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"The Five Doctors" is a special feature-length episode of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the series's 20th anniversary. Written b…
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"The Five Doctors" is a special feature-length episode of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the series's 20th anniversary. Written by Terrance Dicks and directed by Peter Moffatt, the episode first aired in the United States on 23 November 1983, the anniversary date, and aired in the United Kingdom two days later.
"The Five Doctors" is a special feature-length episode of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the series's 20th anniversary. Written by Terrance Dicks and directed by Peter Moffatt, the episode first aired in the United States on 23 November 1983, the anniversary date, and aired in the United Kingdom two days later. Peter Davison stars alongside returning actors Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. Richard Hurndall portrayed the First Doctor, as original William Hartnell had died in 1975. Tom Baker declined to appear, so his absence was covered with footage from the unfinished serial Shada.
In the episode, the Doctor's first five incarnations and several of his companions (Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Carole Ann Ford, Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney) are displaced from different points in time and transported to Gallifrey. They are forced to navigate various foes within the Death Zone, including a Dalek, Cybermen, Yeti and the Master, in order to uncover a Time Lord plot to access the secret of immortality.
An unknown entity uses the Time Scoop to bring several of the previous incarnations of the Doctor; his former companions Susan Foreman, Sarah Jane Smith, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart; and his enemies the Daleks, the Cybermen, a Raston Warrior Robot and a Yeti, from their respective time streams into the Death Zone on Gallifrey. The entity's attempt to grab the Fourth Doctor and Romana ends up trapping the two in the time vortex. The Fifth Doctor senses the disruption of his own timeline, and with his own companions Tegan and Turlough, travels to Gallifrey via his TARDIS, also ending up in the Death Zone, unable to travel farther with the TARDIS due to a force field projected by the Tomb of Rassilon, the tower at the centre of the Death Zone. The various Doctors lead their companions towards the Tower while avoiding the hostile forces.
In the Citadel on Gallifrey, the High Council of Time Lords have also detected the disturbance in the Doctor's timeline and the power drain from the Time Scoop, and Lord President Borusa has the Master summoned, to help rescue the Doctor, offering him a new set of regenerations and a pardon if he succeeds. The Master accepts, and is given a recall device by the Castellan and a copy of the High Council's seal before he is transmatted to the Zone. The Master encounters the Third Doctor, who dismisses him and accuses him of making the seal himself, before finding the Fifth just as they are surrounded by Cybermen. The Master is knocked out by a Cyberman's gun firing, and the Doctor finds and uses the recall device to return to the Citadel. When the Master awakes, he makes a pact with the Cybermen to lead them to the Tower.
As the other Doctors and companions converge on the Tower, the Fifth Doctor discovers the recall device given to the Master included a tracking signal to lead the Cybermen to him. The Castellan is found to possess the forbidden Black Scrolls of Rassilon, and dies while attempting to escape an invasive mind probe. When the Doctor returns to the High Council's chamber to report, he finds Borusa missing, and soon discovers a secret room with Borusa at the controls of the Time Scoop. Borusa reveals he seeks to be the President Eternal of Gallifrey and needed the Doctors to disable the force field over the Tomb in order to gain immortality from Rassilon's Ring and rule forever. Borusa uses his headgear, the Coronet of Rassilon, to compel the Doctor to do his bidding. Meanwhile, the Master meets the and Tegan and rids himself of the Cybermen by letting them fall victim to the Death Zone's traps, before killing the Cyberleader with one of his subordinates' guns.
The working title for this story was "The Six Doctors". It would have been written by former script editor Robert Holmes and would have featured the Cybermen and their kidnapping of the five incarnations of the Doctor; in their attempt to extract Time Lord DNA to turn themselves into "Cyberlords", the twist being that the Firs
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As Borusa expected, the other three Doctors and their companions have made it to the tomb chamber, bypassing the Yeti and Raston Warrior Robot, as well as phantoms of the Doctor's former companions Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot, Liz Shaw and Mike Yates. They ponder the meaning of writing in the tomb: "to lose is to win and he who wins shall lose". The Master arrives in the Tomb, but the Doctors' companions tie him up, with the Brigadier knocking him out for good measure. The Doctors disable the force field to summon the TARDIS, but this action allows Borusa and the Fifth Doctor to arrive via transmat. Borusa uses the Coronet to prevent the Doctors' companions from interfering while he speaks to Rassilon. An image of Rassilon appears above the tomb and offers Borusa his ring as the key to immortality. Borusa dons the Ring, but then shortly disappears, becoming living stone that is part of Rassilon's tomb. The First Doctor realised what fate the tomb's writing foretold: immortality, but at a cost of perpetual incarceration.
Rassilon frees the Fourth Doctor and Romana from the time vortex and returns the Master to his own time; the Doctors immediately refuse his offer for immortality. The First, Second and Third Doctors collect their respective companions and return to their time streams as well, leaving the Fifth Doctor with Tegan and Turlough. Chancellor Flavia arrives via transmat, with the Chancellery Guard, and, after learning of Borusa's fate, declares that the Doctor is now Lord President, a position he cannot refuse. The Doctor tells Flavia to return to the Citadel, as he will follow shortly, then quickly departs with his companions, as he has no intention of returning to Gallifrey any time soon. Tegan asks if he's planning to jet off across the galaxy in an old spaceship running from his people. With a grin, he replies that of course he is, as that's how his adventure started in the first place.
