Countdown to 60: Three Doctors

Multi-Doctor stories. Aren't you just sick of them...?

In 1972 Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks were getting well fed up with people asking them when they were going to do a story with all three Doctors. Having decided that each new season needed a publicity-grabbing gimmick to launch it (e.g. debut of the Master and the return of the Daleks) they thought that perhaps this 'Three Doctors' idea might actually have some potential.

As it was, it has since become forever associated with the Tenth Anniversary of the show - despite the first episode being broadcast in December 1972, and the whole four episodes being done and dusted 10 months before the November birthday.

It was as a season launcher that The Three Doctors was intended - not an anniversary story. (That was actually an attempt to replicate the epic The Daleks' Master Plan. Douglas Camfield told them not to be daft, so we got the linked Frontier in Space / Planet of the Daleks instead).

A decade later, John Nathan-Turner decides that he wants to mark the 20th Anniversary with a multi-Doctor story, that will go further and include as many companions as could be available, and a variety of old aliens. Eric Saward wanted the Cybermen to be prominent, whilst JNT didn't want Daleks or K9 included at all. Robert Holmes had attempted a Six Doctors treatment, with the First being portrayed by a new actor - the reason for the physiognomic discrepancy being that he is really a Cyberman android.

Unhappy at the constant changes being asked of him, Holmes bowed out, and the job went to Terrance Dicks. He insisted that Daleks and K9 should feature. JNT relented, but made sure their appearance was brief. Initially Dicks had the Master as the villain behind the whole Death Zone scheme - until Saward pointed out how obvious this was. The villain then became Borusa, who had previously been an ally of sorts for the Doctor. Of The Five Doctors, only three original Doctors appeared - Davison, Troughton and Pertwee. Hartnell was replaced by Richard Hurndall, whom JNT had seen with long white hair in an episode of Blake's 7. Tom Baker did the hokey-cokey (he was in, he was out...) before finally opting not to do it. Luckily there was some unscreened footage from Shada that could be used to accommodate the Fourth Doctor.

Not part of any birthday, but just because he asked if he could do another story, The Two Doctors featured just one previous incarnation interacting with the current Doctor - Patrick Troughton's Second.

He had enjoyed The Five Doctors, in which he only got a brief time with Frazer Hines. The new Sixth Doctor story allowed the pair to reunite properly. A rejig of Holmes' Six Doctors story, it made the cardinal error of not having the two Doctors interact with each other until the last five minutes. JNT seemed to labour under the delusion that Doctors would misbehave with each other if allowed to act together - clearly thinking that US Conventions were real life.

The Silver Anniversary simply had a story with "Silver" in the title, and the 'Silver Giants' AKA Cybermen - despite them not being made of silver, and their new chrome job going wrong and looking more like gold.

For the 30th, there was an ambitious plan to mount another multi-Doctor story - The Dark Dimension. This rapidly collapsed when it became clear that the finances hadn't been worked out properly - and all the Doctors moaned about Tom Baker getting the best part, despite him being the most popular and the person the audience would more likely tune in for. This didn't feature lots of companions - just Ace and the Brigadier - but did have Daleks, Cybermen and Ice Warriors.

In its absence, JNT delivered us another multi-Doctor extravaganza (not!) in Dimensions in Time. This tie-in with EastEnders for Children in Need was a right dog's dinner. Luckily its charity status meant that it was contractually bound never to be repeated or commercially exploited.

The first big anniversary of the revived series was the show's 50th birthday - and, lo and behold, we were to get yet another multi-Doctor story. In the interim, Big Finish had delivered dozens of the things. They produce far more specials / crossovers (with Daleks, so Nick Briggs can do the voice. He has to employ himself as no other director / producer is likely to do it) than they do good old-fashioned straightforward individual stories.

For 2013, fans simply appeared to expect a multi-Doctor story. Steven Moffat decided to produce a new 'Three Doctors' - the trio of actors who had played the part since 2005. Chris Eccleston did a Tom Baker and declined to participate - which is why we got  the War Doctor.

Moffat bowed out with another 'Two Doctors' story - this time involving Peter Capaldi's Twelve and David Bradley's First, he having played William Hartnell in 2013 - and that had included a scene involving two incarnations, as Matt Smith made a cameo.

Never a day goes by without someone wanting yet another multi-Doctor story. (That, and the return of the Rani for some ungodly reason). Apart from the nostalgia factor for us older fans, they tend to be a bit of an anti-climax. Generally, only the current TARDIS resident gets anything substantial to do - the others being little more than cameos.

As far as we know, the 60th Anniversary is multi-Doctor free. RTD has brought back a popular older Doctor instead, reunited with one of his old companions.

That's not to say that we won't get some surprises during the three Specials. We have a rough idea of the plots of only two of them, and even then just broad strokes, not detail.

One of the better things about The Power of the Doctor (the BBC's birthday this time) was the inclusion of some old Doctors (no Second, Third, Fourth, Ninth, Eleventh, Twelfth - and Ten only showed up at the regeneration as, technically, someone else. More the B Team really). These were either holographic projections, or inside the current Doctor's mind - so could appear as old men. Colin Baker even managed to avoid wearing that ridiculous clown costume.

I would suggest it is far too soon for Jodie Whittaker to make a return, at least in any substantial way, and Eccleston and Capaldi are both on record as being opposed to appearing in a multi-Doctor story anytime soon - though the latter might have been lying.

Fingers crossed we won't have to put up with another multi-Doctor story until November 2033, or 2122 when the BBC turns 200...