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Doctor Who: The Three Doctors
01/05/2005 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
DVD Region 2. BBCDVD 1144. 97 minutes. Price: £ 9.99 (UK) but this varies so shop around for the best deal). stars: Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, William Hartnell, Katy Manning and Nicholas Courtney. Buy Doctor Who The Three Doctors in the USA - or Buy Doctor Who The Three Doctors in the UK  This 1972/73 4 part episode story of Doctor Who holds quite a few distinctions. It is the first to feature earlier regenerations of the Doctor, the first to have Pat Troughton as the Doctor in colour (that only changed with the Pertwee era) and the final appearance of first Doctor, William Hartnell, before he died. I should point out that as Hartnell was only visible to the other two Doctors via a TARDIS TV monitor he was still in monotone. Presumably, being away from Galifrey for so long, the Doctor didn't have a colour TV licence!
The energy of the universe is being drawn into a black hole and it has particular attention to the planet Earth where it attempts to seek out the Doctor but tended to get things mostly loosely associated with him. The Time Lords on Galifrey realising that the energy drain is immobilising them have no choice but to aid the Doctor to sort out the crisis and the only person who could aid him is...the Doctor or rather the second Doctor. To stop them bickering, they attempt to bring the first Doctor forward as well but he gets stuck and can only advise them at a distance. Doctors three and two with Jo Grant, the Brigadier, Benton and a couple others arrive on a planet within the black hole and are confronted by Omega. He was the Time Lord who provided the power source all Time Lords use for their time travels and believed lost. He wasn't. Merely trapped and now very resentful and needs someone to replace him here for him to return to the normal universe. As both Doctors point out, his lack of body and existence solely down to his strength of will means he couldn't return now. They and the others return to Earth and the earlier Doctors return to their own time periods. In return, the third Doctor is given back the missing dematerialization circuit of his TARDIS allowing him to travel again plus the knowledge to do so. Considering that the third Doctor was in mental contact with his second regeneration several times throughout this story, this reviewer with modern day sensibilities does wonder if he didn't exactly have the knowledge already but that's just a comment.
On some levels, this story could be seen as been a little twee in places but even so, it is a spirited performance from all but the bubble-wrap monsters that were supposed to round up the Doctors and anyone who could do a reasonable sprint could evade them. Watching the commentaries, neither actors or production were exactly happy with them neither but at the end of the day, it boils down to budget.
Amongst the extras is a lot of material that will keep a lot of you Who fans happy with various interviews with Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning - who would make a rather interesting school marm, a look at the Whomobile on Blue Peter and an attempt to show off the special effects on Pebble Mill vastly over-shadowed by an interview with Pat Troughton. This is good value for money for us older folk. For the younger folk, it might give some insight into the earlier Who regenerations.
GF Willmetts
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