UNADULTERATED BOORISH OPINION: WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED IN 73 YARDS?

So I was toiling away on a fascinating ANALYTICAL post that was coming together quite nicely. It was a deep dive into the nature of time loops. How friggin' interesting is that?! 

I was having a great time re-watching stories like Claws of Axos and Meglos and Eve of the Daleks to glean whatever information I could on this strange form of time manipulation. And then packaging all that knowledge in a fun colorful manner that I hoped my readership would enjoy. 

But then, 73 Yards came along....

SUPRISE ENTRY 

If you followed the Season Reviews I wrote throughout the 60th Anniversary Year (well, the 60th Anniversary Year and Then Some!), you'll see that I'm not always the biggest fan of RTD's writing. Series One was brilliant, but everything else has given me some pretty mixed reactions. The Anniversary Specials, themselves, even felt largely disappointing. Suffice it to say, I was not the most enthused of individuals when the first "real" season of RTD2 fell upon us. 

But in the last few weeks, my opinion has changed greatly. These have been some really enjoyable stories (I even liked Space Babies!). RTD made a great choice by causing the Whoniverse to become more supernatural. The plot contrivance allows a whole new sort of story to be told within the show's lore. The Devil's Chord, for instance, proved to be great fun by allowing its villainess to, essentially, be a powerful magical being that the Doctor needed to defeat with music. I completely loved this idea and looked forward to more adventures of this nature. 

The next tale after Devil's Chord that had a supernatural theme to it, however, really astounded me. 73 Yards took me all the way back to the incredibly brilliant Ghost Light of Season Twenty-Six. Both adventures were written with an extreme level of sophistication and ambiguity. We're just expected to be intelligent as we watch them. Rather than have everything spelt out for us, we are required to make certain conclusions on our own. 

When Ghost Light came out, fans started coming up with their own theories as to what exactly occurred in the plot. Which is, of course, the biggest appeal to a story of this nature. The same thing is now happening with 73 Yards. People are actually putting forward all sorts of notions on what the lesser-explained aspects of the tale are meant to be about. I'm no exception to that rule. I have my own ideas about how 73 Yards is meant to work. 

Since I have this little blog to express myself in, I decided I should share them here! 

MAD JACK

There are certain key aspects of 73 Yards that need to be delved into quite deeply before we can really break down the actual plot and give it a proper explanation. Mad Jack is, without a doubt, the most important of all these elements.  

It all goes back to Wild Blue Yonder, of course. The Doctor employing superstition and pouring salt at the very edge of the Universe has allowed various mystical beings to enter our reality. Characters like the Celestial Toymaker and his daughter, the Maestro. Or the Goblin King. Most of these infiltrators, as you can see, seem to be quite malevolent. 

Mad Jack is another one of these creatures. He just might be the most mean-spirited of them all. 

Mad Jack revels in mindless destruction. He wants to see every civilization ruined in the worst way possible. But he has a curious way of manifesting Armageddon. He enters each society he wishes to ruin and creates the proper conditions it needs to unravel. He does this by either possessing a denizen of that world or, perhaps, he can actually assume the form of one of them. We're not entirely sure. 

Whichever the method, Mad Jack is incredibly charismatic as he walks amongst the mortals he's seeking to destroy. This allows him to assume a role of power in their social structure. Which, in turn, gives him access to the suitable weapons he will need to effect their ending. 

This is, essentially, his "M.O.". But there are ways to stop him. 

THE FAIRY CIRCLE 

This is our second super-important aspect to the story that merits a section of its own.

It's not entirely certain who actually constructed the Fairy Circle. It might have been a more benevolent being that the Doctor has let in from outside of our universe that rivals Mad Jack. Or it might actually be someone from Earth who performed "witchcraft". Perhaps some human amongst us has, somehow, learnt certain spells that can negate a few of these evil beings that are now infiltrating our dimension. Kate Stewart spoke to Ruby of the increased amount of supernatural incidents that UNIT has been investigating, of late. So all sorts of magic could now be going on. Some of it could stem from humans who now have strong psychic abilities. 

Regardless of its origins, the Fairy Circle is a ward spell that is preventing Mad Jack from being able to manifest himself on Earth. Many of these Evil Beings from Beyond have been showing a strong interest in us. Perhaps it's because they know that the Doctor has a fondness for our planet and they want to kick him where it hurts most. 

While the Fairy Circle keeps Mad Jack out, he is still very powerful and has made his presence felt. Particularly by those near the Circle, itself. Legends of his evil have spread amongst the villagers in the area. To the point where it seems he may have been able to partially enter our world once or twice and wreaked some degree of havoc. Alternatively, the Fairy Circle may have been constructed because Mad Jack has legitimately walked the Earth during its earlier days when civilization wasn't quite advanced enough for him to completely wipe it out. Whatever the case, he's gained a reputation in the area. 

As the Doctor stands close to the Fairy Circle, he's picking up on the potential alternative timeline that is about to be released. This prompts him, unknowingly, to tell Ruby about Roger ap Gwilliam. It's my belief, however, that if they hadn't come to the Fairy Circle, then the Roger ap Gwilliam Timeline would never have manifested itself in such a manner. The man may have still been born and lived a normal life. Or he may have never existed at all (as I've said, I'm not sure if Mad Jack would possess a human or just assume their form). But Mad Jack senses the Fairy Circle is about to break so his presence is already starting to be felt. 

BREAKING THE CIRCLE 

Within minutes of the episode starting, the Doctor accidentally steps on the Fairy Circle and breaks it. This, quite naturally, is when all the trouble starts. 

With the Circle damaged, the ward spell holding back Mad Jack no longer works. He can enter our world and begin his plans. Technically, that should be it for being able to thwart the evil entity. The ward spell should lose all its effectiveness. Especially since Ruby also does things to damage it. 

But the ward spell, hell-bent on doing everything it can to hold back Mad Jack, recognizes an enormous resource nearby: the TARDIS. If it can, somehow, access some of its abilities to manipulate time, it might be able to still prevent Jack from succeeding. 

This is why the Doctor suddenly disappears. The Fairy Circle absorbed him and is using his symbiotic link with the TARDIS to harness its powers. The Doctor, always willing to fight for a good cause, is happy to help. This also explains why it's suddenly become impossible to open the TARDIS door. The time vessel is now fully engaged in working with the Fairy Circle. It cannot be distracted by passengers. 

THE OLD LADY FROM A DISTANCE 

With the powers of the TARDIS at its disposal, the ward spell can make an attempt to re-set the timelines and cast Mad Jack back out. It goes for something quite simple. Get a future version or Ruby to travel back in time and prevent the Doctor from stepping on the Circle.  

There is a problem: With the Fairy Circle broken, the ward spell is very weak. Even with the TARDIS backing it up, it can only do so much. The plan is only so effective. 

A future version of Ruby can be sent back, but only if she is plucked from the very weakest point in her timeline. Basically, it can only be Ruby at the point of her death. A version of her that exists just as she has drawn her last breath. She's not quite dead. But not alive either. I remember one fan mentioning that she's a bit like the Doctor's Watcher in Logopolis. The image works for me. 

This future version of Ruby appears as a strange otherworldly-looking old woman who is completely unrecognizable to her. Particularly since she can only see her from a distance. Which is the other problem the ward spell is experiencing. Getting the same person from different periods of their life to meet each other is quite dangerous. The TARDIS actually has a failsafe in place that the ward spell doesn't have the strength to by-pass. The two versions of Ruby can never get any closer than 73 yards from each other. Future Ruby, however, will make continuous efforts to close the distance. No matter where Young Ruby goes, Ruby on the Verge of Death will follow her. Always trying to make contact. If Ruby can know the full plan of the ward spell, that will make all of this easier for her. So she's constantly trying to tell her. She just can't get close enough to be heard. 

Here's the thing about Future Ruby being in the state she's in: it disturbs the Hell out of any living human being that has direct contact with her. Most of the time, the TARDIS can protect nearby people by placing a perception filter around her. They will see her but intentionally avoid her. Unless, of course, they make a conscious effort to engage her. That will break the cloaking device and the full effect of her intensely off-putting aura will hit them. 

Fans keep speculating about what the Old Woman says to people that gets them to run away. I don't think she says much of anything. She just causes anyone who speaks to her directly to come face-to-face with their own mortality. Unable to deal with such a thing, they run off in total fear. And, because Old Ruby is connected to Young Ruby, it causes them to reject her too. They want nothing to do with either of them. Because they now both represent Death. 

ROGER AP GWILLIAM 

As all this is going on in Ruby's life, Roger ap Gwilliam rises to power. He does seem to have been born right around when the Fairy Circle was broken. Which implies that he came into existence when Mad Jack could enter our world. 

Here's where my theory gets at its wildest: I'm not entirely sure that Ruby needed to actually do anything to stop Gwilliam (or is it ap Gwilliam? Excuse my cultural ignorance!). The real plan was to just re-write time a bit by sending Future Ruby back to distract herself. Young Ruby deciding to use her own curse to her advantage was just a nice extra bonus. 

Yes, the Mad Prime Minister was planning to blow up the world. But the ward spell just needed to take Ruby at the point of death and send her back in time. If she had died in a nuclear blast rather than a bed in a hospital, it would not have made a difference.  

Or perhaps it would. Perhaps a violent death would have been too difficult to wrest a future version of Ruby from. So Ruby ruining Mad Jack's plans was an important part of the whole operation. As I've said several times already: Who can say for sure?!! 

