The UK’s Rule of Six shows no sign of denting multi-Doctor stories.

As with many aspects of the Who universe, the meeting of Doctors is a complicated thing. That’s a Doctor Who fan’s lot. As they live in permanent fear of the show’s cancellation, they can’t stop speculating about it. They expect these legendary Doctor team-ups every anniversary, but worry about dilution. As we meet more Doctors (incarnations now, approximately, infinite), so do the chances they’ll bump into each other, and the interest in clashing personalities. We know the Doctor is loath to miss a good anniversary, but Time Lords very rarely send invites.

Have there been more multi-Doctor stories in the last seven years than ever before?

On the back of 2013’s 50th celebrations, which showed how many streams of Doctor Who narrative are ready and willing to celebrate an anniversary, it does feel that way. But that’s inevitable in an increasingly sophisticated expanded universe. It’s been some time since multi-Doctor tales were restricted to the television incarnation. Doctors plural popped up in Virgin’s New Adventures. They kicked off the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and Big Finish’s monthly audio range. As the number of Doctor Who stories continues to increase apace, 99.9% solo adventures in time and space, it’s clear that a solipsistic team-up never hurt anyone. And as if to prove the point, Big Finish has a mini-series of team-ups with punning titles ready to cheer us up in 2020.

The lynchpin is the Tenth Doctor. Until Christopher Ecclestone’s arrival, he remains Big Finish’s flagship New Series ambassador. His final phase, as depicted in the divisive Specials of 2009, is prime material for Big Finish. Their recently announced 10-hour epic Dalek Universe as well as the current multi-platform extravaganza Time Lord Victorious are proof of that. The latter even takes its name from the Tenth’s final adventures, but despite the presence of a curious selection fo Doctors, it doesn’t appear that any will meet.

Out on his own

“The greatest unknowing comes to us all in the end.”

After some guest appearances and very in-season, atmospheric box sets, Out of Time is where the Tenth takes his first major post-show leap. It’s a simple concept, which will stretch over three one-hour adventures, find a high stakes, condensed adventure where 10 can team up with 4, 5 and 6 respectively.

Russell T Davies left some fan-pleasing gaps for the Tenth Doctor, but this is particularly fascinating as he may be the ultimate Companion Doctor. Timing and circumstance combined to match him with some of the show’s most popular companions, and his extended afterlife will now push him into the path of many more. Who fans ever were contrary, did we mention that?

For Big Finish, it’s high concept and a natural leap. An extension of the Classic Series / River Song mash-ups they’ve jumped into with all tentacles, and an effective way to develop the apparently stalled Old Doctors, New Monsters series with some tried and not-so-trusted-foes.

What’s in a self?

“I don’t like being told what to do.”

The template for multi-Doctor adventures was set at the 10th anniversary with the definitive meeting of The Three Doctors. That gruff, petulant and amusing clash between three older Doctors has cast a shadow on proceedings, not least that it took a few attempts for all Doctors to find an equal footing. Fortunately, that’s a challenge that older/younger Doctors were willing to take on. So it is in this grudging rivalry, where the nature of the team-up is very much the point of interest.

In what may well be the overriding theme for mini-series, we meet Doctors Four and Ten in strange and companionless times. The Fourth Doctor is reeling from the dark revelations on Gallifrey of The Deadly Assassin, bereft of companions for no good reason and he knows it. Although, with hindsight, the listener knows they’re encountering him at his peak. The Tenth is running from a ‘meeting’, at the most unlikeable stretch of his personality, and emphatically companion-shy. In an interesting touch, the inevitable companion thrown into their companionless times finds herself in a similar crux, albeit mortal.

Clash of clans

“Do I know you?”

“There’s a question.”

The famous observation Terrance Dicks made, rather wearily, that he wrote every incarnation of the Doctor as the same person, has a lot of weight. But in the modern age where Doctors get to spend more significant times together, freed from 25-minute episodes but caught in an increasingly weighty history, writers need to find a new opposition between the same person. Here it works a treat.

Set in a sanctuary ‘out of time’, we meet an Abbess who may as well be a headmistress, while the Doctors are gradations of rebellious students. Until now, it wasn’t clear which of these Doctors would out-rebel the other. In Big Finish’s eyes, it’s clear. Perhaps that’s the laws of time: Older Doctors will always adopt a more mature position. But it’s more than that, especially when you’re throwing David Tenant and Tom Baker together — and even if the recording had to happen remotely.

The Fourth Doctor has a menacing edge, and hardened steel to match his pithy summing up, carried through a brilliant performance by the unflappable Tom Baker. It draws on parts of his whole incarnation. It’s “apres-deja vu” for his future incarnation, who contrary to his younger self, is very much in the twilight of his life. He’s notably flippant with causality. Is he, as his other self wonders, becoming more responsible or recklessly arrogant in his old age? It’s a good question, but you won’t find any canon-changing answers here, much relies on our knowledge of the generations outside this adventure.

