The Five Doctors The Five Doctors (Special Edition)

Target novelisation Doctor Who - The Five Doctors

Author	Terrance Dicks
Published	1983
ISBN	0 426 19510 8
First Edition Cover	Andrew Skilleter

Back cover blurb: Why are all five Doctors being removed from their separate time-streams? Who is the enemy they will have to unite against? What will become of the Doctors when the battle is over? We have travelled a long way with Doctor Who. The Five Doctors gives us the chance to turn the clock back and meet some old friends - and some old enemies.

• The Five, no Four, no Three Faces of Doctor Who... by Andrew Feryok
• Ancient Evil by Jason A. Miller

The Five, no Four, no Three Faces of Doctor Who... by Andrew Feryok 15/9/04

'I think our past is catching up with us. Or maybe it's our future.'
- The Second Doctor, The Five Doctors

The Five Doctors is a very special Doctor Who story. It is the most memorable of all the anniversary stories in the series, and never before has so much of the series' past been crammed into one story! By all rights it should totally collapse, but instead it stands up as one of my very favorite Doctor Who stories!

This story was actually my very first exposure to Doctor Who. While Tom Baker's The Androids of Tara would later make me a fan of the show, this was the story that began my childhood fear/fascination of the show. I loved the idea that the Doctor was five people at the same time, each with his own personality, wacky outfit, and companion. But there were moments that sent my flying behind the couch in fear, in particular when Borusa confronts Rassilon for the power of immortality. Years later, I no longer hid behind the sofa and now enjoy this story every time I see it. I don't know why, but whenever I get bored with the series, I always pop this back into the DVD player (years ago VCR), and it never fails to rekindle my fascination and love of the series.

But enough about the TV episode, I'm here to talk about the Target novelisation. I don't know if this is ironic, but the original script was written by the very guy who was frantically churning book after book for Target: Terrance Dicks. If it had been written by another author, it more than likely would have been novelised by Dicks anyway, so the fact that he was the original author REALLY helps this book. You can really tell that Dicks loves this story. In a period when Dicks was doing little more than churning out "scripts-in-print-form" for Target, this has a surprising energy to it. When I first picked up the book, I decided that I was probably going to read the first few pages and then forget about the book, as I had done so many others, especially since this was a story I was so familiar with, over the years, I could actually hear rythms to the dialogue as I watched it. To my great surprise,the book sucked me back into the magic of the story and didn't let me go till the end. It recaptures wonderfully the magic of seeing all the old Doctors (minus the fourth) together again with their friends and enemies. All those great lines are there and the description of events were as I would see them if I was coming to this story anew again. Dicks even goes so far as to expand the story a bit by giving Susan a time-scoop scene, which follows up the events The Dalek Invasion of Earth extremely well.

Unfortunately, despite all that this story manages to accomplish, by having so many elements in the story, it is inevitable that there is going to be disappointment. The biggest disappointment was the lack of Tom Baker. But when I listened to the commentary of The Five Doctors, and heard how Dicks had envisioned using the Fourth Doctor in the original script,it might have been for the better, since the First Doctor's role would have been severally limited! We would not have gotten the wonderful floor puzzle scene and his hilarious raport with Tegan. I think by giving the First Doctor a larger role in the story, it reinforced him as the original, "oldest", and wisest of the Doctors, and it is completely appropriate that he should be the one to ultimately win the day by solving Rassilon's riddle of Immortality. If he had been reduced to sitting in the TARDIS for most the story, as Dicks had originally envisioned, his ultimate heroics in the tomb would make little sense and there wouldn't have been the build up of his intellect and cunning brought on by the earlier scenes. He would have simply seemed to be a befuddled old man who has a sudden flash of brilliance at the end. Scenes, such as the one where he tells Tegan that he simply ignores the mind of Rassilon, reinforce the power of the original Doctor and show him to be above the frantic worrying of his later selves.

One other thing that both interested me and disappointed me was the lack of the Fifth Doctor's acknowledgement of Susan! I would have thought that the Fifth Doctor would be much happier to see her. From the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, we could see that it really hurt the Doctor to leave Susan behind on Earth, and he gave that touching speech that he would "one day come back", although with all his adventures, exile, and regenerations, he never did. Did he somehow lose his memory or affection for Susan over all those years and regenerations? When the fifth Doctor meets her in the TARDIS, he simply gives her a sly little grin and then completely ignores her for the rest of the story! I realize that his very existence is being threatened here, but still he could have at least given her a hug and said how much he had missed her (if he had at all). Oh well. I guess you can't have everything, but it does feel weird.

