Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (Story 130) (25th Anniversary Edition)

Go ahead and buy it -- you will definitely not be disappointed.Yes, I know Tom Baker (born in 1934!) refused to cooperate because his ego is *still* out of control and he traditionally refused to share the stage with any of the other Doctors, but Terrence Dicks (the writer of this story and of many other Doctor Whos) fixed it. He and the producers took Baker out of another story which never aired, (*Shada* -- never saw air time due to strikes but you can buy the DVD now), and stuck him in plenty good enough, (along with companion Lalla Ward "Romana" who later became Baker's wife... briefly), to complete "The Five Doctors" theme. What did they do about poor old dead William Hartnell? They got a great actor who looked and acted just like him (Richard Hurndall), and he was absolutely superb! You will immediately accept him as Hartnell.HERE'S THE STORY: One by one, each of the five Doctors get swept up by a *triangular Time Lord snatcher* [my phrase] and all except the Baker Doctor get sent to Gallifrey (where the Time Lords reside and run the Universe, or Galaxy, or whatever.) Baker gets "stuck" in some sort of time warp and so he's pretty much out of the picture at that point. The short of the story is, some nefarious person, (The Master? He's in it too and very good at that!), is trying to become immortal and the five Doctors, for some convoluted reason, are subjected to being pawns of this unknown villian, who is revealed near the end. In the meantime, you get to enjoy LOTS of former companions and you additionally get the fun of seeing the Doctors interact. They certainly do not love one another, even though they are theoretically the same person (alien, actually), regenerated.As an additional benefit, there are more goodies with this two-disc set. On one disc, you get the entire story, all episodes, plus a "companions commentary" option, plus some other extras. On the second disc, you get the exact SAME entire story, only it has available a so-called "production commentary" in which Terrance Dicks continually rants about what he didn't write which sneaked into the story, plus his unending pointing out all of his great ideas which DID remain in the yarn... and Peter Davison mostly remains calm and listens to what this renowned, but somewhat insane, writer has to say. Oh, Davison *does* have a few things to say. Plus there are more extras on this disc. So it's a monumental deal.Did I like the story? Well, as convoluted as it is at times, (Terrence Dicks had to perform constant re-writes due to people popping in and out of the project up until the last minute), I really, honestly thought it was great. There is a LOT of outdoor scenery (shot on film) and so it's a so-called "piebald production", mixing film with videotape. But that was the norm for period Doctor Who and most folks don't even notice. Film was expensive so they usually avoided location shooting and this one has enough to maintain up one's interest. The best adversary in the flick? Definitely, *The Raston Robot*, here, if you want to copy and paste the address: [...]Do not hesitate in the least to grab this Doctor Who treasure chest. You will be pleased that you did. It's not *The Brain of Morbius" but you'll still love it.Highly reccommended!

Many years ago I purchased earlier version of the five doctors on DVD this version is much better. This 2-disc DVD set was released back in 2008 to mark the 25th anniversary of the original airing of the five doctors. The five doctors was first aired on the 25th of November 1983 to Mark the 20th anniversary of Doctor Who made during the Peter Davidson era it was to feature all 5 doctors of course there was a little problem with this William Hartnell had died several years earlier however Richard Herndall does an admirable job as the first doctor. Tom Baker backed out of the project and therefore they ended up using 2 brief clips from shada which was supposed to close out Tom's 6th season as the doctor but the production had to be canceled because of a strike the show has since been completed brilliantly with animation and all the original actors coming back to lend their voices it was released not that long ago and is available on DVD and I strongly recommend you get that as well. The doctors are kidnapped from their various places in time and space and brought back to the Death Zone on Gallifrey the timelords darkest secret I don't want to ruin too much of the story for you I want you to enjoy yourself but it's a fun story wonderful to watch you got two versions to watch you on the first disc is the version that actually aired back in 1983 on disc 2 it's a special edition version which includes extended scenes and a few new ones put in personally I think that makes the program a little bit better because that's the version that I first saw many years ago. These two DVDs are loaded with all sorts of wonderful extras both versions come with audio commentary as well as production notes that can appear on your screen if you decide to turn that option on that will give you some facts about the show as well it's his original rating but I'll tell you right now that when it first aired it got 7.7 million viewers. There's a making of documentary also hilarious outtakes, Studio recordings all sorts of additional extra features these two DVDs are loaded with a ton of extra features they're wonderful and by the way look out for an Easter egg on disc 2 this is a great show and it's a must in any serious Doctor Who DVD collection I very much highly recommend you buy this

Very entertaining bit of viewing. Some great characters - I particularly liked Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. Shame that Tom Baker declined to appear in this but it moves along quite nicely despite his absence. Peter Davison was the doctor when I was a kid and the intro titles & theme music brought back memories, although as mentioned before the other Doctors for me were much stronger characters in this story.Inclusion of the cybermen was good, if anything for the scenes of them being decimated by the Raston warrior robot and then again by some lasers on a chequered floor.It is a jolly adventure and you never really feel as though anyone is actually in any danger in the Death Zone, but even so it held my attention and the interplay /dynamics between the doctors had me laughing from time to time.

Arrived three days after ordering, very happy that I have a copy of this classic Doctor Who special. Very good to see Jon Pertwee up to his usual capers as he is obviously no longer with us. Of course, the special effects don't match the ones in the more modern BBC Wales produced series but still worth watching as its a classic with a lot of favourite actors in it. Allows you to see how times have changed since (glad female companions don't tend to scream and do the 'stupid female' thing anymore.

