Doctor Who Is Classic: The Three Doctors

Today's post is another installment of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC where I post about episodes of Doctor Who from the classic era.

Today we go back to 1973 and the 10th anniversary celebration of Doctor Who, "The Three Doctors".   

"The Three Doctors" is an accurate title on a technicality.

William Hartnell, the 1st Doctor, was too much in poor health to actively participate.  His sequences were filmed at Hartnell's home against a black background where he read his lines off of cue cards.  The story has the 1st Doctor caught in the time stream and unable to join his other selves physically, limited to communicating through a TARDIS monitor.  

The 2nd Doctor (Patrick Troughton) is able to be present in the TARDIS with the 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and it's not an amiable team up. 

Yep, the Doctor is not getting along with himself.  A concept that would be revisited in subsequent multi-Doctor stories including the 50th anniversary special.   

Also introduced is the concept of a previous Doctor disagreeing with the current look of the TARDIS.

2nd Doctor: "I see you've been doing the place up a bit. I don't like it."  

There are two dangers present in "The Three Doctors".

1) Sporting an incredibly short powder blue mini dress, Jo Grant will flash her knickers.

She does! Climbing into the Doctor's vintage roadster, Bessie. Look, I'm not trying to be perv looking up Jo's skirt for her underwear. It's really hard to NOT see. 

2) An attack from the anti-matter universe. 

Globs of poorly animated energy (It's the 1970's! It's television! It's the BBC! What do you expect?) are going around zapping people and things (including Bessie and the entirety of UNIT HQ) to an anti-matter universe which is the base of attack of an entity known as... Omega.

PAUSE: While reading this, you may hear the word "Omega" in your head as "Oh-MAY-gah". It is not pronounced this way. It's pronounced "Oh-meh-guh".   

Anyway, Omega is identified as a legendary Time Lord who developed the energy source the Time Lords use to travel through space and time. Unfortunately, the efforts to free the Time Lords to explore a universe of time and space killed Omega.

Well, not quite. 

Omega got exploded into an anti-matter universe where by sheer force of will, he's kept himself alive

Omega's pissed off at the Time Lords for leaving him there all this time even though they had no idea he had been exploded into an anti-matter universe where by sheer force of will, he's kept himself alive. 

The Time Lords thought he was dead, regarded him as a hero and put his face on all their money. Or whatever. 

Long story made short: Omega is bug nuts and will destroy all who do not bow to his will blah blah blah. 

The Doctors trick Omega into destroying himself and they feel bad about it because they had regarded him as a hero but he was bug nuts and gonna destroy everything. 

"The Three Doctors" is a fun episode with the first time meeting of the Doctor's different personas and a major threat that adds to the show's mythology. 

The Time Lords repay the 3rd Doctor by freeing him from his exile.  

Even the limited role of William Hartnell as the 1st Doctor has it's moments, dismissing his subsequent regenerations as "a dandy and a clown" and his admonishing them to not dilly dally.

"The Three Doctors" is an effective template for a multi-doctor episode which is why elements of it are replicated in 1983's "The Five Doctors" and the 2013 special, "The Day of the Doctor".  

The next installment of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC will feature an unusual entry with the 5th Doctor from 1982.  That post will come around in a few weeks.

And NEW Doctor Who is coming May 10th!