The Five Doctors [TV/1983.11.23]

★★★★☆

  Popular fan concensus towards The Five Doctors is that it's miraculous that it even works, and it's even more miraculous that it's brilliant. I feel much the same way; this feels like it was made as a celebration first and an adventure second, and in the hands of a lesser writer, or under a less meticulous production, this could very well have been either a terrible bore or an outright disaster that ends up as an enjoyable chaotic mess. As it happens, however, the writer of The Five Doctors happens to be Terrrance Dicks, and so this rigidly-structured checklist smörgåsbord of a serial -- sorry, episode -- turns out to be 90 minutes of brilliant fun.

  All the Doctors (or all the Doctors that make a significant appearance, anyway) here are great fun, with each of them having lovely moments that demonstrate their own traits. Richard Hurndall gives us a fine interpretation of the First Doctor, Patrick Troughotn and Jon Pertwee are as hopelessly entertaining as always, and Tom Baker is on top form in Shada. Though I must admit that the crowded nature of the episode means the then-incumbent Fifth Doctor doesn't get (in my opinion) enough of a spotlight, but it's a necessary price to pay to see Troughton running around the Death Zone with Nicolas Courtney. I think what makes The Five Doctors work, fundamentally, is that no one aspects lets the side down. Every companion is pretty good with what they're given -- even Susan with her spraining her ankle -- the Master is a fine villain to put into the mix and Anthony Ainley is having the time of his life, the Cybermen make awesome foes, the music is incredible, the location work and sets are well shot and designed... and the additions to the lore are very much welcome. Sometimes, sometimes, there's no one quite like Terrance Dicks. 

  With a stuffed and brilliant cast, a truly impressive scope, an open-armed willingness to embrace the entire history of the show (at the time) and perhaps one of the most impressively-shot sequences in all of the classic series -- namely the Raston Warrior Robot and its subsequent obliteration of the Cyberman squad -- The Five Doctors is still a wildly fun episode to watch, and remains a template for future multi-Doctor/anniversary stories. Whether they adhere or deviate from the foundation is up to them, but they all inevitably link back or feel similarly in any degree to this one right here.