COMPLETING THE LOOP 

And so, Ruby reaches the end of her life. The Old Woman From a Distance can approach her ever-so-briefly so that they can merge and she can then be projected into the past. 

The saddest thing, of course, is that Ruby had to live through the entire alternative timeline at least once for the actual sequence of events to occur. Otherwise, Future Ruby would not be able to appear and stop them. Only when Ruby's full life is completed can the Old Woman From a Distance properly appear in the past and provide a distraction at just the right time. Thus causing the Doctor to not step on the Circle. Which, in turn, stops Ruby's whole miserable existence without the Doctor from ever occurring. 

It's a fairly mind-boggling paradox. But it just manages to work. 

This is one of those rare occasions where a huge hiccup in time isn't actually noticed by the Doctor. Which makes sense. The ward spell's plan prevents a whole series of events from ever happening. He just doesn't break the Fairy Circle, now. So how could he know about any of this? 

But Ruby does appear to remember it all and just isn't going to say anything to him about it. I purposely waited until Dot and Bubble came out before posting this. I wanted to see if Ruby would mention the events of 73 Yards in it. Sure enough, she did. Although she does seem pretty hazy about the whole experience. So maybe she only vaguely recalls it. 

Future episodes might clarify these issues a bit better but I didn't want to wait too long to post this. The more new episodes come out, the more attention they will get. Speculating about 73 Yards will lose popularity. As is, people might already be saying to themselves: "Who cares anymore, Rob?!" when this actual entry does go up!    

A FEW MINOR NIGGLES:

So, just a few more quick questions that need answering: 

How can Mad Jack exist if he's just a joke that was made up by the patrons in the pub to tease Ruby? 

It's my belief that he wasn't completely made up. That there are some old legends about him that the locals in the pub chose to exploit. The fact that there are stories about him made it all-the-easier to get in on the joke. The first person to mention him knew that no one else in the room would be like: "Mad Jack?! Who's that meant to be ?!" Instead, they would be like: "Yeah! Let's scare her with some tales about Mad Jack!" 

The same goes, of course, for Ruby damaging the Fairy Circle. There would be superstitions about what doing such a thing causes. The locals could use this to their advantage. They would know about the "rules" that apply to fairy circles but would not, necessarily, believe in them. Nonetheless, it would still be fun to tease Ruby for breaking them. 

While the patrons of the pub are taking the piss out of Ruby, they are still drawing upon old Lore about the area as they do so. It just so happens that everything that they are citing is actually accurate! 

Why Can't Ruby hear what her Future Self is telling her when her Mom holds up the phone to her?

Hearing herself over the phone still constitutes someone from two different points in their timeline having contact. Which causes the TARDIS failsafe I mentioned earlier to kick in. A condition that the ward spell is too weak to break. During many other instances, this isn't actually a problem and a person is able to meet themselves (ie: the Brigadier in Mawdryn Undead) but this might be due to the fact that the TARDIS is old and unreliable. The failsafe breaks down from time-to-time but will also get repaired now and again. Meaning, of course, that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't (Mind you, the TARDIS may have shut the protocol down, herself, during Mawdryn Undead knowing it would save the Doctor). So when Young Ruby tries to hear Old Ruby through her cell, the whole process triggers a sort of temporal backwash that causes the reception between the two phones to become staticky. Thus preventing proper contact. 

Will Roger ap Gwilliam still become Prime Minister? 

Probably not. He may not even exist anymore. Or, if he is born, he doesn't become Prime Minister. Or, if he does have a successful political career that makes him the leader of Britain, he won't want to blow up the world. 

The Fairy Circle managed to create a continuum where the Doctor and Ruby never damaged it. So Mad Jack never enters our world. He won't be able to create the circumstances that Ruby had to live through when the Fairy Circle broke. 

Basically, it's all an aborted timeline, now. But one that was created more through magic than technology. Which kinda makes it special! 

If it's an aborted timeline, why does the Doctor still mention him?! 

Because he is still standing close to the Fairy Circle. So the potential reality is still speaking to him. As he gets further and further away from it, he will forget all about Roger ap Gwilliam. Or, at the very least, he will remember him differently. 

It's also entirely possible that he still had to bring up the topic in order to get the whole paradox to work. Ruby needed to know about Mad Jack so that she would know to stop him in the future while she was still stuck in the aborted timeline. Particularly if my "Ruby Needed to Die a Peaceful Death" theory is accurate. She would need the "tease" the Doctor gave her to get her to foil his plans. Which, in turn, would ensure she dies under favorable circumstances. 

So the Fairy Circle allowed that little bit of information to leak in order to get all the events of the aborted timeline to flow the way they needed to. So that, in turn, the whole thing would never happen. 

Yup, definitely a complex paradox! 

The Fairy Circle is sitting outside, won't it just get broken in a nasty storm?!   

The ward spell is powerful enough to resist the effects of the elements. But an actual mortal interfering with it is too strong of a force for it to contend with. Even if the mortal damages it unintentionally. 

And ... there you go: my "two cents" on what I think happened in 73 Yards. It was such a compelling story that I had to discuss it as soon as possible in here. 

Now I'll get back to analyzing time loops.... 

 

BOOK OF LISTS: RANKING SWANSONG STORIES

I'll start all of this off by admitting that I've already done an entry similar to this one. 

Way back in the late 1800s, I compiled a Ranking the Regenerations List. Basically, I looked at all the regenerations the Doctor had been through up to that point and arranged them in order of preference. I even added an Appendix to this list later after another regeneration had occurred. I should, in fact, go back to this list some time and make a further contribution to it since there have been another two regenerations since the Appendix! 

Anyhow, what aspect of regeneration you're meant to actually appreciate in a List like this is a fairly subjective concept. When analyzing such things, some fans only look at the very sequence, itself. Basically, they're merely thinking of the actual scene where the process takes place. Like when Seven is lying "dead" in the morgue during The Enemy Within and morphs into Eight. Or Five collapses on the floor of the console room of the TARDIS in the final moments of Caves of Androzani wondering if he might actually survive spectrox toxemia by turning into Six. 

Others view the full final story of an incarnation as what constitutes a regeneration. If they enjoyed all four parts of Logopolis, for instance, or both episodes of The End of Time, then these are "good" regenerations. 

I, however, was even more comprehensive when I compiled that List. I view a regeneration as an incarnation's final adventure and then however long the recovery process takes afterwards. For the most part, the after-effects of a regeneration usually clear up by the end of the new incarnation's first story. Ten, for instance, seems to have properly stabilized by the end of The Christmas Invasion. So I feel that Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways/The Christmas Invasion are the full representation of that particular regeneration. 

Those were the guidelines I used all those decades ago when I took the trouble to figure out what order I appreciated all these regenerations in and put together a BOOK OF LISTS entry about it. But now I want to look at something slightly different. 

I want to analyze Swansong Stories.

WHAT'S A SWANSONG STORY? 

That second example of what some fans feel constitutes a regeneration has a different title for me. I call it a Swansong Story. "Swansong", of course, being a fancy poetic way of simply saying: "last". So The War Games or Time of the Doctor would be considered Swansong stories to me. They are that final adventure an incarnation has before submitting to the process of regeneration and allowing someone new to stand in their place. 

That definition, however, can be a bit blurry, in places. A story like The War Games puts a serious kibosh on things since we don't actually see Troughton transform into Pertwee. This allows us the room to create the whole theory of Season 6b. A concept that allows the contradictions to canon in tales like The Two and Five Doctors to work. Where it's believed that the Second Doctor ran around for quite a while after his trial and accomplished secret missions for the CIA before truly suffering his forced regeneration. Some fans now even believe that he turned into the Fugitive Doctor during that time too (still not entirely sure how that works - but who am I to poke holes in fan theories?!). So The War Games is, in some ways, not really Two's final outing. But, at the time that it was broadcast, that's what it was considered. So I'll let all that extra headcannon that we've created be cast to the wayside and accept The War Games for what it's meant to be.  

Because there's a clear and distinct difference in my head between a Swansong Story and a Regeneration, I decided to compile this second list. Taking away Robot from Planet of Spiders, for example, can make a huge difference with my levels of appreciation. Which, in turn, can cause the Swansong story to have a very different place on this list than it did when I was Ranking Regenerations. So I figured it was worth my while to write this entry. If you're really into all this, you can look at both lists and notice the various nuances.  I will even take the trouble to post links to the other List and its Appendix at the end of all this. 

EXCEPTIONS 

As is always the case, there will be some things that happened in the show that resemble what we're discussing but won't actually qualify to make the List. In something as wild and diverse as Doctor Who, there will always be exceptions of this nature. 

The first and most obvious exception would be Poor 'Ole Sixie. I suppose, if we really wanted to, we could view The Ultimate Foe as his Swansong Story. Especially since I think it's a great little two-parter that has a nice epic quality to it that a Swansong can frequently have. But it still wouldn't be entirely fair to do such a thing. We can't truly consider it a Grand Finale to the Sixth Doctor since absolutely no one knew, at the time, that this would be his last story. So Six won't get a ranking on this list.  

I also don't think that the few minutes of Seven that we get at the beginning of The Enemy Within qualifies as a Swansong, either. It's more like a protracted cameo that results in a regeneration. A Swansong, for me, constitutes a full story that sees the current Doctor changing at the end. Which is not what happens in The 96 Telemovie. So this one also won't make it into the entry. 

Finally, there's the many regenerations Tennant's Doctor goes through. A Swansong needs to legitimately transform the Doctor from one actor to another. This only truly happens in The End of Time. Tennant still gets to keep being Tennant during Stolen Earth/Journey's End and The Giggle. So only one of the three stories qualify. 

