Episode #65 : The Three Doctors

"Well Sergeant, aren't you going to say that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside - everybody else does."

Episode 65:   The Three Doctors.
Companions: The 1st Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 30th December 1972 to 20th January 1973.

Time itself is in peril! The Time Lords find themselves besieged by a mysterious enemy, the legendary Time Lord, Omega. Omega has been inhabiting the anti-matter universe on the other side of the black hole from which the Time Lords draw their power.
They enlist the Doctor in his first three incarnations to battle this foe, who turns out to be a legend from the Time Lords' remote past.
But vital cosmic energy is draining into a black hole and the Time Lords are under siege. The Doctor is their only hope but, trapped in the TARDIS, he's powerless. The only way out is to break the First Law of Time to let the Doctor help himself - literally.

The first of the multi-Doctor stories and a rather good one to boot. Although called The Three Doctors, it is primarily Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. William Hartnell was rather unwell at the time of filming so he is shown only on the TARDIS display screen giving advice to his other selves. Sadly, he would pass away only a few months after this episode. It does however set up the possibility of other stories where multiple Doctors can meet and interact. Other than the presence of multiple Doctors, what makes it work so well is how their interactions together are written and how you get the impression that different incarnations don't really get along with one another.

The villain of the piece is a former legendary Time Lord named Omega. He has been trapped in an anti-matter universe since giving the Time Lords the ability to travel through time and space. Driven somewhat mad by his isolation he wants to return to our universe. Although defeated, Omega will return much later during Peter Davison's time as the Doctor in The Arc of Infinity.

The Brigadier shows his usual lack of thought in this story, refusing to believe anything the Doctors tell him, and insisting that the anti-matter universe is in fact somewhere near Cromer in East Anglia. While it may work for the story it does make his character seem awfully thick.

Upon the completion of this adventure, the Time Lords forgive the Doctor his transgressions and free him to travel in time and space once more.

The Three Doctors is a great piece of entertainment that every fan of the show should watch.