Okay, now onto the things I like about this story. One word: Patrick Troughton. For those who read my reviews of Doctor Who and the Cybermen and The Wheel in Space novel, you will know that I am a HUGE fan of Troughton's Doctor. Well, this was actually the story that made me fall in love with him for the first time! From the moment he first appears at UNIT HQ, you just can't take your eyes off him! His line "Not allowed! Me? Nonsense. I'm allowed anywhere" and the gag that follows in which the UNIT officer tries to grab him and only succeeds in removing his coat, to which the DOctor gives a polite "Thank You", is a classic moment that had me on the floor laughing! He really does steal every scene he is in, from his explanations of the legend of Rassilon and the tower, to his brief reunion with the ghosts of Jamie and Zoe, he is truly wonderful in this story.

I also like the Cybermen in this story. While they certainy get more focus than most of the villains/monsters in the story, the Cybermen are so appropriate here. Seeing/reading them march across the misty moors, get slaughtered by the Raston Warrior Robot, and then outsmarted by the Master (even though the logic of the floor puzzle is totally ludicrous), they are great atmospheric monsters who fit in perfectly with the anniversary feel of the story (Isn't it ironic that two of Doctor Who's three anniversary programs feature Cybermen in thier stories!).

Overall, I think that The Five Doctors is an excellent story which will certainly cure anyone's Doctor Who fix. It's got it all: friends, foes, legends, and wonder, and manages to wrap it all together in the most satisfying way that you could possibly bring such disparate ideas together. The novel brings this out beautifully, recapturing the magic seen on screen and giving a fresh view of story which most fans can quote by heart now.

Definitely a classic of Doctor Who! 10/10

PS: There two other scenes which I really adore in this story. The first is the most obvious: when the Doctors meet up for the first time in the Tomb of Rassilon and start bickering. In particular, I love how Troughton just shoves everyone aside to get a front-row look at the obelisk inscriptions! The other scene which I really like is Davison's final words at the end of the story. It finely book-ends the story with the opening quote:

TEGAN: So you're just going keep running around time and space in a rackety, old TARDIS?
DOCTOR: Why not? After all, that's how it all got started.

Ancient Evil by Jason A. Miller 28/12/22

"It was a place of ancient evil."

As first lines of Terrance Dicks novelizations go, this is one of the best. And why wouldn't it be? It's Terrance adapting his own 20th anniversary script. He's going all out for the book. The man responsible for so much of what we think of as Doctor Who's core here gets to do a victory lap and write for all of "his" concepts and characters in one slim volume. The man who was at the helm for the creation of the Time Lords and the Master, the UNIT glory years and the word "regeneration", gets to write a book featuring all those concepts. Awesome!

Chapter 1 is purely celebratory, made up of old familiar passages of descriptive text that Terrance has gotten to use before, introducing the First, Second and Fifth Doctors, UNIT and the Brigadier. So that's all fun to read. But this is no mere clip show. There are a few new striking sections. Turlough, for whom Dicks is writing for the first time, is "good-looking in a faintly untrustworthy way". Perfect! As is the description of the UNIT HQ foliage and shrubbery, which were "stiffly formal" and "seemed to be standing to attention". And Dicks, who helped create the Master to be the Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes, rewrites the First Doctor as a retired Holmes, literally raising bees in the country. I missed that allusion when I was 11 and reading this for the first time. The only miss in Chapter 1 is the "You have little faith, Tegan" scene, which is funny on TV but "bitter" in the book, which was based on Dicks' script. Credit Davison and Fielding with that scene's success, then...

This is, strictly speaking, the last time Terrance would write a Fourth Doctor scene in a Target book, and he adds a new wrinkle onto this Doctor that we haven't seen before: "He had something of all of his previous selves about him: the intellectual arrogance of the first, the humour of the second, and something of the elegance of the third, though in a more relaxed and informal style."

