We all know what happens this Saturday. A great cultural milestone will be achieved, with people all over gathering to enjoy their entertainment together. Yes, throngs of people will be going to see the new Hunger Games movie. The rest of us can laugh at them as they watch their adolescent snuff film, and we can go watch Doctor Who. Doctor Who went on the air 50 years ago as of this coming weekend. I'll not go into how impressive that is. If you don't know, you don't need to read this article to learn; you need to go watch some Doctor Who. This time the series is celebrating this milestone with a great big multi-Doctor story. Which is very similar to how they celebrated the tenth anniversary. And the twentieth. And the thirtieth. And the fortieth.
1973. The Tenth Anniversary "The Three Doctors"
Back in 1973, there'd only been three Doctors. William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee were all we had. And the three men were brought together, more or less, for a little celebration episode called "The Three Doctors". This is certainly the best of the old-series multi-Doctor stories. It's fairly contained, and it is quite obvious that Troughton and Pertwee had a grand time bouncing off each other. We also get the likes of the Brigadier, Sergeant Benton and Jo Grant. Additionally, we get a major element of Time Lord lore in the form of Omega. Lastly, we get the Doctor's long-term exile on Earth ended; he is once again free to roam the cosmos. This is, as I said, the best multi-Doctor story from the old series, but alas, that isn't saying much, and it certainly isn't without problems. The blob alien things are laughable, the First Doctor is basically stuck on a TV the whole time and the rock quarry location looks even more like a rock quarry location than most of the rock quarry locations the series needed when they wanted to have an alien world that looked almost, but not quite, like a rock quarry. That's not even getting into the fact that the Second Doctor's recorder is what saves the day. But all that aside, it's a fun little romp, and the chemistry between the Second and Third Doctors really is something quite special.