TV Review: Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983)

Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983) written by Terrance Dicks and directed by Peter Moffatt

The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) experiences some cosmic illness and is sucked back to the Time Lords' home world of Gallifrey. But not to just any part of Gallifrey--he's been pulled into the Death Zone. The Death Zone is an ancient area where combatants were placed to provide gladiator-style entertainment. The Zone was sealed off by Rassilon, a Time Lord with great powers and an even greater moral sense. As it happens, not only is the Fifth Doctor hijacked, but also the First Doctor (played by Richard Hurndall, replacing the late William Hartnell), the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), and the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee). The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) is also kidnapped but he gets trapped in the time vortex and does not arrive on Gallifrey.The four Doctors travel to the Dark Tower at the heart of the Death Zone. The Tower is Rassilon's tomb, a place that legendarily can grant amazing powers.

The other Time Lords see the disturbance of the Doctor's timeline and send in the Master (Anthony Ainley) to get the Doctor out of the Death Zone. Sending in his worst enemy seems like a bad idea and none of the Doctors wants to work with him. They go through a lot of shenanigans to get to Rassilon's burial chamber, where the true mastermind behind the scheme reveals himself and tries both to achieve immortality and eliminate the Doctors.

The episode celebrated the twentieth year of Doctor Who. Baker did not want to come back for this special episode, so footage from an unaired episode was used to shoe-horn his Doctor in. The plot is a nice excuse to bring back not only the previous incarnations of the Doctor but also a lot of beloved companions and villains, some in minor cameo roles. Viewers need a bit of familiarity with these Doctors in order to appreciate a lot of the jokes and references. Without that background, the episode is probably much less interesting and enjoyable.

Recommended, but be sure to have some knowledge of the first several incarnations of the Doctor.