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Stars:
Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, William Hartnell, Katy Manning, and Nicholas
Courtney
Writers:
Bob Baker and Dave Martin
Director:
Lennie Mayne
Producer:
Barry Letts
Feature
length: 98 minutes
Extras: Audio
Commentary By Actors Katy Manning and Nicholas Courtney and Producer Barry Letts,
Pebble Mill At One 1972 Interviews With Bernard Wilkie and Patrick Troughton,
Blue Peter With Jon Pertwee and the Whomobile, BSB’s “31Who” Weekend
Interview With Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, Terrance Dicks, Bob Baker, and
Dave Martin, PanoptiCon ’93 30th Anniversary Panel With Jon Pertwee,
Katy Manning, and Nicholas Courtney, Text Commentary, Photo Gallery, TV Spot
Languages: English
Two-Channel Monaural Sound
Subtitles: English
Captions For The Hearing Impaired
Packaging: Keep
Case
Chapter Stops: 24
Sound: Two-Channel
Monaural Sound
Year of Television
Broadcast 1972-73/DVD Release: 2004
Home Video
Distributor: BBC Video
MPAA Rating: Not
Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
“
Oh so you’re my replacements… A dandy and a clown…” –
William Hartnell as The First Doctor
In America most
“Doctor Who” fans that I have encountered always mention both The Third
Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) as their favorites and I
would have to agree though I think there are characterizations each actor as
brought to the role to make all of the incarnations entertaining to watch. To
celebrate the tenth anniversary of “Doctor Who” the producers and the BBC
brought together Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, and William Hartnell in the
first multipart story to feature more than one of the Doctors interacting with
each other. The third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) is forced to call upon the help of
his fellow Time Lords after UNIT befalls an attack by extra-dimensional
entities. However Galifrey is under attack as well. With a black hole draining
all of their energy reserves and with no Time Lord able to travel to Earth, the
first (William Hartnell) and second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) are pulled from
their various timelines in an attempt to enable the Doctor to help himself quite
literally. The second and third Doctors don’t really get along to well, but
with the First Doctor trapped somewhere in space, they must work under his
guidance, which at times requires the first Doctor to plat referee if they are
to save the universe from a mad Time Lord trapped in an antimatter dimension.
“The Three
Doctors” is a mixed bag with high points that include the humor Patrick
Troughton brings to his second Doctor and the disgruntled attitude Jon Pertwee
puts on since his Doctor tends to be the most serious or straightforward of the
Doctors. William Hartnell was ill and passed away shortly after the production
so his scenes were filmed in one day so his image could then interact with the
others in the story. The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) is often funny to watch
simply because his character is totally out of his element and yet he is ever so
stalwart in his endeavors to get a handle on his situation. The antimatter
monsters are laughable, but fortunately they are kept to a minimum.
Interestingly as much humor as this story has, it still contains a certain sense
of pathos that makes the viewer feel for the plight of the villain and the
ultimate decision the Doctors have to make in order to save the cosmos.
Presented in the
(1.33:1) aspect ratio that preserves the manner in which the series was
presented on television complete with a clear two-channel English Monaural
Soundtrack with English Captions for the hearing impaired encoded as an option.
The picture quality is remarkably clear, especially when one considers how some
videotaped American programs from the early 70s have degraded over the years.
Actors Katy Manning and Nicholas Courtney and Producer Barry Letts provide a
retrospective audio commentary for all four episodes, but Katy Manning can get a
bit annoying after awhile by providing cutesy cartoon like sounds for the
creatures whenever they appear on screen. It is funny at first, but by the sixth
or seventh time she makes these silly noises, the joke is stale and the
questionable costuming starts to look better than her inane attempts at
enhancing the DVD with stupid sounds. A text commentary with facts and anecdotes
regarding the episode is also provided. The four episodes that make up “The
Three Doctors” can be watched individually or viewed collectively.
Extra value
features include interviews with Actor Patrick Troughton and Bernard Wilkie from
the 1972 airing of “Pebble Mill” (20:44) complete with a look at some of the
monsters from the series as well as footage of Jon Pertwee in the
“Whomobile” from “Blue Peter” (13:40). There are some extended TV spots
from Galaxy with interviews featuring Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney, Terrence
Dicks, Bob Baker, and Dave Martin introduced by John Nathan-Turner (10:15) as
well as convention panel footage from 1993 with Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courteney,
and Katy Manning (29:44). A motion photo gallery (3:56), BBC-1 trailer for
“The Three Doctors” (: 49), as well as the 40th Anniversary
montage (3:01) and cast bios wrap up the extra features on this DVD.
“Doctor Who: The Three Doctors: The Jon Pertwee Years 1970 – 1974” is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline from BBC Video.
© Copyright 2004
By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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