It’s enough to sustain this story’s rather odd tone as it balances two distinct and eras. It’s worth pointing out the obvious: This is not set in, at time of writing the current Thirteenth Doctor’s era. Just as Baker’s Doctor has to remain of his time, Tenant’s Tenth Doctor has to reflect the TV sensibilities of 10 years ago — the pre Day of the Doctor hints of the Time War are there, but still in the shadow of Gallifrey falling.

Dawning realisations

Written from the perspective of the older Tenth incarnation, much of the fun is in how and when the Fourth Doctor catches on. There’s much to be read into the Tenth Doctor’s deception — something questioned by his younger self — but that’s not uncommon in these meetings. You’d think Time Lords find deception irresistible. But, it doesn’t take the Fourth Doctor long to realise the truth and Baker’s delivery of, “I think you’re hiding your light under a bushell” is delicious. Form there, the Tenth let the Fourth take the lead. Taking an observational point is utterly in character, though the two are wisely separated for much of the rush, the action evenly split. Out of Time is slyly subversive in dodging the dropped pin moment familiar from these moments. There isn’t even so much as an “oh no”.

The plot is atmospheric but straightforward, a mix of temporal jigsaw and siege story, that lets pelting action take over after 15 minutes.

The frivolity of matching old Doctors with new monsters and vice versa is thrown from a temporal gateway. The growing threat of a nameless enemy, their incursion threatening a timeless sanctuary, is well built up in the short time it’s afforded. When the Daleks arrive, they’re in gleamingly sharp form.

“In my experience no one’s unstoppable, only ever unreasonable”.

Relentlessness is required. It’s a term levied at many implacable foes in Doctor Who, but it only ever sticks to one, eternal enemy. These are a mix of New and Classic series Daleks, although there’s little need to mention it. Dated to the 26th century, between Day of and Death to the Daleks in TV terms, Trevor Baxendale had already pulled Bronze Daleks into the pre-Time War chronology. So, it does jar that Nicholas Brigg’s Supreme is defiantly New. The insidious pepperpots’ relentless superiority is key to upping tension in this hifalutin siege. The temporally ambivalent temple they invade is symbiotically linked to its creator, so the Dalek’s cocky logic and their shortsighted handling of her adds a ceiling that’s literally collapsing.

When it comes to the crunch, there’s an excellent temporal resolution — one the Daleks really should have seen coming and later would — inherently tied to one of the Doctor’s knowledge. It works a treat here, but it’s not something the next adventures can repeat.

We came for banter

On the quick route to a resolution, there are some fine touches. Both Doctor’s have their chance to shine, but it’s the banter that’s the main draw. “Then let me add to my tally” intones the Fourth Doctor, adding substance to the severe Dalek-beating competition Doctors have between them. Things do get serious, and there are consequences. The Fourth’s reaction to a prolonged reveal of a duplicate Dalek Agent (the Fourth Doctor being the icing on the cake), carries grief across the generations to his more recent incarnation, the one most famous for saying sorry.

That doesn’t mean there’s fun to be had with time, though. There’s nifty temporarily manipulation of a game of Scissors Paper Stone, where the Fourth gets one over his future self by changing his memories. It’s 2020, so only natural these incarnations are constantly sub-tweeting each other.

For all the bending of rules and subversion, the critical rule remains. The younger grumpier Doctor just slightly gets the better of the older one. That’s a Time Lord paradox.

There’s plenty of common ground as you’d hope between these two charismatic Time Lords. Petulant difficulties are restricted to the original three. There’s even some cheering appreciation. “Not so much Dalek Supreme as Chicken Supreme,” says the Tenth Doctor at one point, much to the Fourth’s delight. Off, but it does raise a chuckle.

There could only be one real point of common ground between these two, though. And when it arrives, though half expected, it’s poignant. Of course, Sarah Jane is the real lynchpin, and quite right too. It’s through her that these companionless Doctors find a rapprochement before leaving each other. Oh, the Fourth Doctor may try to bend the rules of fore-knowledge before the Time Lord Victorious heads off, but the story’s found its central meaning. Once again, encountering a future incarnation is less a reminder of one Doctor’s morality, but his immortality.

Stunning dialogue: Oh, there’s a competition. Clearly, writer Matt Fitton had a riot writing this meeting. Leaving aside the Time Lord banter, there’s a relish and a smirk in the bile and sneer Briggs puts into his Daleks:

“Daleks do not bite!”

“He’s bitten off rather more than he can chew.”

Review previously published on Medium (October 4 2020)