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When Doctors collide... what are the biggest multi-Doctor stories in Doctor Who history?
For most intergalactic situations, whether the universe is threatened by a single person or an entire species, one Doctor is enough. However, certain situations arise that need multiple Doctors to band together.
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Always a thrilling treat to see, multi-Doctor stories have become an infrequent mainstay of Doctor Who. Here’s a brief history of every time that the Doctor has teamed up with themselves!
Created to mark the Tenth Anniversary of Doctor Who, the first ever multi-Doctor epic pitted the first three Doctors against the mad Time Lord, Omega.
Well, sort of.
Due to William Hartnell’s ailing health, the First Doctor only appears in limited sections on the TARDIS scanner to advise his later incarnations. Despite this, fans were thrilled to see the Doctors coming together for the first time. It also established why the Doctor couldn’t do this every week, as it contravened the First Law of Time. Said law is that two different iterations of the same Time Lord could never meet.
However, as this isn’t the only entry in this list, you can see that that law started being ignored pretty quickly.
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Another anniversary calls for another team-up of all the Doctors!
While this Twentieth Anniversary special does feature Doctors One through Five, the Fourth Doctor never meets the other Doctors, or really gets to take part! The footage of Tom Baker’s incarnation was taken from the story Shada - which never aired - as he declined to take part due to it being so close to his time as the Doctor.
Beyond that, however, it’s a fan’s dream brought to life. Doctors? Five of them! Companions? So many! What about classic enemies? There are Cybermen, a Dalek, the Master and new monsters! A true celebration of the first twenty years of Doctor Who.
Featuring the promised number of Doctors, The Two Doctors is the first multi-Doctor story that wasn’t created to mark an anniversary. This adventure united the Second and Sixth Doctors against the Sontarans, who were trying to crack the secrets of time travel. By this point, it seemed like the First Law of Time had either been repelled or was more of a guideline all along, and we know how the Doctor feels about guidelines...
Time Crash
In this charity mini-sode, the Fifth and Tenth Doctors, well, to say they teamed up would be a bit of a stretch. After their respective TARDISes collided, these two Doctors proactively bickered to save the universe from being pulled into a black hole. A black hole that was roughly the size of Belgium.
After some timey-wimey shenanigans, the two Doctors parted on good terms. Directly after this, the Titanic collided with the Tenth Doctor’s TARDIS. He really should have put his shields back up…
In terms of multi-Doctor stories, they don’t come bigger than this! The Fiftieth Anniversary Special followed the Tenth, Eleventh and a previously unknown incarnation of the Doctor on an adventure that crossed different time periods and different planets. However, it all led to a spectacular moment, where the Doctor was able to save Gallifrey from destruction in the final days of the Time War.
Such an epic feat required every Doctor, and their TARDISes, to work in unison to save the planet. It even featured a sneaky cameo from the Twelfth Doctor, which was the first time we’d seen him in action!
Did you know that the Twelfth Doctor’s final adventure was also the First Doctor’s final adventure? No? Well, don’t feel bad. The Doctor had no idea either!
Both of these Doctors refused to regenerate in their final moments, and their TARDISes brought them together. This refusal to regenerate started causing some problems with time, especially since the First Doctor had a long future ahead of him. The combined efforts pushed them both to see that it would be worth regenerating.
Fugitive of the Judoon is a unique episode. Not only is it a multi-Doctor story, but it is the first multi-Doctor to introduce a new incarnation of the Doctor. Yes, The Next Doctor claimed to do that, but the other Doctor in that turned out to be a confused man, given the knowledge of the Doctor by a Cybermen infostamp.
Fugitive of the Judoon introduced the Fugitive Doctor, a mysterious incarnation whose place in the Doctor’s past remains a mystery to this day. While the Thirteenth Doctor would reunite with the Fugitive Doctor in The Timeless Children, Once, Upon Time, and The Power of the Doctor, we only learned tidbits about their life.
Caught mid-regeneration after she was forced to regenerate by the Master the Doctor found herself trapped in her own consciousness. Here, she met the Guardians of the Edge, a single person with multiple faces.
Sound familiar?
Each of these faces was a previous incarnation of the Doctor, specifically the First, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors. Whilst in her regenerative coma-state, the Doctor was able to reach out to her friends Yaz, Ace and Tegan, who were fighting Cybermen,the Daleks and the Master. How? As an interactive AI holo-Doctor, built from data of their behaviour across thousands of years. When they did this and met Ace and Tegan, their appearance switched to the Seventh and Fifth Doctors respectively, as their companions remembered their Doctors. The holo-Doctor even donned the appearance of the Fugitive Doctor to trick the Master, who had no idea who she was.
And of course, this latest episode saw the regeneration of the Thirteenth Doctor, into the Fourteenth Doctor. Eight Doctors in total!
Happy Doctor Who Day!