur coat (which is maybe a bit non-PC these days!). All a great Doctor Who should be with that essential mixture of wisdom and manicness and, to some extent, dominance. HOW could you compare THAT with a wimp of a Doctor like Peter Davison or, worse still, Colin Baker?? Doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

But the Tardis!! It was not MY first look at the original Tardis layout, but WAS my son's. And he COULDN'T BELIEVE what he saw! And nor could I given the magnificence of the current 21st century look.

Looking at that old Tardis control room, the first thing that strikes you is HOW LITLE SPACE they had! I mean, you just WOULD NOT have David Tennant jumping around or going manic rushing around the controls in THAT old-style console. The cameras wouldn't keep up!! And get this - they used to have sometimes two Doctor Who companions in that small space - even THREE on a few occasions. AND even K9 in Tom Baker years gliding around. Ah, but how could K9 get IN to the modern Tardis? He couldn't! HOW could he go up the steps? It's that old Dalek problem again!

Another thing which is a huge contract is, of course, the central column of the Tardis. The part which moves up and down in flight. Old Tardis: a simple up-down movement. New Tardis: the central console goes ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILING and contains the up-down moving column! And then there's the decoration as a whole. Old Tardis: white, white, and more WHITE with cut-out holes around the walls - some of which double as windows to the outside world. New Tardis doesn't have these, and the walls are that much further away from the centre of the room anyway. All visions of the outside world are from the computer screen on the central console. This, in retrospect, is a but limited for us, the viewers since we have to go out to see what's going on. But it doesn't seem to have mattered up until now.

And then there's the sets, of course. The Five Doctors was filmed mostly on location on Dartmoor, Southwest England - the outdoor shots anyway. That was quite unusual for Doctor Who at that time unlike now where the majority of it is still done out of the studio (though the percentage of that is, I feel, getting less). The indoor stuff in the 'caves' did, I have to say, look a bit hammy and unstable like one push might bring it all down. Well, to be fair, I guess I'm talking mainly about the mirror caves which the First Doctor came into. But the final sequences where they are all at the Tomb Of Rassilon were quite nicely done, although very retro in feel. I'd just like to know how they'd do all that using the CGI and green screen that we have now.

And the COSTUMES OF THE TIME LORDS - particularly the Time Lord guards. "Where did you get that hat?". 'Nuff said! Yes, another great moment in Doctor Who dress-sense history!

Back to the story. When I read about it on Wikipedia, it seemed very long and I couldn't imagine how they could keep all that going on screen. But happy to say that the TV version went along at a good enough pace and all the parts that Wikipedia so laboured over actually proceeded more quickly that in the text version. Yes, as much as I love the Wikipedia for holding all that info, I do find sometimes that its descriptions are a bit longer and more-drawn out than need be. But just glad it's there!

I said at the start that the story itself was not the best part of the whole thing. Well, maybe in today's more condensed Dr Who pace it would have been whipped through a bit quicker. Really though, I think the anniversary was just a good excuse for bringing out the best Doctor Who monsters (Daleks and Cybermen), for reuniting the five Docs and, of course, for bringing together for the first time many Doctor Who companions old and new (with the NOTABLE omission of Jo Grant!). It was more than just a PITY than Tom Baker refused to be included at the time (he was said to regret this later) because, he said, it was too close to his departure from the series to be sensible. His inclusion would have been the Icing On The Cake, but there you go. But his absence did mean that Katy Manning (Jo Grant) could not be included as she had no Time Lord to be paired with. SHE was my first Doctor Who assistant that I remember! And an excellent screamer too when the time was right only matched by Sarah Jane Smith after her. Yes, it was nice to see them all working together to sort it all out.

Peter Davison had, I suppose, the main Doctorly role since he was the current Doctor of the time. And this spoiled it rather as I never liked him as Doctor Who anyway! He just never showed any emotion. Even when he discovered the tune that he had to play on the harp he reacted rather - well, EMPTILY I thought! People say that he was a more vulnerable Doctor Who character than others and that was what made him. But he just could not express himself well and did little to make the Doctor Who character of his era memorable. It was, I suppose, the beginning of the decline of the original series - after all, Tom Baker was an incredibly hard act to follow. I often wonder why he was cast. Patrick Troughton, it seems recommended him but told him not to stay more than three years - LONG years as it turned out!

Overall then, thinking about it all as a whole, I think that it IS worth watching for the joy of seeing the retro side of Doctor Who and to see all these Doctor Who actors of old coming together. Have I mentioned Jon Pertwee before now? Sorry Jon! YOU were great too, and you were my first Doctor (just about!). I would say that if you haven't seen this, then you should make an effort to do so because it has a lot to offer.