With the exceptions noted, we can now examine the twelve "proper" Swansong stories that the show has given us: 

12) THE END OF TIME  

I wouldn't quite call The End of Time legitimately awful. But I will say it comes perilously close. 

The first part is fairly passable. There are some odd choices, though. Many have remarked how the Master shooting lightning and flying through the air feels "intensely unDoctorWhoish". I find myself agreeing with the sentiment. It seems more like a sort of bad super hero movie. I'm also not sure why Time Lords are suddenly capable of smelling each other from over great distances. That was very odd, too. I get that it's was a way of trying to visually represent telepathic recognition better. But, like the lightning and the flying, it didn't really work. 

The big sappy scene in the cafe with Wilf and the Doctor was okay. But, given that they're going to have another talk like this in Part Two, it seemed a bit extraneous. We soon see what the real purpose of the scene was: marking time. 

Padding is something we see a lot of in End of Time. There is just so very little to the plot, here. Yes, it's big and exciting to see the Time Lords again. But it might have been nice to give them an actual decent story to appear in. 

Evidence of the inadequately-sized plot grows. The end of the first episode is really difficult to sit through. Yup, we get it. The Master has taken over the bodies of every human on the Earth except Wilf and Donna. But we don't need nearly ten minutes of his stupid grinning face over and over all across the world. I'm reminded of the ending of Part One of Hand of Fear. Where we have to watch Sarah Jane Smith walk endlessly through a nuclear power plant in order to pad the run-time. 

Part Two just gets worse. Very little is really happening and whatever development we do get moves sooooo slowly. There's just not enough, here. Not even for one hour. Forget about two! 

Enduring fifteen minutes of the Doctor just running around and saying bye to everyone is what finally gets me to just swear the whole thing off. This all seems especially silly since we had a gigantic former companion love-fest just a few episodes earlier in the Series Four finale. Why are we doing this again so soon?! 

There are a few things that do save the story from a "completely awful" status. Timothy Dalton is fantastic as Rassilon. He takes the very little he's been given and turns in into something very intense and interesting to watch. One can see why he is the success that he is as an actor. Also, the presence of the mysterious woman talking to Wilf is undeniably cool and even a bit touching. How she compels the Doctor to make a better choice when dealing with his foes is a brilliant moment. 

Ultimately, though, The End of Time tends to let me down. It relies too heavily on the sadness of Ten leaving and doesn't really deliver much beyond a bunch of overwrought sentimentalism. I'm not even all that fond of Tennant's final line. 

"I don't want to go." just seems a bit too whiny!     

11) PLANET OF SPIDERS 

There's a lot to like about Planet of Spiders. I always found its main theme of conquering fear regardless of the consequences to be quite powerful. The Doctor stating that message at the very end of Episode Six as he stumbles out of the TARDIS and collapses on the floor was actually quite moving.  It's a genuinely beautiful moment. 

The power struggles going on between the various human and arachnoid characters that are siding with the Great One also gives us a lot of interesting political intrigue. Particularly Lupton. The speech he delivers that explains why he sought meditation to begin with actually creates a legitimate degree of sympathy for him. The symbiotic relationship he develops with the spider on his back is also great fun to watch. 

The ongoing exploration of the powers of the blue crystals of Metebilis Three is also quite fascinating. Especially with the effects one of them has on Tommy. I also love that Tommy's pureness makes him invulnerable to the attacks of the Spiders. 

Finally, there's the Doctor's mentor. What a great role he plays in the whole adventure. Being there for his old pupil when he needed him most. 

It's all really great stuff. So why is the story second from the bottom?    

We all know why:

That damned chase sequence. 

There's still quite a bit of fun to it. It's a great hoot when Pertwee runs over the stuntman/hobo with a hovercraft. And the police officer that's trying to keep up with everything in the early stages of the chase offers some nice comic relief, too. But the sequence is just soooo long and soooo indulgent that it really does do a lot of damage to the overall entertainment value of the narrative. Especially when, as the whole thing starts to wrap up, Lupton and the Spider escape the Doctor by just teleporting away. Why didn't they just do that to begin with?!  

But, if we're being honest, it's more than just the chase scene that damages Spiders. This is another one of those notorious Pertwee Six Parters that didn't really have the material to sustain that kind of run-time. Which is why, of course, we get a gigantic time filler like the chase sequence. But we see other stuff like this. Particularly in the latter episodes. They plod along so badly, in places. The plot could have been competently handled in about three episodes. Sitting through all that extra padding makes it difficult to stay excited about the whole adventure. 

My final major gripe about this tale is that it doesn't so much use Buddhist imagery as feel like a Buddhist recruitment video! I really don't feel like Doctor Who is a show that should delve so deeply into the theology of any religion. Can the program be influenced by organized faith? Sure! Have a party! Put some Messianic imagery into that 96 Telemovie. That won't bother me in the slightest. But if McGann had suddenly turned to the camera and spent several minutes preaching about the Redemptive Blood of Jesus - then I would've taken serious issue with that. Planet of Spiders, however, does get up on a bit of pulpit regarding Barry Letts' own spiritual beliefs (yes, I know Buddhists don't actually preach from a pulpit - but I think you take my point!). 

While there's a lot to like about this story, it also does a lot to shoot itself in the foot. Which causes the whole thing to finish up quite low in these rankings.  

10) DAY OF THE DOCTOR 

Probably Day of the Doctor's biggest problem when you put it in this category is that it is, technically, a Swansong story - it just doesn't feel like one! It's a great anniversary tale. An awesome multi-incarnation adventure. But we almost don't notice the fact that we are saying goodbye to one of the Doctors, here, too. 

Like the incarnation immediately before him, the Reign of the War Doctor is a short one. But, while Moff went out of his way to give Eight a very special send-off, the War Doctor's regeneration is added almost as an afterthought. It felt like the Head Writer was trying to be a completist more than anything. He didn't want another Doctor to go without a proper regeneration scene so he dropped the sequence in just after War says bye to Ten and Eleven. 

There is just so much else going on in Day of the Doctor that we can't really give much attention to the fact that this is also meant to be the War Doctor's last great hoorah. It does almost feel like another special mini-sode should have been made where John Hurt was brought back for just a little bit longer. Rather than be given something that lasted less than a minute where he just paraphrases Hartnell and then makes a goofy joke about ears for his final line (albeit, it's still a good last line!). 

Day of the Doctor is a really great story. But it doesn't really take the time to tackle the War Doctor's departure. I'm sure hiring Hurt wasn't cheap. Getting him to come in and film extra footage for a special mini-sode of his own would have probably been a bit costly. But it was the 50th Anniversary. BBC could have forked out just a bit more cash for a show that has made them so much money for so long. This would have worked better as a send-off for this incarnation. It also would have given the Anniversary Special some nice bookends. A mini-sode on each side! 

In defense of Day of the Doctor, they do still give the War Doctor a nice little arc throughout the course of the plot. He's an incarnation of the Time Lord who doesn't believe he can live up to the name he's given himself. But, as the story reaches its conclusion, he realizes he is the Doctor, after all. Just like all the others. This does help the tale feel just a little bit more like a proper Swansong. 

Which is why it doesn't quite sit at the bottom of this list. Had it just been a quick regeneration scene right before the Tom Baker cameo and nothing else, it would have finished last. Thankfully, it's a bit more than that. 

9) TIME OF THE DOCTOR 

It should be noted that the next four stories are so close in quality that they're quite interchangeable. Their positions on this list could, easily, re-arrange at any given time. It all depends on my mood, really. Sometimes, I just like a certain story better than the other three for a while. So it gets bumped up until my tastes shift again! So where I am currently ranking these next four tales can be considered transient, at best. Fifth place will, of course, always remain consistent. But Ninth to Sixth can easily swap around! 

There is no other Swansong story that deals more with wrapping up loose threads than Time of the Doctor. All three seasons of Eleven's tenure have been leading up to this moment. There has been so much foreshadowing and clues and unanswered questions. They all need to get resolved in this final hour of his existence. 

Moff took a huge risk, here. He pushed wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey to its ultimate extreme. Making sure that there would be an adequate pay-off to all the mystery he'd built up was going to be difficult to accomplish. As the Swansong approached, I thought of shows like Lost. It had done something similar to this. But its final conclusion where it tried to answer all the questions it had created seemed largely unsatisfactory to its fans. And I wondered if the same thing would happen, here. 

Impressively enough, Time of the Doctor does resolve all of its arcs quite nicely. It even remembers to show us what the Doctor saw behind his door during God Complex! In this sense, I'm quite happy with what this episode delivers. 

There are some other aspects to the story that don't work so well. It makes a few odd choices: The Doctor running around naked in front of Clara. Or a wooden Cybermen. Those are the bigger ones that come to mind. It also feels just a bit too light on plot. Like we needed something just a little bit more than the Doctor defending a town called Christmas. 

But there are also quite a few things to like about Time. Once more, I appreciate how Moff subverts expectations.  Everyone was thinking the Battle of Trenzalore would be so huge and epic. But I do enjoy the fact that the conflict is so much simpler than we fancied it to be. It's just about defending a simple little town called Christmas. I know I'm, technically, contradicting myself, here. But it is possible to dislike and like something at the same time! What the story really needed was just one more subplot. Something that fills things out a bit better but still doesn't draw away from the beauty of its simplicity.  

Most significantly, I'm really happy with how Moff faces the problem of the Doctor no longer being able to regenerate and deals with it. Lesser writers would have done all they could to avoid the matter! 

