Doctor Who: Every Multi-Doctor Story Ranked Worst To Best

The more Doctors, the better! Well, sometimes.

Doctor Who The Giggle bi-generation
BBC Studios

One of the many wonderful things about Doctor Who is that because the protagonist is a time-traveller who can change their face, it's possible for multiple incarnations of the Doctor to be onscreen at the same time.

Past versions of the Time Lord have met their current selves quite a few times, usually when there's some sort of world-ending catastrophe to avert – or an anniversary to celebrate!

Multi-Doctor stories are always a big deal, but some are definitely better than others. But before our search to find the cream of the crop gets underway, there are a few ground rules to cover.

Firstly, episodes where one Doctor simply regenerates into the next (like The Caves of Androzani or The Time of the Doctor) do not count. This is a list about multi-Doctor stories – i.e. where different regenerations actually interact with each other in a meaningful way.

William Hartnell falling asleep and waking up as Patrick Troughton is great, but it won't be here.

Similarly, episodes where other Doctors appear in brief cameos or archive footage also don't count. All clear? Lovely. Then let's get cracking!

10. Dimensions In Time

Doctor Who The Giggle bi-generation
BBC Studios

It's easy to feel sorry for the things that end up at the bottom of lists like this. Not this one, though. Dimensions in Time is bad. No sympathy!

Four years after Doctor Who was cancelled in 1989, the show made its rip-roaring return to the small screen... in a crossover with the soap opera Eastenders. Righto.

The plot has got something to do with the Rani trapping all the Doctors in Albert Square, but don't ask why, because the plot makes absolutely zero sense.

While it's certainly fun that Doctors three through seven all turned up for this Children in Need two-parter (alongside companions like Susan, the Brigadier, Romana, and Leela), watching them interact with the Mitchell brothers and Pat Butcher is too brain-breaking and silly to be enjoyable.

Dimensions in Time capped off a bleak ten years for Doctor Who in questionable fashion, and goes a long way to explaining why it wasn't brought back properly for another 12 years.

 
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Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.