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The Three Doctors was the first story broadcast as part of Doctor Who's tenth season and, to mark the event, the production team invited William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton to join the current Doctor, Jon Pertwee, to celebrate the anniversary. However, as most fans know, Hartnell was too ill to play much more than a cameo in the programme, but Troughton does get to play a fuller part in the action. And as disappointing as Hartnell's contribution is, at least he did get to mark the anniversary of the show he helped launch on the road to success back in 1963. Unfortunately, even accepting Hartnell's reduced involvement, The Three Doctors isn't really the celebration that the show's first ten years warranted. The story itself is fine, but the show's budget is clearly not up to realising the writers' vision, and the characterisation of the Brigadier in particular is woeful. The unknown threat from the world of anti-matter is quickly established, as a power drain and a crackling blob of goo force the Time Lords to break their most important rule by calling on the second Doctor to assist his successor and UNIT. Troughton makes an immediate impact and soon establishes the second Doctor's relationship with the third. Their banter is one of the story's highlights, which is just as well since elements such as the Gell Guards and Omega's world (with all that time and power to conjure up a world, he creates a...quarry!) are a lot less successful. However, these can at least be blamed on the show's budget, which can't be said for the treatment of UNIT. The organisation had become less and less realistic during the Letts era, but here it's an embarrassment. With Yates absent, it's left to Benton and the Brigadier to hold the fort, and the story is neither's finest moment. Admittedly, their reactions when they realise that the figure before them is the second Doctor are good (although Benton takes an age to say anything due to the number of characters in the TARDIS at that point), but Benton chucking a chewing gum wrapper at the blob he's supposed to be keeping calm is just stupid. However, this is nothing to the Brigadier's belief that he hasn't been transported to another universe but is somehow in Cromer, a line that just makes the character seem stupid. The story marks the end of the Doctor's exile, although the ties to Earth had been loosened slightly over the previous two years. This change to the series' format is a welcome development and appropriate given the nature of the threat facing the Doctor. It's just a little disappointing that the story that saw the Doctor's time travel restored wasn't a better one. As we've come to expect, the episodes have been cleaned up by the Restoration Team and it's hard to imagine anyone doing a better job with the source materials. It's unfortunate that their good work has been slightly undone by the authoring cock-up which sees the a few seconds of the cliffhanger to part two repeated. It doesn't really effect the episode but it makes the cliffhanger rather ridiculous and it's annoying that the BBC didn't regard it as important enough to justify a recall. As usual the RT have assembled a decent amount of extras, although I have seen complaints that few of them are new. However, it's the quality that matters as far as I'm concerned especially since most buyers won't have previously had all the extras anyway (and not everyone buys every single release either). I've never believed that every Who release needs a commentary, and that's proved by the one here from Nicholas Courtney, Barry Letts and Katy Manning. Manning's insistence on providing silly voices for the Gell Guards quickly proved annoying, and I'd much rather some commentaries were dropped in favour of one or two 15-20 minutes interviews with relevant personnel per disc. Also standard on Who releases are the information text subtitles and a gallery, although I wish this wasn't accompanied by sound effects as I simply ended up muting the sound. There are also a couple of trailers - one for the original transmission of part one, and another for the Five Faces repeat season. Four major features are also included, although none of them are new. The Pebble Mill interview with Troughton was briefly featured on More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS, but this is the whole Who feature, which also includes Visual Effects' Bernard Wilkie. Troughton is predictably reluctant to say much, and a Cyberman spectacularly fails to break a window, but it's good to have the whole thing and it's an interesting look at the series at the time of the tenth anniversary. Another tenth anniversary piece is taken from Blue Peter, with Jon Pertwee showing off the Whomobile and Peter Purves introducing some sixties clips. Chronologically speaking the next extra is the extract from BSB's 31 Who, which linked the episodes shown on Galaxy's Doctor Who weekend on 22/23 September 1990. The Three Doctors was shown at 8pm on the Sunday (as shown by a trailer), and interviews with Courtney, Pertwee, Terrance Dicks and Baker and Martin are included here. I've long avoided playing my off-air copies until I can archive then onto DVD, so I was pleased to see it included here, and hopefully subsequent DVDs will see more BSB footage included. Finally we reach the 30th anniversary, with a panel from Panopticon '93 featuring Pertwee and Manning. Obviously the usual stories feature, but apart from a few sound glitches, it's still pretty good. To be honest, The Three Doctors hasn't dated particularly well. It looks gaudy, the Gell Guards look silly and the characterisation of the Brigadier is appalling . On the plus side, Troughton is great and although it's sad to see the state of Hartnell's health, it's good that he was able to take part in the anniversary celebrations. However, if you're in the mood it's still a relatively enjoyable romp, and - the commentary aside - the extras are all pretty enjoyable. BACK TO THE TOP |
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