So, yes, Time of the Doctor is a bit of a mixed bag. But, overall, it's quite solid.  

8) THE WAR GAMES 

The War Games begins a tradition in Swansong stories that continues to this day. The production team makes the decision that, since the latest lead actor is leaving, they should make it a big deal. So they have the current Doctor go out on a high note. He saves the entire Earth from some huge diabolical plot to either conquer or destroy it. Or, they go for really big stakes and he prevents a Universal Catastrophe. Yes, these things can also happen during a particularly non-important event in the middle of a season. But, because the Doctor "dies" in this particular story, it all feels more special.   

Troughton's Final Tale is a huge sprawling epic that begins as a period piece with intriguing anachronisms and evolves into an intense hard sci fi adventure with the fate of the Galaxy at stake. But a big nasty threat to the cosmos was not going to be enough for this send-off. The story also reveals a significant portion of the Doctor's origins. Essentially, The War Games is a legitimate milestone in the show's canon. 

As great as this story is, it has one fatal flaw: Ten episodes is just too damned long. It is just bit too much to sit through. Not a lot. But a bit. Admittedly, I really only put it on if I'm using it for research purposes for this blog. It's rare that I sit through it purely for enjoyment. 

I get that there were problems with other stories in the season and that they needed to draw this one out to compensate for them. They did get away with eight episodes earlier in the year. The Invasion is very engaging. But The War Games doesn't quite pull it off. It might have been nicer if it had been whittled down to six episodes and another four-parter had been cobbled together. I'm guessing that, for whatever reason, this was impossible to do and there was no choice but to go the way they did. 

I can't pick on War Games too hard for its run-time, though. It still propels itself along quite well and uses very little padding. For the most part, the plot is always advancing. With little or no capturing-and-escaping or other such tricks to fill things out. 

Which is why the story does end up doing decently on this list. In some ways, it is too long. But, to its credit, it never actually drags much. I'm not sure how it's possible to have both these traits at once. But The War Games manages to accomplish this!

7) WORLD ENOUGH AND TIME/THE DOCTOR FALLS/TWICE UPON A TIME

I had quite the debate with myself over this one. I could, technically, view Twelve's Swansong as just being Twice Upon a Time. If I did, it would be in a very different place on this list. 

But it does also feel like it's the last installment in a Three Parter. World Enough and Time does open with Twelve arriving in the Arctic, dropping to his knees and starting to regenerate. The Doctor Falls, of course, gets us back there. Thus setting things up for the bridge into Twice Upon a Time.  Quite a bit of attention, in general, is given to the Doctor holding back his regeneration during Doctor Falls. Which, again, links in nicely with the episode that follows it. 

At the same time, Twice Upon a Time can be considered its own separate adventure. It takes place in a completely different location from the two prior episodes and introduces a whole new plot. We could legitimately see the links in World and Falls to be merely tenuous if we really wanted to. 

So this was my quandary: what do I consider to be Twelve's "proper" Swansong? Deciding that it's a single episode or a Three Parter would have a serious impact on its ranking. 

After much consideration, I went with the Three Parter approach. 

It's a pretty simple analysis, really. World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls are incredible. Had Twelve turned into Thirteen at the conclusion and the Christmas Special was something else entirely, this story would have been even closer to the top on this list. These two episodes are just that good. 

Twice Upon a Time is, by no means, an awful story. But it certainly drags things down a bit. It had the potential to be just as awesome as World and Falls since it was a multi-incarnation story. But there were problems with how One was being portrayed. And the plot is, perhaps, just a tad too light. Giving the whole tale a slightly lackluster feel. Which causes Twelve's Swansong to lose some considerable traction. Because of Twice Upon a Time, it sits considerably lower in my rankings. 

I won't deny, however, that Twelve's final moments in the console room is the best farewell scene an incarnation has ever gotten (thus far, at least). Moff writes a fantastic monologue and Capaldi performs it to perfection. It all looks absolutely gorgeous. Oddly enough, some fans complain about the bit where the Doctor claims that certain children know his name. I'm not sure why, though. It's actually my favorite part! 

6) THE TENTH PLANET

The One that started it all. The Tenth Planet may feel a little clumsy, in places, but it still has a very fun energy to it. Part of its charm is definitely caused by a sort of retrospective enjoyment. Every fan knows the importance of this story so we can't help but be a bit excited about it.  Particularly as we watch it for the first time. 

But, beyond that, it's still a pretty decent tale. Especially since it uses several conventions that we haven't really seen in the show yet. It's the first story, for instance, that takes place in the near future. Up until this adventure, everything on Earth was either in the distant past, the present day or the far-flung future. It was interesting to dip just a few years ahead of the transmission date (and laugh just a little bit at how Snowcap Base still used a film projector - surely they would have had a TV and VCR?!) It's also the first time that the entire world is confronted with undeniable evidence of extra-terrestrial life. Everyone around the globe is aware that Mondas has entered its orbit and the Cybermen seem to make their presence known to all of the Earth. Prior to this, invasions of our planet during had been much more covert. 

I have discussed, before, the General Gripe that people have with this story. They feel as though Hartnell's Doctor should have had a stronger presence in the plot. They tend to be particularly upset that he ducks out for all of Part Three. But I think emphasizing his frailty during his final hours works just fine. I also think he actually does still have a decent role to play in the whole thing. In the end, it is still his advice that results in the destruction of Mondas. 

If I have any real issue with the whole thing, it's the fact that this is also the very first Cybermen story. In some ways, that does almost take away from the potence of Hartnell's departure. The Cybermen return as often as they do because they really are very effective monsters. Giving us such an engaging alien species while the Doctor is meant to be regenerating legitimately distracts us! However, it also makes this Swansong story that much more exciting. So I won't complain too much! 

In the end, there might still have been better ways to write Hartnell out. But Tenth Planet remains a very exciting tale that starts off an ongoing tradition in the show that will keep it fresh and exciting for many years to come. That fact, alone, always makes it a great watch. But it's a pretty decent story, too.  

5) CAVES OF ANDROZANI 

Still considered by many fans to be the best Doctor Who story ever. It should, no doubt, also rank as a top Swansong tale. I, myself, do enjoy Caves of Androzani. But, as you can see, I don't think of it as highly as most do.

Caves is, perhaps, one of the most riveting and engaging Doctor Who stories ever made. Both the writing and direction are excellent. Davison seems to realize he's got a Classic on his hands and really puts in an incredible performance. Of course, this being the last time he would play the role (aside from the multi-incarnation stuff that would come along later), would also be influencing him to try that little bit harder. I do resent, however, the people who say things like: "The Fifth Doctor was finally good in this story and then he had to go!" He was excellent the whole time. I like him better than most. 

So why does Caves only come in at fifth place if it's meant to be so awesome? 

I did write a Greatest Hits entry that explains my slight disdain for this story (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/07/unadulterated-boorish-opinion-more.html). If you don't want to go read it, I'll summarize by explaining that I find that things tend to fall apart quite badly during Part Four. 

Caves of Androzani gives us another one of those "end-of-story supporting cast slaughterfests" that frequently took place when Eric Saward was script editor for the show. I moan about these endlessly. They're, basically, the cheapest way to resolve all the major conflicts in the plot of a story. You just kill off most of the guest cast rather than actually come up with a clever solution to it all. It's a bit of a disappointment, really. 

Now, those other three episodes are absolutely incredible. Particularly the cliffhanger to Part Three. Davison is excellent as he shouts away at Stotz through a hole in the door. It's one of the most intense scenes in the show's history. If the last part had maintained that level of quality then this would be Number One on this list. 

Sadly, however, the story doesn't get the best of endings. But, because so much of it is still so brilliant, it can hold a respectable ranking. 

 

4) NIGHT OF THE DOCTOR 

When I compiled my Ranking the Regenerations List, Night of the Doctor had only recently come out. It made it pretty far up the list. After a bit of time, I wondered if it was the fact that I was so excited to finally get to see the Eighth Doctor regenerate that had influenced my judgement. That the mini-sode wasn't anything that special. That it was more about having my fannish cravings satisfied than the quality of the content that caused me to appreciate it so much. 

Ten years have passed since the mini-sode was released. At this point, the fanboy excitement has definitely settled down. However, even though it's barely eight minutes, Night of the Doctor still stands up really damn well! It's a quick, simple story that's very well-told. So much so, that it genuinely does beat a lot of the full length swansong stories that came out before and after it. 

If you read my last entry about multi-incarnation adventures, you'll recall the phenomenon of "misremembering" that I discussed in it. For those that didn't catch it: it's when a previous incarnation is brought back but is not written in a way that lines up with how they actually behaved when they were considered "the current Doctor". While I didn't state it outright, Moff is most guilty of committing this crime. Both Time Crash and Twice Upon a Time display pretty glaring examples of this.   

Night of the Doctor, however, is definitely one of those times where Moff did not "misremember" a thing. In fact, it's my guess that he watched The Enemy Within a few times before writing any of that script. In just a handful of minutes, the Eighth Doctor displays several of the key traits he had in his only televised adventure. Moff actually does a fantastic job of distilling his essence. 

And then there's McGann's actual performance. His memory seems as good as the writer's! Although I do like how he gives his performance a much more mellow edge. It insinuates that some time has passed since we witnessed his "birth" in 1996. McGann makes such a brilliant choice with such a subtle re-interpretation of the role. I also like that there were slight alterations to his costume. This Doctor has definitely changed things up a bit over the years. 

