The Three Doctors (Doctor Who)

065 – The Three Doctors
Doctor Who serial
Omega explains things before two of the three Doctors and Sergeant Benton.
Cast
Doctor Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) William Hartnell (First Doctor) Patrick Troughton (Second Doctor)
Companion Katy Manning (Jo Grant)
Others Nicholas Courtney – Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart John Levene – Sergeant Benton Stephen Thorne – Omega Roy Purcell – President Clyde Pollitt – Chancellor Graham Leaman – Time Lord Rex Robinson – Dr. Tyler Laurie Webb – Ollis Patricia Prior – Mrs. Ollis Denys Palmer – Corporal Palmer
Production
Directed by	Lennie Mayne
Written by	Bob Baker Dave Martin
Script editor	Terrance Dicks
Produced by	Barry Letts
Executive producer(s)	None
Incidental music composer	Dudley Simpson
Production code	RRR
Series	Season 10
Length	4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast	30 December 1972–20 January 1973
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → The Time Monster Carnival of Monsters
List of Doctor Who serials

The Three Doctors

Author	Terrance Dicks
Cover artist	Chris Achilleos
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	64
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	20 November 1975
ISBN

The Three Doctors is the first serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast in four weekly parts from 30 December 1972 to 20 January 1973.

The serial opened the tenth anniversary year of the series, and features the first three Doctors all appearing in the same serial. This makes it the first Doctor Who story in which an earlier incarnation of the Doctor returns to the show.

A superluminal signal is sent to Earth, carrying with it an unusual energy blob that seems intent on capturing the Doctor. In the meantime, the homeworld of the Time Lords is under siege, with all the power sustaining it being drained through a black hole. Trapped and desperate, the Time Lords do the unthinkable and break the First Law of Time, allowing the Doctor to aid himself by summoning his two previous incarnations from the past. Initially summoning his previous incarnation, they find that the two Doctors do not get on and bicker constantly, and so attempt to retrieve his first self to keep them in order.

Unfortunately, the First Doctor is trapped in a time eddy, unable to fully materialize, and can only communicate via viewscreen, but the Second Doctor joins the Third in investigating the origins of the creature and the black hole, while UNIT headquarters faces an attack by the gel-like alien creatures.

The First Doctor deduces the black hole is a bridge between universes, and the other two Doctors allow the TARDIS to be swallowed up by the energy creature, which transports them, Dr Tyler, Jo Grant, Sergeant Benton and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart into an antimatter universe created by the legendary Time Lord Omega. Omega was a solar engineer who created the supernova that powers Time Lord civilization, and was thought to be killed in the explosion. In actuality, he had been transported to the antimatter universe, where his will and thought turned the formless matter into physicality. Trapped, due to the fact that his will is the only thing maintaining reality, he vowed revenge on the Time Lords who left him stranded.