This is a good story. It has a great idea behind it and has the Doctors meet, but it could definitely be better! There's is lots of walking. Lots. The story is pretty straightforward, but I won't spoil that for you. It's a great concept and that alone makes this worth buying, but the title of the story promises something that doesn't really happen. I wanted a solid story with five Doctors (four, excluding Four) journeying across the Death Zone. I knew many fans find this one slightly disappointing, and I can now see why. The Doctors meet for a brief five minutes. They don't exactly need each other except for this mind battle (sort of like the weird Three Doctors one), they're all just shoved in the Death Zone and start wandering towards the Tomb of Rassilon, which is a tower in the middle. Sure, there is quite a bit of random action and some good mystery shoved in there, but it doesn't really feel like anything happened. I think they just needed an excuse to bring the Doctors together and then built it from there, which isn't the way to do it.Apart from the Doctors hardly being together (and when they are, the conversations feel rather awkward) and all of the walking, it's not half bad. I see how it's mainly a nostalgia trip, but the way it's done is really quite good. Richard Hurndall is brilliant as the First Doctor, with only a few differences. It's a shame Tom Baker turned the offer down, it didn't feel quite right without him. It was a nostalgia trip with the Doctor who appeared in a third of the show missing! Ah well, it was fine without him.So yeah, not close to as brilliant as The Three Doctors, but still pretty damn good! And the 25th Edition is certainly the one to get! I have a feeling The Day of the Doctor will be the best multi-Doctor story/anniversary yet, despite its length!(Sorry if I make little sense, I'm feeling rather dizzy and tired at the moment. I'll look back at this in embarrassment tomorrow...)

The 1995 re-work on music and visual effects in The Five Doctors is a great improvement (even if it looks a little dated sixteen years later), I particularly enjoyed it because Five Doctors is a story I know well, and so I'm aware of the woeful shortcomings among the bravura nonsense of the story - a good portion of these being visual effects. The gunshots, thunderbolts and death rays do look much better, especially those on the chessboard and the Dalek, and the additional music is a great plus. The whole atmosphere of the Tower is much darker, more funereal.And the extra footage is most welcome, even if it's just an odd line at the start or end of a scene, or Pat and the Brig walking on and on into the distance, or the second squad of Cybermen trying to bomb the TARDIS, it all makes for a rounder story.What it can't do, of course, is sort out either the occasional duff dialogue or dodgy acting (`No, not the mind probe' is still laughable) or the intrinsic problems of actor-availability that shaped the script.So we still know that Tom Baker was absent owing to an attack of hubris, that Colin Baker was not playing Maxil as he was about to take over as the Doctor (a disastrous decision for the series as a whole, rather than for the Five Doctors), and that a group of Autons would have been far more effective than Sarah's very poor fall down a very gentle slope.And that's the problem with the script - it can never really be more than a runaround and some set-pieces, and after that the lack of a few key players like Tom Baker and Frazer Hines does start to knock other bits sideways - we have to have Elizabeth Sladen with Jon, so then Nick Courtney has to be with Pat, and Janet has to be with Richard Hurndall so that the leading lady has something to do, and while the new pairings are interesting, it was Jon and Nick, Tom and Liz, Pat and Frazer that we all paid our money to see.If (for one) Terrance Dicks could have written the plot and Bob Holmes penned the dialogue it would have been much better too and, of course, if only Graham Harper had been allowed to direct it.All in all, the 1995 remix does the story great credit, makng it rather darker, but however one polishes the story it's still fairly insubstantial, simply because of a lack of budget, so the hordes of aliens `left over from the games' boil down to a single Dalek, one lost Yeti, an army of hapless Cybermen, and a dancer in a silver leotard. Where are the Sontarans, Autons, Ice Warriors? Why are the only two new frocks on Phillip Latham and Dinah Sherridan?Not for the first time, BBC Worldwide do a rather better job of producing Dr Who than the programme makers did which, since this was the 20th anniversary, seems a great pity. For all JNT's skill in getting every bit as much out of his budget as he could possibly squeeze, it's still palpably obvious that the BBC should have stumped up a bit more than the usual four episode sum for this celebration.Just to add that Richard Hurndall does a lovely job of the First Doctor.

It has been quite a few years since I first saw this tribute to Doctor Who, I think the last time, it may have been shown on UK Gold when at the time the channel was showing every Sunday a Doctor Who series compiled as omnibus editions, rather than weekly episodes.An entertaining story based around the Time Lords home planet Gallifrey when all five doctors, well, apart from Tom Baker who refused to appear, so segments of an unfinished story "Shada" were used.Nothing complicated about the plot, just a series of episodic scenes which bring all the doctors together, and most of the companions too. It was good to see the late Caroline John, albeit all too briefly, and also Elizabeth Sladen. And it was good too to see the grandaughter from the very first series, Carole Ann Ford, along with regulars at the time such as Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson.The doctors were played by Richard Hurndall, since William Hartnell had died in 1975, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee (my own favourite doctor) and of course Peter Davison who was the youngest actor at that time to play the role.I watched the Special Edition first which lasts 100 minutes and has added scenes with enhanced special effects which look pretty decent. The original transmission episode last about 90 minutes and is much pacier in its action scenes.There are many other extras which will please Doctor Who fans, including one introduced by Colin Baker, who took over the role from Peter Davison in 1984. He explains about the Doctor Who exhibition held at Longleat House which overwhelmed the cast and production team, not realising how many fans would actually turn up. It clearly showed how Doctor Who was held in such high esteem, and still remains popular today.Worth a view especially with the extras being offered. A good buy.