What makes this swansong the most interesting is that is tinged with a sense of failure. Even a story  like Caves of Androzani feels triumphant for the Fifth Doctor. While he does nothing to actually improve the conflict in that particular adventure, he still manages to save Peri's life by sacrificing his own. Which really does overshadow the futility of his presence in the whole plot. But this isn't really the case for Night of the Doctor. While the choice he is making will, eventually, save all of Time and Space, it still feels like a bad one. We respected the Doctor more when he was refusing to participate in the Time Wars. But, in the end, he ends his eighth life by choosing to take part in something that will only diminish him. And, quite possibly, scar him for the rest of his long existence. 

I love that, for once, a Doctor is allowed to go out on such a sour note. A swansong is usually a celebration of all that is noble and good about that particular incarnation. But it's not what we get this time. And I think that is both a bold and awesome choice. 

3) BAD WOLF/PARTING OF THE WAYS 

The first Swansong of the New Series. This thing needed to land well or all the new fans that the show had garnered would have a difficult time accepting the concept of regeneration and might not stick with things after Eccleston was gone. Fortunately, Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways is absolutely brilliant. 

Like Power of the Doctor, a lot of arcs get wrapped up, here. Probably even more than what we got in Power, in fact. Which is pretty impressive when you think about it. Jodie's era was three seasons. Whereas Chris' was only one. It's quite amazing that RTD could weave so many threads in such a short time. 

Several of these arcs involve the major characters that we've been following throughout the season. Jackie accepts that the Doctor is actually a positive influence in her daughter's life. Mickey comes to terms with the fact that it's truly over between him and his girlfriend. Rose decides to stop drifting through her life and stand up and make a difference. It's all great stuff. 

But the most significant ongoing storyline that gets resolved takes place within the Doctor, himself. At last, he's able to face all of his survivor guilt and truly heal from it. In a scenario similar to when he had to use The Moment to wipe out the Daleks and the Time Lords, he makes a better choice. Instead of being an agent of destruction, he decides to be a coward. He refuses to let the ends justify the means. And, because of this, he's able to let go of all the shame that has been plaguing him. It's a great moment. Particularly since we hadn't actually seen the act he'd committed that was haunting him so much. RTD's writing and Eccleston's acting, however, conveys everything that we needed to know about the situation. 

Having Rose stare into the Heart of the TARDIS is, perhaps, a bit too much of a Deus ex-machina. But it's still a pretty cool one. And Nine's final moments in the console room are quite touching. His era was way too short. But it really was fantastic. 

2) LOGOPOLIS 

Up until recently, I considered this to be the best Swansong the show ever had. It's still really only about a smidgeon behind the true victor. 

I've said it on many occasions: I find Tom Baker to be overrated. He oozes a ridiculous amount of charm and really did inhabit the part. But there are plenty of actors who I like way more as the Doctor. I feel that they treated the role with much more focus and even effort than he did. This becomes particularly evident in Seasons Sixteen and Seventeen. Where Baker really does seem to be all over the place. Like he was just coming to the shoot every day, goofing off and not really getting much of anything accomplished. 

If he'd been employed in an office rather than starring in a show, Management would have wanted to fire him for his lack of productivity. But they would have been reluctant to because his long history with the company would represent an expensive severance package! We've all worked with people who have taken full advantage of such a situation and just totally screw off throughout the workday (or, perhaps, we're that person!). Baker causes an entire two seasons of the show to resemble this dynamic. Like we're just watching the misadventures of the Office Goof.  

Having said all that, the guy still put in a solid amount of time playing the part. Many fans do consider him to be the purest distillation of the character. The greatest Doctor of them all. 

Which means that, regardless of my own feelings, I do still feel that he needed the most grandiose of send-offs. I recognize the presence that he has in the show's history and how much he has contributed to the success of Doctor Who, in general. That merits an impressive final outing. 

Logopolis more-than-gives him the departure he deserves. In fact, all of Season Eighteen sets things up for his final adventure. The stories become darker and darker in tone. The theme of entropy becomes more and more prevalent. His previous companions get phased out for newer ones that are destined for his successor. They even bring back his greatest rival and make him instrumental in the transition to his next incarnation. It's all set up quite beautifully. And it's not done in the way New Who constructs these sort of things. It's not about big massive story arcs being resolved. It's about moods and atmosphere propelling things along to their final conclusion.  

Logopolis, itself, is the ultimate linchpin in all of this. It's not uncommon for a build-up like this to fall flat on its ass when it gets to the end (Game of Thrones being one of the clearer examples of such a phenomenon). But Logopolis lives up to all of its expectations - and then some. 

While some fans complain of how much Baker is restrained in Season Eighteen, I think it was the best choice Production could have made. His departure feels very distinguished. Basically, it's given the respect it deserves. Imagine how terrible it would have all looked if he'd still been larking about like a fool throughout his finale. 

Instead, it really did feel like we were attending a funeral. The actual service is very gripping and intense - but we're still there to honor someone's passing. In fact, the whole story draws a perfect balance between seeing Baker off but still giving us a really spectacular plot. 

Logopolis also gives us the absolute best soundtrack in the show's history. The music is almost its own character in the story. It has such beautiful dark and melancholic strains to it. So many chilling moments become all-the-more potent because of the music being played behind it. Like when Four sees the Watcher for the first time. 

Which leads us to another element that makes Logopolis so ridiculously cool. We never fully understand the exact nature of the Watcher (we imagine he's something similar to what K'anpo was able to create in Planet of Spiders), but he's still an awesome concept. His presence throughout the story really enhances the whole solemness of the Fourth Doctor's final moments.  The gold energy effect we now get in New Who when a Time Lord regenerates does look nice. But it will never look as great as when the Watcher merges with Tom Baker and turns into Peter Davison. Even if the whole sequence was done on a cheap budget! 

1) POWER OF THE DOCTOR

Fair Warning: If Power of the Doctor. somehow, figures into any of these countdowns - expect it to rank highly! There is just so much of this story that I absolutely love. Here, of course, it makes it all the way to the top. And it totally deserves the position. 

It's not just a great final story. It's also everything that Jodie's era has been leading up to. From the much more simple and straightforward stories of Series Eleven to the many twists and turns during Flux. This is the culmination of it all. And it's executed brilliantly. I especially enjoyed some of the really super-clever stuff that Chibnall did. Like creating Cyber-Masters a season-or-so previously so that their regeneration energy could be used to reverse the Doctor's forced regeneration. I love when that sort of plotting is done throughout the course of an era. It's a bit like the Doctor's hand during the RTD period.  But Chibnall's arc was considerably less ham-fisted (yup, I said it: Chibnall wrote something better than RTD did!). 

Now, I know what some of you might be saying: 

"But Rob!" you like to point out, "This isn't the only swansong story that brings various arcs to their ultimate culmination. Just look at the Eleventh Doctor!" 

And, of course, at some point during this list I did! 

Quite simply, other Swansong tales that have sewn up arcs don't do it quite as well as Power of the Doctor did. I really do feel that they built things up beautifully over Jodie's three seasons and then brought it all to a fantastic conclusion. I seem to recall hearing that it was originally meant to be a five-year plan. But Covid put paid to that. Chibnall, however, still ended up doing a great job of compressing things. 

Of course, Power of the Doctor is chocked full of fan service. Soooooo much fan service! We've got the Doctor's three worst enemies working together. About a half-dozen old companions showing up (some only for a brief cameo in the support group scene - but it was still awesome to see William Russell there!). We've got an outlandish costume from the Master that harkens back to several different incarnations of the Doctor. And, finally, there's some totally awesome multi-incarnation action (which I've discussed quite thoroughly in the last entry). It don't get much more fan-servicey than this, folks!  

Such gestures can be a tricky thing in New Who. Half the time, it's quite beautiful. Like, say, The Doctor's Wife. The other half of the time - not so much! This is one of those occasions where they get it right. Everything feels appropriately respectful to elements of the show's past rather than cheap and gimmicky. 

Thirteen's final moments are also very well-crafted. A great mix between the regret of another body losing its existence and the courage the Doctor musters as he/she moves through the latest change. There's a great balance to it all. Thirteen is sad that she must end, but hopeful towards the future. The perfect attitude for an incarnation to bow out on. 

There's so little fault that I can find with Power of the Doctor (the Daleks come perilously close to being extraneous - that's really about it!). Otherwise, it is a perfect sequence of events involving many nods from the past that all come together to tell one last magnificent tale for a greatly-underrated incarnation. 

And thus, another gigantic list concludes. 

If you're thinking: "That was nice but I need more lists!", then here's my Ranking the Regenerations entry: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-book-of-lists-ranking-regenarations.html

And its Appendix: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/12/book-of-lists-appendix-1-ranking.html

You can see that some of the regenerations hold a very different position than the Swansongs they contain because of the "New Doctor" story that follows them. In fact, my next list might just be me ranking how I like all the New Doctor stories. 

Hmmm.... 

Just for a bit of extra fun, here's a link to something I wrote about on how to "properly" watch all the Doctor's regenerations: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/05/complete-and-utter-silliness-how-to.html

BOOK OF LISTS: RANKING THE MULTI-DOCTOR STORIES

After a solid year-or-so of reviewing every season of Doctor Who, I should probably stay away from entries that focus on just my opinions or tastes. And, for a very brief stint, I have. But I do acknowledge that those Season Reviews got a lot of views. They also sparked tons of conversation and interaction in the various fan groups I post links on. The fact of the matter is: you guys seem to like when I express how I feel about the show. 

