By Brandon T. McClure
In 2023, Doctor Who celebrated its 60th anniversary with three specials simulcasted around the world through the BBC and Disney+. These specials brought back David Tennant, not as his previous 10th Doctor but as a new 14th Doctor. He reteamed with Catherine Tate’s, Donna Noble, and together they stopped an invasion, went to the edge of the universe, fought Neil Patrick Harris’ The Toymaker and introduced the world to the new 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa. It was a big celebration of the show's 60 years. But for the first time in the show's history, the anniversary was not marked with a multi-Doctor adventure.
Every milestone anniversary that Doctor Who has celebrated has been marked with a multi-Doctor story. These stories are excuses for the creators of the show to bring back former Doctors and have them team up with the current Doctor for an epic adventure. Now, in fairness, Russell T. Davies did use a loophole in the third special, “The Giggle.” Due to some unknown reason, the 14th Doctor was able to “bi-generate” into the 15th Doctor. This controversial decision, allowed both the 14th and 15th Doctor’s to exist at the same time, so he was able to have a multi-Doctor storyline in a way. While he gets away with it on a technicality, it’s not entirely the same thing.
The first true multi-Doctor story was the 1973 episode, aptly titled “The Three Doctors.” Within the universe of Doctor Who, it’s impossible for the Doctor to cross his own timeline. This is a handy explanation for why he doesn’t meet himself all the time. But for this episode, one Doctor wasn’t going to be good enough. The current Doctor at the time, Jon Pertwee’s 3rd Doctor, teamed up with Patrick Troughton’s 2nd Doctor, and William Hartnell’s 1st Doctor (who was rather ill at the time and couldn’t physically be there). Together, through much bickering, they solved the problem and went on their way.
Patrick Troughton as the 2nd Doctor, Jon Pertwee the 3rd Doctor, and William Hartnell the 1st Doctor
Ten years later, the BBC would air “The Five Doctors”, which saw the aforementioned Doctors, with Richard Hurndall stepping in for William Hartnell who had passed away, team up with the current Doctor at the time, Peter Davidson’s 5th Doctor. Interestingly, while it’s called “The Five Doctors,” Tom Baker’s 4th Doctor does not appear (only in archived footage) due to the actor declining to return, a decision he later regretted.
Richard Hurndall, Peter Davison, Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton
Since the show went off the air in 1989, there was no reason for a 30 anniversary celebration in 1993. However, one still happened. Doctor Who was still popular and in 1993, the annual charity telethon, Children In Need, aired a special mini-series titled Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time. This low budget, non-canon, and absurd crossover with the popular soap opera, EastEnders, saw every living Doctor, 3-7, return. The next anniversary special would come in the form of 2003’s Big Finish, the producer of many audio dramas starring former Doctors, audio drama, Zagreus. This story saw versions of the 4th, 5th, and 6th Doctors team up with the 8th Doctor. Big Finish would go on to release many multi-Doctor stories, including ones for the subsequent 50th and 60th anniversaries. But the next major anniversary special came in the form of the 50th anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor.”
Matt Smith (11th Doctor), David Tennant (10th Doctor) and John Hurt (War Doctor)
Serving as Matt Smith’s penultimate episode as the 11th Doctor, the story sees him team up with the returning David Tennant as the 10th Doctor, and the newly revealed John Hurt as the War Doctor, a secret regeneration between 8 and 9 that was unknown to audiences at the time. Interestingly enough, this was the second multi-Doctor adventure that Steven Moffat would write. Of the three modern Doctor Who showrunners, Steven Moffat has written the most classic style multi-Doctor adventures. His only competition is Chris Chibnall, who wrote one of them. The final episode of Chibnall’s tenure on Doctor Who, “The Power of the Doctor,” saw Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor get some advice from many of the classic Doctors, 1st (David Bradley’s second turn in the role), 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th. Chris Chibnall also wrote an episode that introduced a previously unrevealed Doctor, Jo Martin’s the Fugitive Doctor, but this falls under the same loophole that “The Giggle” falls under. Supposedly Russell T. Davies had an idea for the 50th anniversary, but he left the show before he could put his money where his mouth was.
While Steven Moffat was a staff writer under Russell T. Davies’ first turn as showrunner of Doctor Who, Moffat wrote a special called “Time Crash,” where the 10th Doctor met the 5th Doctor (David Tennant’s real life future father-in-law). When Moffat became showrunner, he wrote two multi-Doctor episodes: The aforementioned “Day of the Doctor” 50th anniversary special, and “Twice Upon A Time,” the final episode of Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor in which he teamed up with the 1st Doctor, played by David Bradley (His first time playing the actual 1st Doctor). Steven Moffat is pretty positive on multi-Doctor adventures. Considering he’s made three of them, it’s not hard to believe that either. He’s stated a few times how much he likes the differing personalities clashing with each other, finding it fun to write. A sentiment other showrunners don’t seem to share.
Peter Capaldi (12th Doctor) and David Bradley (First Doctor)
When asked about why a multi-Doctor adventure wasn’t in the cards for the 60th anniversary, former and current showrunner, Russell T. Davies stated that “The Power of the Doctor” was the major reason why. “The Power of the Doctor” and the 60th anniversary are only 11 months apart, and it would have been overwhelming as a creator to do it back to back. This makes perfect sense, even if it ignores sixty years of tradition. Now the 20th anniversary of the show's return in 2005 is just around the corner. With the anniversary of the modern version of the show, Davies could have taken the opportunity to reunite the modern Doctors (and the 8th because I’m a fan) in an exciting new multi-Doctor adventure for this generation of fans. It’s alright though, because Davies has already shut down the talk of a multi-Doctor adventure. Citing the same issue as too many anniversaries in a row saying “no. Sorry. I don’t think that’s wise.”
