As Doctor Who prepares for its 50th anniversary in 2013, the tribute to the late Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen finds itself in 1973, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the show with The Three Doctors. With Sladen was still one season away from joining Doctor Who, the serial features not only Courtney as the stalwart Brigadier Alastair-Lethbridge Stewart, but Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell reprising their iconic roles.
The venerable Time Lords are so worried by a sudden and mysterious energy drain on Gallifrey (unnamed in the serial) that they resort to the unthinkable - summoning two of the Doctor's past incarnations to help him. The Doctors realize that the power is being siphoned through a black hole, and the only way to stop it before it neutralizes the Time Lords and puts the entire universe in danger is to follow it back to its source. What they find proves so challenging and overwhelming that not even The Three Doctors can stop it.
The Doctor, I presume?
Not every television show has the luxury of being on the air for 10 years, and The Three Doctors is the first on-screen celebration of Doctor Who's longevity. There were other such celebrations to come - The Five Doctors followed 10 years later, among other multi-Doctor stories later - but the concept was still novel back in '73, and it let Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton have a blast playing the same character.
Camp and Comedy In All The Wrong Places
Also enjoying himself is Stephen Thorne as Omega, given full license to ham up the role to his heart's content. Thorne's background in stage and radio made for a villain too camp to be taken very seriously - we're told time and again that Omega is "one of the most powerful beings in the cosmos", but all the ranting and raving about his power makes him sound like any other foe the Doctor encountered, or would encounter.
That's why Omega's deadpan "Are you sure that you and he are of the same intelligence?" - one of the few times he can be taken seriously - to the Doctor's "All you've got to do is think of a thing, rub your magic lamp over there and shally-me-gally-me-zoop, there it is? That's jolly clever", is the single best moment in the serial. In one fell swoop, we have what made Patrick Troughton such a delight in the role, and Omega actually being tolerable.
Long Live the Brigadier
While the Doctors are the guests of honor, Jo Grant is on the losing end, still being the same helpless companion she was from previous stories. Nicholas Courtney fares significantly better, giving Lethbridge-Stewart the perfect mix of confusion and frustration for just the right amount of comic effect. Any time Lethbridge-Stewart rolls his eyes at the horror of dealing with more than one Doctor, or stoically insisting that he's still in England - Cromer, to be precise - it's clear why Courtney became one of the most popular supporting Doctor Who cast members of all time.
The Rough Edges of The 1970s
Not everything about The Three Doctors works as well. The special effects are considerably poor, and Omega's aliens could be the star of a documentary called What Passed For Aliens On a 70's Budget. The slow motion fight with "the dark side of [Omega's] mind" is a low point, as is Omega's declaration that his mind has a "dark side", as though the threat to conquer the universe was suggestive of a healthy, normal psyche. The cherry on the 70's sci-fi camp cake is the "Contact" scenes between the three Doctors. At first, I wondered if there was no better way to show their telepathic communication; but then I rationed, if the improvement would have come from the same special effects methods as elsewhere in the episode, then maybe we're better off.
The Future Began Here
But the real strength of The Three Doctors comes from seeing Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton (and, in a limited capacity, William Hartnell) work together. It gives a sense that the people behind Doctor Who knew that they were on to something very special, something that would grow and flourish beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
Doctor Who, The Three Doctors: 4/10. Marginally let down by the camp and special effects of the 1970s, but the serial is a fitting celebration of the first decade of Doctor Who.
Michael Perera - The only rule in writing is honesty. If you're honest, the words will write themselves.
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