Never afraid to give my audience what they want, I will subject you to some more of my tirades.  This time, however, I will do it in the form of a list...   

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I loves me some multi-incarnation stories! Provided they're done properly, I could watch them forever. The show could have different versions of the Doctor meet with each other on a regular basis (maybe even, like, once a season) and I think I would actually be okay with that! I just find the whole concept of multiple actors that have played the same role interacting with each other in the same story to be immensely fascinating. Especially since the character seems to have a terrible time getting along with himself! 

Naturally enough, there are some multi-incarnation stories that I love more than others. Or, perhaps, even some that I don't like at all. So I thought I would go through all of them and rank them in order of preference. But I'm not just going to compile some brief list that will take all of thirty seconds to read. Oh no. That's not how we work here! I'm also going to explain why I like or dislike them so much with a little Review of each adventure. 

DEFINING THROUGH EXCEPTIONS 

As always, I like to lay a few ground rules before getting underway with these things. We should first state what constitutes a "proper" multi-incarnation tale. Now, I could go through some lengthy, technical-sounding definition that would bore you to death and stop you from reading the rest of my entry. Or, I could do as I usually do. I could take things that look like the topic we're discussing and explain why they're not. In showing you how they disqualify from being what we're talking about, I define what it is that we are examining. 

Clever, eh?    

The most obvious exceptions are stories like Day of the Daleks or episodes like The Big Bang. In such adventures, the Doctor does end up crossing his own timestream and encountering a future or past version of himself. However, it's still himself in his current body. Clearly, this doesn't qualify as a multi-incarnation story because, though the Doctor is meeting himself, it's not a different incarnation. It's just Three having a confrontation with Three. Or Eleven meeting Eleven. 

Stories like Name of the Doctor and Deep Breath come closer to being multi-incarnation stories but still don't quite pass. Another stipulation (for me, at least) is that the different versions of the Doctor need to interact with each other. In Name, we do see quite a few different Doctors dashing about. But they never actually talk to each other much (War and Eleven do have a very short discussion at the end of the episode - but, as we will learn in a future paragraph, it's not enough!) Nor do they indulge in any of that notorious banter that we all love so much. 

When Eleven calls Clara at the end of Breath, he does hear his future self in the distance and asks briefly about him. That does come perilously close to interacting with himself, but it still doesn't really qualify. 

Episodes like The Timeless Children and Once, Upon Time, on the other hand, do have very brief scenes where two different versions of the Doctor talk to each other. But the operative term, here, is brief. Those scenes need to go on for a long enough period of time. But, because they don't, these episodes are more like a story with a multi-incarnation cameo than an actual multi-incarnation adventure. 

And then, of course, there's World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls. This story also contains two different aspects of the same Time Lord. But that Time Lord, of course, is not the Doctor. So we'll leave this one out of the competition too! 

So, there we go. The term, as usual, is defined by explaining what it isn't. A multi-incarnation story needs to have different versions of the Doctor interacting with each other. A certain percentage of the story's run-time needs to contain scenes of this nature. And, most significantly, they have to genuinely involve different incarnations! Not just the Doctor meeting himself in the same body.

With all this in mind, let's start ranking. We'll start with my least favorite multi-incarnation story and work our way up: 

9) Short But Effete (Rhymes With Sweet)

Time Crash, in many ways, should not even be included here. But I'm going to put it in, anyway!  

If you go all the way back to my very second entry, ever (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2015/03/doin-it-with-style.html), you will see that I have chosen to accept both Time Crash and Night of the Doctor as canon. Even though they are not "proper" episodes. 

While it was still quite exciting to get a multi-Doctor story so quickly in the New Series, I would have been happier to wait longer if it had meant that the story would actually be considerably better than it was. 

There are quite a few problems with Time Crash. The biggest being that it is pretty difficult to build up much of any kind of real story in so short a run-time. Night of the Doctor, however, does prove that this is totally possible. So we can only use this as so much of an excuse. 

Another major issue with the script is a phenomenon that we end up seeing a few times when previous Doctors are brought back. The writer ends up "misremembering" what that earlier incarnation was actually like. The re-creation of the character feels far from accurate. 

Time Crash does almost feel like it should have brought back the Sixth Doctor rather than the Fifth. Yes, Five could still get a bit tetchy, in places. But, even then, Davison would often make the character more petulant than genuinely cranky. In Crash, he really does fly off the handle quite a bit. Much in the same way as Colin Baker did when he later got the role. So, in many instances, this doesn't really feel like we're watching the Fifth Doctor. But, rather, 'Ole Sixie in Five's body! Given how much I love Colin in the part, I would have been happy to see his return. However, it was Peter Davison who reprised the role. So the character should have actually resembled him more. 

My other major beef with this mini-sode is its very weird "meta" moment where Ten proclaims: "You were my Doctor" to Five. It does sound more like David Tennant talking about how much he loved watching Doctor Who when Peter Davison played the part rather than one incarnation of the Doctor complimenting another. Which just feels a bit odd and out-of-place.  

Still, there are things that I like about the story. Ten saving the day by simply remembering what he saw himself do back when he was Five is a clever resolution to the whole plot. Although, this does open up a whole new can of worms regarding how much one incarnation seems to remember when he meets another (to his credit, Moff stitches this problem up in a later story). There is, as usual, some very fun banter between the two incarnations. Which is always a good time. I do also like how it takes a while for Five to realize who he's actually dealing with. Although I'm not entirely sure how he would know who LINDA was! 

All in all, Time Crash is still passable. But it is certainly riddled with its fair share of problems. It's probably good that it's not a full episode. Not just because it's not a big enough plot to constitute 46 minutes, but the increased run-time would have also allowed for even more glaring errors to occur!  

8) "Have You No Regenerations, Sir?" 

Another big example of "misremembering" what a previous incarnation was actually like. Although, like Five in Time Crash, it's not as bad as some fans would have you believe.    

The fact of the matter is: One could be very conservative, at times. To the point where it could slightly embarrass a more progressive incarnation like Twelve. When discussing this episode, I like to point out how One threatens to give Bill a "jolly smacked bottom" when he hears her swearing. Which is, of course, a direct quote from something he once said to Susan during The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's almost like Moff is saying to us: "Remember? He really could be this bad, sometimes! I'm not making this up!" 

The real problem with taking this sort of tact with the character is that One was only occasionally conservative. For the most part, he wasn't threatening to smack the jolly bottoms of young girls. I would even say that he was quite progressive most of the time (particularly for the time in which the show was being made). But, suddenly, the episode contains this ridiculously high concentration of instances where the First Doctor is being horrifically old-fashioned. It's being done to create a sort of counterpoint between the two incarnations. I get it. But it still really only works so well. Mainly because Moffat has made the Original Doctor way worse of an individual than he actually was. Which is especially bad since we are seeing this version of the Time Lord in his last few minutes. If this incarnation had been plucked from the early days of Season One, it would all feel more believable. The Doctor was more of an anti-hero back then. But, by this point, Hartnell and the writers had softened the character considerably. Making him suddenly so unlikeable again just doesn't sit well within the show's general continuity. 

I do really think David Bradley is excellent in the role of the Original Doctor. For some reason, fandom seems to appreciate Richard Hurndall's turn in the part better. I think it's because he makes only a vague attempt to resemble One in The Five Doctors. Instead of imitating Hartnell, he seems to be doing his own thing with the character. Which, in some sense, makes him a "truer" actor. 

Personally, I prefer that Bradley is very much doing an impersonation. To me, if you're re-creating something another performer once played, that's what you should be doing. Or, at least, you should be in a show like Doctor Who. I don't hate what Hurndall did, of course. It's still quite good. But I do like Bradley better. While the writing is a bit off, the portrayal really does feel like the First Doctor is definitely back. 

The plot to Twice Upon a Time is fairly threadbare. But there is just enough there to sustain it. And there is a very succinct moment where it stops being a multi-Doctor story and just concentrates on ending an era. Which stops it from dragging too much. But it also means that we get quite a bit of time where it's not a multi-incarnation adventure anymore. Which helps to cause it to get such a low ranking in a list of this nature. If a significant chunk of the run-time no longer deals with different aspects of the same Time Lord interacting with himself, then it's not going to score well, here. Even if I do love how Twelve's last few minutes of existence were handled (his speech really is the best final words a Doctor's ever had), it still works to the detriment of this being a good multi-incarnation tale. 

I will add, however, that how they take One in and out of The Tenth Planet was brilliant! Bradley perfectly assuming Hartnell's prone position just before he transforms into Troughton gives me the chills every time! 

7) Dancin' to the Spice Girls

This story displays another interesting trend that pops up from time-to-time in this particular type of adventure. I call it "The Multi-Incarnation Story That We Didn't Know Was Going to be a Multi-Incarnation Story"! 

To all intents and purposes, The Giggle appears to be a big climactic battle between the Doctor and his old enemy, the Toymaker. A very fun conclusion to the less-than-spectacular Sixtieth Anniversary Specials that we got in 2023. According to everything we'd been hearing, the conflict would end with the Doctor's latest regeneration. Tennant would bow out and Gatwa would step in. 

There had been whispers, of course. Word on the Street was that this latest regeneration would be a weird one. A sort of mitosis would occur that would cause both incarnations to exist at the same time. It seemed pretty ridiculous so I didn't take it too seriously. 