He’s not the only one to show disinterest in a new multi-Doctor crossover, even though he’s created multiple ways for it to happen since returning. While the classic Doctors, including Paul McGann’s 8th Doctor have expressed enthusiasm to a potential return, most of the modern generations Doctors have outright declined this idea. Since his exit from the show, 9th Doctor actor Christopher Eccleston has been very outspoken about the abuse he received on the show and his disinterest (to put it kindly) in returning. He’s since softened this position and returned to the role through Big Finish audio adventures, including an upcoming season where he’ll return with Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, but he is still very against returning to the show. Steven Moffat reportedly approached him for the role of the War Doctor, who became John Hurt, but he obviously declined. Last year he stated his terms to return to the show by saying "Sack Russell T Davies, sack Jane Tranter, sack Phil Collinson, sack Julie Gardner, and I'll come back.” So he’s out.
Having returned twice to Doctor Who, as the 10th Doctor in “The Day of the Doctor,” and recently as the 14th Doctor, it almost seems inevitable that David Tennant would return for another multi-Doctor adventure. At one point, he was very eager to return, even going so far as to assume he would for the 50th anniversary. But when asked if he would return since the 14th Doctor is living on Earth in the same timeline as the 15th Doctor, Russell T. Davies said that he is “retired” from the role. Even though he, stupidly, opened the door for this return, Davies is now growing frustrated by the ask saying that "I think he died. I’m going to start saying that.” These are not David Tennant’s words but Davies seems uninterested in another appearance by the most popular actor to play the Doctor since Tom Baker. Perhaps he’s regretting the bi-generation (as he should).
Being the youngest actor to ever play the Doctor, Matt Smith has been historically uninterested in returning to Doctor Who. Understandably, he was more interested in building his post-Doctor Who career and not looking back. But recently, he’s changed his tune. Last year he was asked if he was open to returning and he said “never say never.” He’s never closed the door entirely, but this was the most he’s expressed interest in a possible return. It’s gotten long enough now that he misses the show.
Like Christopher Eccleston, the 12th Doctor’s Peter Capaldi is also not interested in returning. But for very different reasons. Capaldi, like David Tennant, was a lifelong Doctor Who fan and considered it a dream come true to become the Doctor. But when asked if he would return, he seems to be happy leaving well enough alone, stating that if he never comes back, then his Doctor is still out there, and that “there comes a time when you have to leave things alone.” He also said in 2021, that he feels “the more multi-Doctor stories you have the less effective they are, really,” and that he wouldn’t “really fancy” returning for one. He has no animosity towards returning, he just doesn’t want to diminish his experience.
Then there’s the unfairly maligned 13th Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, the first female actress to play the role of the Doctor. Of the modern Doctors, she’s the only one who has answered with an enthusiastic “yes”. Her enthusiasm for returning, and the fact that she’s already returned to do Big Finish dramas, something that Smith and Capaldi haven’t done yet, almost paints a picture that she didn’t want to leave in the first place. Considering the reception she had during her tenure, it’s heartwarming to see her enthusiasm hasn’t dwindled. Interestingly, she’s got the shortest time between leaving the show and returning for Big Finish audio dramas. However, while she’s incredibly enthusiastic about returning, as stated above, her former selves aren’t. Enough have claimed that they don’t want to return at all. So this paints a rather disappointing picture when considering a multi-Doctor special. But maybe a team up with the 13th and 15th Doctor would be enough.
There’s a lot of hurdles to overcome when creating a multi-Doctor story. Big Finish producers talked about the daunting task of doing them when they were developing the 60th anniversary special Once & Future. Even with the benefit of being able to record voices at different times and locations, it’s hard to not turn the story into pure fan-fiction. The same is true when it comes to the show. There are 12 living Doctors (not counting Jo Martin), and getting them all together would be a daunting task, especially with many of the advanced ages of the classic Doctors. Which is why a 20th anniversary celebrating the modern generation of the show would be an ideal compromise. But it wouldn’t be worth it if they all weren’t interested in returning. Especially if Russell T. Davies doesn’t want to write it.
What’s a little strange, is that Davies has actually written in a few ways to make a multi-Doctor story even easier to write. For the Tales of the TARDIS minisodes on the BBC iPlayer, he had the classic Doctors reunite with their companions to reminisce over the adventures they had. Admittedly, it was just an excuse to write a clip show, but he created an in-universe explanation for why the classic Doctors would look so much older then the last time fans saw them. Then he went on to introduce the idea of a bi-generation, a mythological variant of the regeneration trick that allowed multiple actors to play the Doctor. Sure, this explanation would only benefit David Tennant, but Davies decided that “he died.”
While Doctor Who writers, creators, and actors seem uninterested in multi-Doctor stories, fans are incredibly enthusiastic about them. The reason is very simple: Doctor Who is a very long running science fiction show that spans multiple generations. Each Doctor has a generation of fans who grew up with them and consider them “their Doctor.” A multi-Doctor adventure is tailor made for a show like Doctor Who, and personifies the very nature of why anniversaries are so special. Anniversaries are times for looking back at the journey that brought you to that point in your life. For Doctor Who, it gives fans a chance to look back at the past, reminisce with an old friend (Doctor), and look to new horizons. But it didn’t happen for the 60th, and it won’t happen for the 20th, so it looks like we’ll all have to wait for the 70th, if at all. But it’s not worth asking for it if their heart(s) isn’t in it.