The Three Doctors

One suspects that the free Corgi Bessie that you get with the new "Three Doctors" DVD is as much a free gift from a generous BBC Worldwide as a token apology for what's on the actual disc. I've always got that feeling about the story - that someone out there knows it's not half as good as it should be.

A perfect example is its original emergence on VHS. It may have beat a lot of stories to the post (it was a four-part tale from the era of BBC-favourite Pertwee after all) but I can recall, prior to its release, wondering just why this story wasn't sitting on the shelves of my local Woolworths. From what I had read about it in my Doctor Who books, it seemed great - "The Five Doctors" was perfect and this was the same, except from an era when Doctor Who had dignity. What could possibly be wrong with it?

Alas, "The Three Doctors" doesn't escape with much dignity when viewed today. It's aged worse than a dead dog in summertime; the sets are tacky, Patrick Troughton is rubbish and those Gel Guards that looked so frightening in "The Doctor Who Monster Book" don't bubble hideously as expected - they're made of shiny plastic instead. You probably noticed the fan heresy slipped into that little list - yes, Patrick Troughton isn't much cop in "The Three Doctors", despite the power of wilful blindness. His Doctor never did go "Oh my Giddy Aunt!" or play the recorder annoyingly when everyone else was trying to think. Fans no doubt argue (well the uninteresting ones do) about when the Second Doctor was lifted out of time for this adventure - Troughton bizarrely seems to have decided it was either right at the start of "Power of the Daleks" or in the "Seeds of Death" scene when he's chasing up and down those corridors like the Charlie Chaplin we all lazily compare him to. Whichever, the Doctor he recreates here is not one we know.

It's odd too that nobody ever attributes the demystification of the Time Lords to the Pertwee era, a time when, lest we forget, they sit on blue bubble chairs and rule the Universe from Krusty's House of Fun. It makes "The Invasion of Time" look subtle. Yet you're allowed to do this sort of thing when you're celebrating. Aren't you? When the fans decided to orchestrate a Pertwee backlash in the eighties, they could have dug up enough evidence for their cause by unearthing this story alone; and yet to do so would have missed the point somewhat. This is a reunion story, and so not to have had UNIT HQ hurled into an imaginary Universe, or the two Doctors confronting what is nothing less than the Wizard of Oz would have been inappropriate. When they are all sent home at the end, there's a lovely fitting feeling about it, especially as the TARDIS is "home" to the two Doctors, a much a re-stating of the series reason to be as the return to space and time adventuring that is returned to the Doctor at the end.

It's funny too, especially the bits with Hartnell in, and the Brigadier's first encounter with Doctors two and three is priceless. Sure, it looks bright and gaudy but this is Doctor Who's birthday party. Would you want it any other way?