But then, it actually happened! I was a bit shocked. I immediately found myself questioning the whole scenario. I had not been particularly happy with the regeneration that had been wasted in the Series Four finale. Was this going to be the same sort of situation? A weird regeneration can actually work. The whole drama involving the Watcher during Logopolis had been quite cool. So it was possible that this one might be equally-interesting. It was tough, though. That debacle at the end of Series Four had left a foul taste in my mouth. And it was the same Headwriter that was now engineering this one! 

As I was busy sorting out my feelings on the matter, a strange realization came over me. This wasn't just a regeneration story, anymore. This was also a multi-incarnation tale at the same time! After all, two different Doctors were interacting with each other. And, while it was only happening towards the end of the episode, it was still going on long enough for it to qualify. 

So now the issue was becoming even more complicated! I might be okay with the regeneration - but what about the fact that this was a multi-incarnation story that was suddenly coming out of nowhere?! Were the scenes with Fourteen and Fifteen genuinely entertaining? Was Ncuti going to put some pants on soon?! So many questions! As a great man once said a short while before he self-destructed: "I can't stand the confusion in my mind!"  

It helped, of course, that we had seen some of this sort of thing before. A multi-incarnation story that happens at the same time as the Doctor regenerates had been done in Twice Upon a Time. There was even a precedent for a "surprise" multi-incarnation adventure. 

All this helped me to settle down a bit. 

Eventually, I caught my breath. Now calm, I quickly re-watched The Giggle. I had been hyperventilating too much to really appreciate that conclusion the first time round! 

This time, I actually enjoyed the bold decisions RTD was making. The weird regeneration worked. The multi-incarnation stuff was quite enjoyable. Especially since it was genuinely unique. No real banter, for once. The two incarnations were actually getting along very well. I was especially impressed with how much Fifteen was comforting Fourteen. They even hugged! 

The fact that Fifteen was handling things so differently from other occasions when he meets himself struck me as a bit of signposting. After so many years of New Who Doctors that were all more-or-less the same, it really does feel like we're going to get something very different with Ncuti. The Christmas Special that came a short while later definitely helped to re-enforce this. With this regeneration, the Doctor really does appear to have changed. 

Ultimately, though, it's not that much of a multi-incarnation story. We only get the two incarnations working together for about ten minutes or so. Most the plot is about Fourteen battling the Toymaker. Which was some great stuff. The sort of thing I'd been genuinely hoping for during these Specials. 

But, even though it's a great episode, it has a similar problem to Twice Upon a Time. Because a significant amount of its content doesn't actually involve different versions of the Doctor interacting with each other, it falls quite low on this list. 

6) "I've Come a Long Way for You!"

What a divisive little story The Two Doctors is. Fans seem to either love it or hate it. There is no middle ground. 

Except with me. I, somehow, seem capable of viewing both sides of the coin when I watch this yarn. I can, easily, see why some like it so much. But I also understand why there are those who despise it.

While only two multi-Doctor stories had come before it, some very important foundations seem to get laid in both of them. Essentially, adventures involving more than one incarnation of the Doctor seem to work to a certain pattern. The Two Doctors, I feel, both succeeds and fails because it broke most of the rules that had been established in Three and Five Doctors. 

One of the more important guidelines for a multi-doctor story, for instance, is Division of Labor. While there had been behind-the-scenes reasons with both tales that caused certain actors to only have a very limited presence in the plot, it was ensured that the ones that could be there were given a significant time in the spotlight. Basically, every incarnation got equal amounts of attention. 

Two Doctors breaks this rule quite badly during its second episode. Most of the focus is kept on Six as he is trying to figure out where his former self has gotten to. Two spends much of the episode unconscious. When he is awake, he's strapped into a gurney and can do no more than argue with people. He is used in an extremely limited way during this Part. 

I can see why this bothered some fans. Why bring back Patrick Troughton if you're just going to ask him to lie prone for the better part of an episode?!  He should be actually doing stuff rather than just waiting around to be rescued by a future incarnation. 

But that's also what makes Part Two of the The Two Doctors so cool. It breaks the mold by putting one incarnation in peril while the other tries to save him. Instead of saying: "Okay! Everyone get to that tower!" or "Go through that Black Hole and argue with Omega!", it gives us a different dynamic. 

And this is the case with so much of The Two Doctors. Each time it chooses to go against the grain, it does so with both positive and negative consequences. You can either take a glass half full or a glass half empty approach with it. It's rare that you find someone that can do both. But I do tend to agree with either side. If really pressed to make a final judgement, I mostly enjoy the story. Although there are one or two choices it makes that I can't really get behind. 

I have a hard time, for instance, with just how truly morbid the story gets. I'm not even really referring to the non-sequitur Six uses after dispatching Shockeye. There was an actual logic to it. The Doctor had no choice but to defend himself and the Androgum really had done some horrible things. He really was, in many ways, getting his "just desserts". So the Doctor really doesn't seem that callous, here. His actions are fairly well-justified. 

However, the behavior of Androgums, in general, is a bit too graphic. Shockeye snapping the neck of a rat and then eating it. Or Chessene licking blood off the ground. These seem like, perhaps, something that doesn't really belong in Doctor Who. I rarely make this sort of call. I actually like that this show can go in so many different directions. I don't feel anyone should really say stuff like: "This isn't Doctor Who!" But this just might be one of those rare occasions where lines do get legitimately crossed. 

This is also the multi-incarnation story where the ultimate "misremembering" occurs. Holmes still, more-or-less, gets the Second Doctor's character right (he is, perhaps, a bit more cantankerous than normal - but there are some extenuating circumstances that may have aggravated his mood), but the writer really does botch up the continuity of that era.  Amusingly enough, the fans find a way to make it canon. To the point where everyone now seems to love the concept of Season 6b! 

While there's lots to like about The Two Doctors, it is still quite the mixed bag. I will even admit that my own personal mood affects my enjoyment of the way it bucks so much convention. There are times when I even think that morbid stuff I complained about is quite cool!    

Overall, the story definitely sits nicely near the middle of this list. There's some really great stuff in it. But there are also some detractors. 

5) "A Dandy and a Clown" 

The Three Doctors, of course, started it all. This was the story where, for the first time, the production team asked themselves: "Let's see if the guys before him want to come back!" 

This fact, alone, makes the whole tale quite monumental. This is the story that establishes the basic formula of how multi-incarnation interaction works. It doesn't just accomplish this because it's the first time we try a premise like this out. All other stories of this nature get measured against it because The Three Doctors is just so gosh-darned enjoyable. It's an absolute treat with a sense of magic to it that all of its successors will attempt to re-create. 

Now, I get it. Such a bold statement might be slightly befuddling some of you. 

"Rob,"  you might be asking, "if you love this story so much then why do you have it so low on your list?" 

It's chocked full of charm, of course, but The Three Doctors also has the most threadbare of plots. And, what does exist of it, is not always so well-constructed. Often, when I review this story, I love to point out how Part Four comes to a screeching halt for several long minutes while various characters step through some dry ice steam and disappear in the most horrible of cross-fades! There's just not enough content to fill the run-time so they resort to a protracted farewell scene for the various supports and guest stars in order to pad things out. This is The Three Doctors' most glaring instance of how poorly-plotted things can get.

But there are subtler examples. How Two is used during the second episode is, pretty much, a gigantic waste of time. Three, of course, is the exact opposite. He and Jo are propelling the plot forward quite nicely. Two really needs to just join them so they can find the recorder and nobble Omega. But the plot isn't quite ready for the Second Doctor to get there. So he's given a useless runaround for most of the episode. A completely obvious time-filler of little or no consequence. Then the whole UNIT base gets pulled through the Black Hole for the cliffhanger. This is what needed to happen, of course, so that the next stage of the narrative could kick in. But it couldn't occur 'til this point in the story. So a bunch of stalling took place where Two tries to get the super-imposed blobby monster under control. Only to fail miserably at it. It's a bit like when they fill an episode by having the leads get captured, only to have them create an elaborate escape, but then they get re-captured again. Everything gets re-set to zero so that the plot can properly advance but the better part of an episode got filled up before doing so. The Second Doctor's "mission" during this part works to the same effect. 

Admittedly, Troughton is so entertaining that we almost don't notice the whole issue. But, if we're being brutally honest, he might as well have been strapped to a gurney the whole time!  He's as equally ineffective, here, as he was in the second part of The Two Doctors. At least in Two, it's done intentionally to give us something different. Here, it's just another example of how badly-paced the whole tale is. 

The Three Doctors is a prime example of style over substance. There is just so much fun to be had here as Two and Three work unharmoniously to save the Universe. While One, of course, occasionally gets on their cases from the TARDIS scanner. It's all quite delightful. 

But, as much as I want to just focus on the good, I can't ignore some pretty fundamental structural problems too. 

4) "Yo Go No Go So Jo Ro"  (Translation: "Beware of Judoon by the Lagoon")

Another prime example of "a multi-incarnation story when you didn't expect it to be". One could almost make the claim that Fugitive of the Judoon is identical to The Giggle: All the actual multi-Doctor action doesn't really happen until near the end. 

But, in many ways, it doesn't. Ruth is in the whole story (she is, in fact, the first character we see in the episode). Somewhere beneath her surface identity, the Doctor is lurking. She even pops out a bit early when Lee sends her some trigger words.  

If anything, Fugitive of the Judoon is more like Utopia. An episode that we consider a Master Story even though the Master doesn't truly manifest himself until minutes before the conclusion. Because of this, I won't accord Fugitive quite the same penalty that I did The Giggle. It is very much a multi-incarnation story all-the-way through. We just don't realize it the first time we're watching it. 

