During Doctor Who‘s nearly half a century of existence, each decade has been marked by a story featuring multiple incarnations of the Time Lord. The tenth season began with the four part serial The Three Doctors, the twentieth anniversary saw the special 90 minute episode The Five Doctors, the thirtieth anniversary had the Doctor Who universe cross over with EastEnders in the jumbled mess that was Dimensions in Time and forty years through time and space was marked by the audio drama Zagreus from Big Finish Productions. Additionally, the TV series has given us the second and sixth incarnations teaming up in The Two Doctors and the fifth incarnation and tenth meeting up briefly in the TARDIS console room in the Children In Need special mini-episode Time Crash. There have also been numerous meetings of various Doctors in print from Virgin Books and BBC Books as well as in previous audio dramas from Big Finish, not to mention the odd comic strip here and there.
Big Finish’s range of Doctor Who audio dramas began with a multi-Doctor story, fittingly enough, with 1999’s The Sirens of Time. Initially, the audio production company had signed up Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy to the range. Once Paul McGann signed up in 2001 to return as the eighth Doctor, the question remained as to when all four Big Finish Doctors would feature in the same story. The resulting answer was the aforementioned Zagreus, but while that featured Davison, Baker, McCoy and McGann, only McGann appeared as the Doctor. The other actors portrayed other characters, although they did appear as the Doctor briefly towards the end. Even though this special story did feature Jon Pertwee return as the Doctor, via some previously unused audio recordings of the actor from a fan production, it still left a desire to see a proper team-up of the Big Finish Doctors.
Now, Big Finish has released The Four Doctors as a special treat to their subscribers. [Note: this release is unavailable for purchase directly. You must subscribe to the main Doctor Who range and your subscription must include the audio drama The Demons of Red Lodge. You can subscribe by clicking here.] Written by Peter Anghelides, this is a fun, time-twisting adventure that features four Doctors battling their oldest foe, the Daleks. While the four don’t necessarily directly encounter each other at first, they do fight the same battle via encounters with the same character. Big Finish always has clever approaches to their adventures and this one proves not only how ingenious they are, but answers a question I’ve always had regarding the previous Doctor crossovers; namely, wouldn’t the most recent incarnation of the Doctor remember what happened having already gone through it as his previous selves? Anghelides still plays coy with that here, but you get the idea that the Doctors know more than they are letting on at any given time. I’m hesitant to say more as you really need to hear this adventure for yourself unspoiled. Suffice it to say, it is a rollicking time-travel adventure in the finest Doctor Who and Big Finish tradition with an interesting new race, the Daleks being their evil best, the Doctor being the Doctor and a couple of fun surprises for long-time Doctor Who fans. Subscribe now so you don’t miss this fantastic audio drama!
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