American television network Fox has until Christmas to decide whether to go ahead with further Paul McGann episodes of Doctor Who. Until then, UK Gold continues to fly the flag of the original series which, on Sunday, reaches what was the 20th anniversary 90-minute special, The Five Doctors, first shown on BBC1 on 25 November 1983 as part of Children in Need.
The incumbent fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, who might prefer to forget his first television acting performance in The Tomorrow People (being broadcast Monday-Wednesday Sci-Fi Channel), was joined by past incarnations
Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee, while Richard Hurndall laudably re-created the first Doctor (William Hartnell having died in 1975). The fourth Doctor was originally scripted to appear but Tom Baker eventually declined, still feeling somewhat proprietorial about the role he had left two years earlier. Footage of him from a story that was never completed, Shada, was incorporated, while his Madame Tussaud's waxwork was appropriated to take part in a photocall.
The story, in which the Doctors have to overcome whatever evil force is at work in the Dark Zone on Gallifrey, also called for a myriad of former companions and monsters, not forgetting the Doctor's arch enemy, the Master. Perhaps the most impressive scene was an exciting battle between the Cybermen and the spear-firing Raston Robot. The number of elements writer and Pertwee-era script editor Terrence Dicks was asked to include must have made producing a coherent script almost impossible and it is a tribute to his skill that The Five Doctors is still very watchable.
Caption: Spot the bogus Doctor, above. Inset: Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson in The Tomorrow People
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