Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983) on Netflix
NR19831h 42mActionAdventureSci-Fi
Five incarnations of the Doctor and their companions are pulled from their own eras into the Death Zone on Gallifrey, where old enemies lie between them and the Dark Tower.
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Trailer
Plot summary
An unknown entity works the Time Scoop, taking earlier incarnations of the Doctor out of their time streams and setting them down in the Death Zone on Gallifrey, along with Susan Foreman, Sarah Jane Smith and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Daleks, Cybermen, a Raston Warrior Robot and a Yeti arrive the same way, and the grab aimed at the Fourth Doctor and Romana traps the pair in the time vortex. The Fifth Doctor feels his own timeline disturbed, so he and Tegan and Turlough fly the TARDIS to Gallifrey, where a force field thrown up by the Tomb of Rassilon stops them in the Zone. In the Citadel, the High Council summons the Master and offers him a pardon and a fresh cycle of regenerations should he bring the Doctor back.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tom Baker agreed to return as the Fourth Doctor, then declined, saying in 2014 that he did not want to play "20 per cent of the part" or be a "feed for other Doctors"; his presence was pieced together from footage from the unaired serial Shada.
- For the 20th-anniversary publicity photos of the five Doctors, producer John Nathan-Turner arranged for a waxwork of Tom Baker from a 1980 Madame Tussauds exhibition to be on location, suspecting Baker might not turn up for the photocall he had agreed to.
- John Levene turned down a return as Sergeant Benton because the script required Benton not to recognize the Second Doctor, which he felt was unfaithful to the character; the scene was shot instead with Ray Float as an unnamed UNIT sergeant.
- Carole Ann Ford said John Nathan-Turner initially insisted that Susan not call the Doctor her grandfather, because they did not want people to perceive him as having had sex with someone to father a child; Ford said she was not doing it and the script was changed.
- An early script had Sarah Jane Smith attacked in the Death Zone by the Autons, last seen in Terror of the Autons in 1971, and rescued by the Third Doctor, but the scene was dropped for budgetary restrictions and replaced in the finished version.
- The end credits used a specially mixed version of the theme that began with Delia Derbyshire's 1960s arrangement and moved into Peter Howell's current one; it was used only once and was the last time the Derbyshire version was heard in the show's original run.
- The Yeti costume had last been used in The Web of Fear in 1968 and had decayed badly over 15 years of storage, so it had to be shot in dim lighting and from selective camera angles.
- It is the only programme from the classic series of Doctor Who for which all recorded and filmed material, including alternative and unused takes and fluffed scenes, still exists in broadcast-quality format, which allowed the 1995 Special Edition to be created.
