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charameiThe Four Doctors wears its main attraction on its sleeve, of course. It's also a Dalek story, and a time-faffery story (as usual. I mean, how else do you get four Doctors into the same room?). And unlike the previous Christmas specials, they're saying it will never be released as a standalone; the only way to get it is to purchase a subscription to the main Doctor Who line that includes the December 2010 release (#142, The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories).
Whether that's worth it or not really depends on what you're hoping to get out of it, I think.
From a writer's perspective, handling multiple Doctors (outside of comedy shorts like Time Crash) is a pain. Each incarnation is more than capable on his own; put them together and, once the situation becomes dire enough to stop them squabbling like infants, they will trash anything that comes near them. This is especially true with Seven in the mix; Five and Eight aren't argumentative enough to cause any major problems for their own side. Given a chance to put their heads together, Seven already has a plan, Six argues a bit just to be contrary, they all run off to their designated adventure portions and everything goes like clockwork. Dull. They need to each be given their own fronts to fight on, and ideally not be able to communicate with one another.
Which is more or less what Four Doctors does: it's effectively four separate Doctor Who adventures, tied together by a time loop that includes a couple of Daleks and Colonel Ulrik of the Jariden people. Ulrik and the Dalek Prime basically get stuck to the Doctor's timeline and keep popping up around different Doctors until the Eighth Doctor gets back to the beginning and, with the aid of the Fifth Doctor, fixes things. Even those two are never in the same room together, until the very last scene.
The last scene is quite clearly the fanservice scene, and it felt tacked on and lacklustre. There are a couple of snide comments about Six's fashion sense and Eight's choice of interior design, but nothing remarkable, new or even terribly funny. In the character sense this works - there's a real feeling that the Doctors are all desperately holding their tongues and waiting until they snap back to their proper timelines. It's awkward and slightly embarrassed and, yes, exactly what you'd expect under the circumstances. But, you know. Fanservice scene. Since its sole purpose as a scene is to service the fans, I'd say it fails miserably.
As such, if all you want out of your freebie is the Doctor calling himself an idiot, don't bother engineering your subscription to include this one.
If, however, you want a timefaffing Dalek story that has some incredible sound effects, immersive acting and just happens to include four of the Doctor...
The Four Doctors is an excellent story. David Bamber's portrayal of Ulrik as he falls through time, intersecting his own timeline as often as the Doctor's, is incredible and moving; his transformation from villain to hero is believable and a few of his scenes are astounding. All of the tiny little time loops make sense and resolve into a pretty bow. There's a large-scale battle scene that was terrifying to listen to. The Daleks are as horrific as ever, especially when torturing Ulrik. Colin Baker pulls off an incredible speech as his Doctor tries to instil hope into the very same broken Ulrik. Michael Faraday makes an unexpected appearance. Seven is perfectly on top of all of this, thank you very much, and manages his segment with precision (well, he's had plenty of time to plan). The framing scenes with Five and Eight get a bit confusing, but quickly sort themselves out before the audience can get too lost. The changes in Jariden civilisation over time are interesting, if a tad rushed. For something that's only an hour and a quarter long, there's a lot packed into this and it's almost all superb.
The only thing that The Four Doctors fails to deliver is fanservice. Given the choice between a fanservice story and a well-told, moving one, I'll take what we have every time.
But... maybe next time we can have a bit more fanservice?
Whether that's worth it or not really depends on what you're hoping to get out of it, I think.
From a writer's perspective, handling multiple Doctors (outside of comedy shorts like Time Crash) is a pain. Each incarnation is more than capable on his own; put them together and, once the situation becomes dire enough to stop them squabbling like infants, they will trash anything that comes near them. This is especially true with Seven in the mix; Five and Eight aren't argumentative enough to cause any major problems for their own side. Given a chance to put their heads together, Seven already has a plan, Six argues a bit just to be contrary, they all run off to their designated adventure portions and everything goes like clockwork. Dull. They need to each be given their own fronts to fight on, and ideally not be able to communicate with one another.
Which is more or less what Four Doctors does: it's effectively four separate Doctor Who adventures, tied together by a time loop that includes a couple of Daleks and Colonel Ulrik of the Jariden people. Ulrik and the Dalek Prime basically get stuck to the Doctor's timeline and keep popping up around different Doctors until the Eighth Doctor gets back to the beginning and, with the aid of the Fifth Doctor, fixes things. Even those two are never in the same room together, until the very last scene.
The last scene is quite clearly the fanservice scene, and it felt tacked on and lacklustre. There are a couple of snide comments about Six's fashion sense and Eight's choice of interior design, but nothing remarkable, new or even terribly funny. In the character sense this works - there's a real feeling that the Doctors are all desperately holding their tongues and waiting until they snap back to their proper timelines. It's awkward and slightly embarrassed and, yes, exactly what you'd expect under the circumstances. But, you know. Fanservice scene. Since its sole purpose as a scene is to service the fans, I'd say it fails miserably.
As such, if all you want out of your freebie is the Doctor calling himself an idiot, don't bother engineering your subscription to include this one.
If, however, you want a timefaffing Dalek story that has some incredible sound effects, immersive acting and just happens to include four of the Doctor...
The Four Doctors is an excellent story. David Bamber's portrayal of Ulrik as he falls through time, intersecting his own timeline as often as the Doctor's, is incredible and moving; his transformation from villain to hero is believable and a few of his scenes are astounding. All of the tiny little time loops make sense and resolve into a pretty bow. There's a large-scale battle scene that was terrifying to listen to. The Daleks are as horrific as ever, especially when torturing Ulrik. Colin Baker pulls off an incredible speech as his Doctor tries to instil hope into the very same broken Ulrik. Michael Faraday makes an unexpected appearance. Seven is perfectly on top of all of this, thank you very much, and manages his segment with precision (well, he's had plenty of time to plan). The framing scenes with Five and Eight get a bit confusing, but quickly sort themselves out before the audience can get too lost. The changes in Jariden civilisation over time are interesting, if a tad rushed. For something that's only an hour and a quarter long, there's a lot packed into this and it's almost all superb.
The only thing that The Four Doctors fails to deliver is fanservice. Given the choice between a fanservice story and a well-told, moving one, I'll take what we have every time.
But... maybe next time we can have a bit more fanservice?