The Doctors Who Together for a Special

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• Publication: The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Date: 1983-11-23
• Author: David Bianculli
• Page: 10-D
• Language: English

Having learned that lesson, Channel 12 was not about to pass up tonight's 90-minute special episode of "Doctor Who," celebrating the 20th anniversary of the good doctor's debut on BBC-TV. The special (Channel 12 at 7:30) is titled "The Five Doctors," ostensibly because its story line unites all five actors who have portrayed the time-tripping doctor.

This surfeit of doctor do-gooders is made possible because of the show's fantasy premise. The Doctor is a Time Lord capable of travel through time and space, a plot gimmick borrowed unsuccessfully in America by NBC's "Voyagers" and, less recently, ABC's "The Time Tunnel."

What makes Doctor Who different - and what allows different actors to portray the doctor - is that the character has 12 lives, and is capable of "regenerating" his cellular structure to avoid death. This means that Doctor Who can change himself physically and mentally, emerging as a different person.

"Strangely enough," notes one avid "Doctor Who" fan, "this usually happens when the actor portraying the Doctor wishes to leave the series."

"Doctor Who" made its first British appearance in 1963, a year after Dr. No and three years after NBC's "Dr. Kildare." William Hartnell, the original Doctor Who, played the elderly character as a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Ebenezer Scrooge. (During Hartnell's reign, Peter Cushing portrayed Doctor Who in a pair of films inspired by the TV series.)

Three seasons later, Hartnell left the show. He was "succeeded" by Patrick Troughton, a middle-aged man who turned the good doctor into a bumbling chap with a page-boy haircut. Troughton, too, left after three seasons, and was replaced by Jon Pertwee, the most charismatic of the three.

Pertwee lasted until 1974, when Tom Baker, the most durable and famous Doctor Who to date, inherited the role. Baker was young, curly-haired and impish; he traveled with beautiful women as companions, though the relationships were strictly platonic. Baker was Doctor Who until 1980, when the even younger Tristan Farnon (of "All Creatures Great and Small") took over as the fifth doctor.

The title of tonight's anniversary special is rather misleading, however. Though it claims to unite "The Five Doctors," its batting average is a mere 60 percent. Hartnell, the original Doctor Who, is dead; Baker, the most famous, declined to participate.

Terrance Dicks, author of the "Five Doctors" script, "solved" these problems by casting a new actor, Richard Hurndall, as Doctor Who No. 1., and borrowing previously unseen footage from a scrapped 1980 episode, "Shada," to include Baker in two scenes. Conveniently, Baker's Doctor Who No. 3 is sucked into a "temporal void" and trapped there until tonight's episode is over.

What's left is a silly, occasionally entertaining story in which four Doctor Whos finally converge to solve a mystery and save their individual lives. Like all TV reunion shows, it falls short of the original - but in this case, the original is still running. The 1983 version of Doctor Who roams the universe these days with a new-wave airline stewardess (Janet Fielding) and a preppie male student (Mark Strickson).

Times have changed. And on an average of once every four years, so has "Doctor Who."

Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org

• APA 6th ed.: Bianculli, David (1983-11-23). The Doctors Who Together for a Special. The Philadelphia Inquirer p. 10-D.
• MLA 7th ed.: Bianculli, David. "The Doctors Who Together for a Special." The Philadelphia Inquirer [add city] 1983-11-23, 10-D. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: Bianculli, David. "The Doctors Who Together for a Special." The Philadelphia Inquirer, edition, sec., 1983-11-23
• Turabian: Bianculli, David. "The Doctors Who Together for a Special." The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1983-11-23, section, 10-D edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=The Doctors Who Together for a Special | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Doctors_Who_Together_for_a_Special | work=The Philadelphia Inquirer | pages=10-D | date=1983-11-23 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=6 May 2025 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=The Doctors Who Together for a Special | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Doctors_Who_Together_for_a_Special | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=6 May 2025}}</ref>