This is also Terrance's only time writing for the Anthony Ainley Master (excepting the last pages of both Keeper of Traken and Caves of Androzani), and I love his description of how the Master's "deep musical voice had an insolently amused undertone like the purr of a great black cat".

Something remarkable in Chapter 2 is the scene showing Susan's capture in the Time Scoop, which, to my knowledge, was never filmed for TV. This tantalizing glimpse of future London in the 22nd Century reveals that Susan has three children with David Campbell, a bit of lore not picked up on by other canonical spinoffs featuring Susan, like Legacy of the Daleks, or Big Finish's An Earthly Child. What, d'ya think, were the names of those three kids? Ian? Barbara? Alydon?

The Five Doctors is a 12-chapter novelization, and for any standard four-part TV story, you would expect the cliffhangers to fall neatly at the ends of Chapters 3, 6 and 9. The Five Doctors was written and screened as a single 90-minute movie, but it did have cliffhangers added in when formatted for the US market. Interestingly, the chapter 3/6/9 ends in this book do not correspond to those (somewhat arbitrary) cliffhangers. Also missing, sadly, is the movie's authentic Hartnell clip from The Dalek Invasion of Earth, the moment that presages the Richard Hurndall reunion with Susan early in the story. But Terrance does immeasurably improve on the US Part One cliffhanger, where on TV Sarah Jane rolls down a gentle slope, but in the book starts to slide into a bottomless ravine ("Even if she survived, she would never get out again").

Almost every page in the book has Terrance reveling in his own substantial contributions to Doctor Who's massive mythology. He has Sarah refer to episodes such as "that ghastly business with the spiders" or events from the previous Gallifrey story, Arc of Infinity. The Yeti is likened to "an old friend". The author ruefully admits that Sarah "had never been ready to accept the traditional role of the maiden in distress". His introduction of the Cybermen in Chapter 7 owes more than a little to the old Gerry Davis essay that used to serve as prologue to the old 1970s Target Cybermen novelizations.

Terrance's typical wit is well on display; the Brigadier is "not sure that [fear] was an admissible emotion for an old soldier". But Terrance also does well with the newer characters. Turlough, for example, "had a strong streak of caution", and, "if anything happened to the Doctor, things would look bad for Turlough as well". As well as some poignant moments, like the Doctor uncovering Borusa's villainy "with more sadness than surprise". And the disappearing Master, sent packing by Rassilon, leaves behind a snarl, expressly likened to the Cheshire Cat.

There's also an interesting alternate look at some dialogue that was later altered for TV. In Chapter 7, "The Castellan leaned forward angrily. "You admit then that you have no proof that there is a traitor on the High Council?". You know, as much derided as Paul Jerricho's line readings in this story are, and rightfully so, I actually prefer the sardonic, smirking way he delivers this line on TV: "Hardly proof of a traitor!" On the other hand, the infamous "Not the mind probe", perhaps one of TV's all-time worst line readings, does not appear in the book.

Sarah Jane gets in a wistful line here about wishing she could have seen the Fourth Doctor again. Aww. Me too, Sarah Jane. Me too.

Other changes to the book also reflect the original script rather than the TV production, like the bell used to open the Tower gate not being an electronic "entry coder" like on TV. About the only good addition to the Restoration Team's Special Edition of The Five Doctors is a comical moment where Sarah Jane tosses a rock at a Cyberman and misses. That originally deleted scene is happily preserved for the book. Sadly missing, though, is the Third Doctor snapping "scarecrow!" at his immediate predecessor.

I like how Terrance pokes fun at his own plotting. The use of pi, the mathematical constant of a circle, used to safely cross a square chessboard, is ludicrous (especially in the Special Edition where Richard Hurndall gets pi wrong), but at least in the book, Tegan reflects that "she never did understand quite how" it works, either. Ha!

The Five Doctors is not Terrance's best TV story, and its novelization is not his best book. But the episode, and book, is an unabashed love letter to the show, and to so many of the elements that first took root under Terrance's long reign at the helm. The plot, while full of detours and set pieces, is still pretty tightly wound, with a great conclusion (the lengthy confrontation in Rassilon's tomb, and Borusa's cruelly ironic demise). The interplay between the cast on TV is a marvel to watch, again and again and again, and Terrance just about manages to recapture all that chemistry in the book.