Having said all that, we don't really get the usual fun that a multi-Doctor story has until Ruth goes to the lighthouse and smashes the glass. Which only happens a little past the halfway mark of the run-time (unlike The Giggle, where we only get that sort of thing when there's only about ten to twelve minutes left). But once the banter does start, it's some of the best that's ever been delivered. Thirteen and Fugitive arguing in the Old-School console room and trying to figure out where they fit in the grander scheme of things is an entertaining scene. Thirteen failing miserably to keep her mouth shut as Fugitive confronts Gath on the Judoon ship is also great fun. It's all very nicely done. 

And, of course, there's the Grand Mystery of who the Fugitive Doctor truly is. Naturally enough, it's a similar vibe to what we got with the War Doctor at the conclusion of Name of the Doctor. But it's done much more effectively. John Hurt's appearance is just a quick tease at the end of the episode. Whereas Jo Martin is given quite a bit of time to establish both the false and real identity of her character. Because of this, we are far more captivated by her. The War Doctor is still quite fascinating, don't get me wrong. But I found the Fugitive Doctor far more intriguing. 

This is a fantastically-constructed episode. With all kinds of great stuff going on even outside of the multi-incarnation plotline. It's particularly great, for instance, to see Captain Jack making a return after all this time. 

But, ultimately, it can only climb so far up this particular list. There are, quite simply, stories that do a better job of showing us more than one incarnation of the Doctor operating within a single plot. Nonetheless, there's a lot to be said for the quality of Fugitive of Judoon. Which is why it does beat out quite a few other tales of this style. 

While it's still extremely good, quite a bit of it doesn't really feel like a "proper" multi-incarnation adventure. The part that does, however, is some of the best banter we've ever gotten!

3) "I Don't Do Robes!"   

Let's just get this out of the way: Power of the Doctor almost doesn't qualify to be on this list. The first scene where Thirteen meets her various previous incarnations isn't that particularly long. The second one is infinitesimal. The appearances of Five and Seven as AI holograms that finally bury the hatchet with companions they parted with on bad terms add a bit to the "multi-incarnation run-time" (although one could argue that we're still seeing only one incarnation so they don't actually count). And, of course, the Fugitive Doctor comes along for a bit too. She's also an AI hologram but she does actually interact with another version of herself. 

But there's still probably less multi-Doctor action, here, than what we get in The Giggle. That story scored low because it's really only so much of a multi-incarnation adventure. So why is Power of the Doctor so high on this list?!  

The answer is simple: Power of the Doctor is just a really awesome story. While it's not much of a multi-Doctor tale, it still does an incredible job of it. Every line that the incarnations deliver to each other as they talk at the cliff's edge is masterfully-crafted.. By both the writer and, of course, those wonderful actors that were brought back to briefly re-inhabit their characters. It's particularly great that we still get a dash of humor as Eight refuses to wear robes. 

It's not a long scene. But it's got everything that a great multi-incarnation encounter needs. So much so, that I actually like it better than most other stories that have featured these sort of sequences. 

When you grow up with the Classic Series, you tend to develop a desire to see certain things happen in the show that New Who does eventually deliver on. It was a longtime dream for many Old School fans, for instance, to see the Daleks and Cybermen do battle. That wish finally came true at the end of Series Two. Although, I will say that the confrontation never quite lived up to my expectations. In fact, I'd love to see a better-written re-match. 

I think it's fair to say that a lot of fans have also dreamt of the idea that there is a mindscape that exists in the Doctor's subconscious where he or she can interact with his/her past selves. That's something else we've wanted to see play out for quite some time. On this occasion, the actual execution of such an idea went as well as we had envisioned it. Perhaps even better. As I don't think any of us expected such a confrontation in the Doctor's Id to be so inspirational. The past incarnations really do manage to boost Thirteen's spirits as she struggles to get her body back. Although I also love the irony of Thirteen giving another of her famous uplifting speeches only to suddenly find  herself completely alone at the cliff's edge as she finishes it. 

I don't doubt that some of you reading this will find this choice to be an unfair placement on the list. A few of you will probably think that this story belongs very near or even at the very bottom. Not because it's a bad multi-Doctor adventure. But, moreso, because there's just so little content involving the different incarnations of the Doctor. 

The brief snippets that we do get, however, are just so good that it ridiculously elevates the little material in the plot that deals with multiple Doctors. It's so absolutely brilliant that it totally deserves to be where it's at in these rankings. 

2) "And I'm Wearing Sand Shoes!" 

The first "genuine" multi-incarnation story in the New Series. Time Crash was a cute little mini-sode, but this is the first effort to make a full-length story using the device. 

And it actually does a great job. One of the best, in fact. 

Moff understood all-too-well what the core ingredient of any multi-Doctor story needs to be. We absolutely love to watch the Doctor take the piss out of himself. Each incarnation almost seems to hold the belief that they are the best version of themselves and has to ridicule the other Doctors in the room in order to establish their supremacy. Hilarious banter ensues as they look for any little detail on the other incarnations to make fun of. If it's done properly, the whole plot can come to a screeching halt for a bit just so we can watch the verbal sparring. And we actually don't mind. 

This is, of course, one of the crucial "ground rules" that The Three Doctors laid down. For the most part, we see this every time a story of this nature is made.  The Giggle is about the only exception to the rule. Even Power of the Doctor has the briefest of tiffs between Seven and Eight. 

Day of the Doctor delivers gigantic amounts of banter. I would even say that the in-fighting is more severe than what we got between Two and Three during the first multi-Doctor story, ever. Which was a battle I never thought would be topped. But Day pulls it off. And it's great fun to watch. 

On top of all that fun banter, however, is some other really fascinating stuff involving multiple incarnations. We get to witness a "hidden" incarnation of the Doctor in action for the first time. On top of that, a future incarnation that has not actually had any episodes at all yet makes the briefest of appearances (those sinister eyebrows!). 

And then there's the mysterious Curator. He appears to be a future incarnation that has re-adopted an old face. It was nice to see Tom back in the role and having some fun with it. He might not be high on my list of fave Doctors, but he still deserves the tribute he receives, here. It was, perhaps, a bit troublesome for us pedants that we had no idea where such a version of the Time Lord was going to fit in to the Doctor's timeline. But, now that we've gotten the bi-generation, we can see where he might go. 

Moff using old footage to represent all the other Doctors besides War, Ten and Eleven was also very nicely done. It was good to give all the Doctors some kind of presence in the story. Realistically, getting all of them to have adequate screentime could have been too mammoth of an undertaking. This was a nice alternative.  The dream sequence at the end of the episode where One to Eleven are standing in dry ice was also a nice little touch that gave a greater sense of presence to all of the Doctors. Even if the CGI only looked so good!    

Day of the Doctor really is everything a multi-incarnation adventure ought to be - and then some! 

1) "Splendid Chap. All of them!" 

Admittedly, Day of the Doctor should have won this competition. But, as much as I deliberated over this, I still found myself liking The Five Doctors that little bit better. 

Part of what led me to this decision would be sheer nostalgia. The Five Doctors is the very first multi-incarnation story I ever saw. And it completely blew me away. 

I had learnt, in the most brutal of ways, that the Doctor could regenerate. I just suddenly watched Tom Baker "die" one day and turn into Peter Davison. Without knowing that the Doctor actually did this from time-to-time. It was with an equal level of shock that I discovered that, every once in a while, previous incarnations of the Doctor would return to help the most current one. 

Whereas learning about regeneration had been a bit traumatic, my first encounter with a multi-incarnation story was sheer delight. Those older versions of the Doctor came back once in a while - and I loved the whole concept of it! Several aspects of the same hero working together at once to combat some Great Evil struck me as completely awesome. There was just no other TV show that did stuff like this. I would even go so far to say that The Five Doctors was instrumental in getting me to fall so deeply and madly in love with Doctor Who. 

So it's a bit tough to be objective about these things!    

But, even without the rose-colored glasses, Five Doctors does a lot of heavy lifting that other multi-incarnation stories don't always accomplish so well. This is the tale that takes the most incarnations and gives them all something useful to do. Whilst, at the same time, getting them all equal amounts of screentime. It's even nice that Terrance Dicks doesn't "cheap out" and just make the Dark Tower have four entrances. One Doctor does make his way to the Citadel in order to deal with the intrigue that is brewing there. 

Yes, Five Doctors is still just a bit light on plot. But the plot that does exist is written so tightly you can bounce quarters off of it. There is no hint of any kind of the "drag" that we got in The Three Doctors. A story that was also very light on plot. Instead, The Five Doctors marks its time with awesome battles between the Cybermen and a Raston Warrior robot. Or the Master tricking the Cybermen into their own destruction on a deadly checkerboard. Or even a fun little chase from a Yeti through an underground cave. All of the "filler" we get in this narrative adds to the pace rather than detracting from it. Which makes for a very enjoyable watch every time. 

This is also the first time that the original actor that portrayed an earlier incarnation wasn't capable of reprising the role so a different performer was brought in. While I have already discussed who I like better between Hurndall and Bradley, I will still pay a ton of respect to Richard. He took a huge chance when he accepted the part. Fans could have been really upset with someone else playing the First Doctor. But he did such a solid job that we couldn't help but accept him. Even if the costume wasn't quite right!   

All in all, The Five Doctors does belong at the top. The Three Doctors may have laid the foundations. Day of the Doctor may have had the most multi-incarnation stuff in it. And all the other stories on this list have also done some rather interesting things with the premise. But Five Doctors really does feel like it got all the elements of a multi-Doctor formula just right. 

I don't think there will ever be another story that will nail it better than this one did.