Doctor Who - The Five Doctors (25th Anniversary Edition)

I love this special....and I am torn whether or not I want to buy it again, while I struggle to replace all the DW I lost to Katrina ( I was converting to DVD anyway), but don't I already own this one on DVD...if this were Blue-Ray, I'd atleast be able to justify it...granted there are lots of extras I would like to see...but I not sure...but if u don't have it already...and I can't stress this enough..."YOU NEED THIS DVD!"

If you are just learning your way around the Doctor Who universe this is a milestone for you, the 5th Doctor teaming up with his past selves, how cool is that...and surprisingly obvious, he is a timetraver, a long lived one at that, even with the whole universe at his disposal he must meet himself now and again. Well, according to the Doctor it only happens in the direst of times...with the Timelords help, as in the THREE DOCTORS.
Here the Doctor is taken out of time at points in his LIVES, featuring oddly enough 3 original actors playing their respective Doctors, the First Doctor played here by another actor and the 4th Doctor is sparingly taken from the unaired Shada episode (by Douglas Adams). The Doctor is taken out of time to play the GAME OF RASSILON in the Timelord DEATH ZONE facing old enemies like THE CYBERMEN, THE DALEKS, YETI, THE MASTER, who is actually meant to be rescuing the Doctor. Also along for the ride lots of classic companions including the Doctor's first companion SUSAN "FOREMAN", fan fav SARAH JANE SMITH along with a K9 cameo, UNIT'S Finest the Brigadier , cameos by Jamie and Zoey (sort of). Tegan and Turlough are the 5th Doctor's current companions to they help out, but strangely absent is robot shape-shifter Kamelion, who isn't mentioned in the story, by timeline wise is in the TARDIS.

The Doctors and their companions are split up each finding their own way to the Dark Tower at the center of the DEATHZONE games, ultimately leading to a showdown with their abducting benefactor who is no stranger either.

The last DVD offered tweaked SFX options and several different edits have been offered of the Five Doctor's over the year, some more suspect then others, like the DVD deletion of the Cyberman's "AHHH" upon spotting the Doctor, which I greatly missed. The sometimes in, sometimes out "Cyber-barf" as well. Another change was the edited end effects of the TARDISes departure scene, which was removed, while making more sense in the latest edit, aren't nearly as cool.

This release ties in nicely to the inclusion of TIME CRASH the brief 5th Doctor 10th Doctor team up to be included in the season 4th set.

Drinking games for the Five Doctors:

This one is simple...drink whenever there is a retro-reference from the show's past...this one loaded with 'em...for example:.

..baddies from the past, lots of 'em...

...companions from the past, lots of 'em...

....quotes from the past "I'll explain someday..." or "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!"

...Susan strains an ankle!....Classic!

This release does NOT contain THE KING'S DEMONS. Go to the Amazon UK site for a better description. This is a 2 disc set though.

The Five Doctors 25th Anniversary edition of The Five Doctors is a big improvement over the first Five Doctors DVD that was released way back in Sep 2001. This set contains both the orginal 1983 cut and the 1995 version. And has some very cool special features such as a nice documentry on the 20th Anniversary year hosted by Colin Baker. A very well done DVD set. As for the story I always thought it was ok.I do wish that Tom Baker agreed to apear in the story.My dad has always called it The 4 Doctors rather then 5. I can imagine alot of American fans was disapointed because for many Americans at the time Tom Baker was Doctor Who. Owell. Yeah I can see why he passed on doing it as he just left the roll and wanted to move on to other things. Owell.Anyways this is a very nice DVD set from The BBC.Looking forward to more Doctor Who DVD's in the future.

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