Feature-length episode designed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the long-running sci-fi series. All five Doctors (Peter Davison, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Richard Hurndall and Tom Baker) and many of their old companions are taken out of time and deposited in the Death Zone on Gallifrey. There they must battle not only the Master, but Daleks, Cybermen and Yeti in order to reach the Dark Tower and discover the Tomb of Rassilon. This special edition includes new special effects and extra footage not included in the original broadcast.Yes, The Five Doctors is the one that gathers together Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker and Davison, dumps them on some moorland and lets some of the Doctor’s greatest enemies take potshots at them. Except, of course, that William Hartnell had sadly passed on by the time this series was made in 1983 (although his replacement Richard Hurndall does an excellent job) and Tom Baker was only featured as a patched-in cameo, apparently prevented from joining in by a temporal thingummy. However, this kind of creakiness comes with the territory and is soon forgotten. The assorted incarnations of the Doctor (together with a scattering of assistants) are drawn together through time and space to battle Daleks, Cybermen, Yeti–those weird androids which keep jumping into the air and disappearing–and many other old foes. They realise that they’re on their home planet of Gallifrey and must eventually deal with the legacy of Rassilon, founder of the Time Lords. It’s all great fun, of course, and the excellent chapter points on this DVD compensate for the rather self-indulgent lack of editing. –Roger Thomas
The 3½ Doctors but some cracking extras! 0
5 doctors? 5 stars! 0
A Who-ite’s dream 0