"That's why it's been left up to me and me and me and me and me and me and me!"
— The Second Doctor.
A four-part
Doctor Who fan series created by
Big Name Fan Stuart Humphryes, also known as
Babelcolour.
Created using
Stock Footage, (Mostly from
Doctor Who, naturally.)
Manipulative Editing and some original audio,
The Ten Doctors puts all the ten Doctors that existed when the first episode was created in a single adventure together, with the rest appearing later on.
When the first two Doctors are kidnapped under mysterious circumstances, The Third Doctor is contacted by a man claiming to be The President of Gallifrey, who tells him that he and his other selves must go back in time and rescue the first two Doctors from before they were kidnapped,
or they might all cease to exist. The Seventh Doctor is given the job to contact the rest of his incarnations. Which is easier said than done, as it requires a very powerful signal. Fortunately, it works. The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Tenth Doctors are sent to UNIT HQ, Earth to rescue The Second Doctor
from his battle against Omega's anti-matter monsters. The Tenth Doctor and a random UNIT soldier drive away in a jeep while the rest of the Doctors run away from the crossfire, uncertain how to deal with the situation. Suddenly, a new enemy enters the battlefield...
Dalek: Exterminate!
The Daleks recognise the Doctors and open fire on them. They respond by picking out red lightning guns and shoot the portal the Daleks emerged from. The Tenth Doctor arrives in his jeep with a device of some sort. He actives it, causing it to shoot out an energy beam and lightning which blows up all the Daleks. Even he is surprised that it was so easy. With The Second Doctor now safe, The man claiming to be The President sends the Doctors to rescue The First Doctor, who has been found by the Third, Eight and Ninth Doctors in
Cardiff Castle, 1415. Unfortunately, they get there just as the Castle is attacked by Sontarans. The First Doctor sees his TARDIS materialise as the castle is bombarded and the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eight, Ninth and Tenth Doctors are all shot.
Back in his TARDIS, The First Doctor decides to intervene. He teleports the other Doctors into his ship, where they wake up uninjured. He also causes a TARDIS exterior containing all of the Doctors' TARDIS interiors to materialise in the console room. Ian and Barbara just look on, puzzled by the whole thing. The Doctors go to their respective console rooms,
Reverse the Polarity and zap the Sontarans with temporal energy in their vents, killing them and blowing up their mothership. The Doctors are once again contacted by "the President," who tells them that it is time for them to finish their mission. However, they notice a strange-looking space portal and decide to investigate, despite "The President" calling it irrelevant. It leads them to the planet Raston, heart of the Dalek-Cyber war,
which looks very much like a quarry. They end up in the middle of a three-way battle between Daleks, Cybermen and Raston Warrior Robots. The Doctors are,
once again, recognised and shot at by the Daleks and the cybermen, who are themselves blown to pieces by the Raston Warrior Robots.
Interestingly, the robots don't target the Doctors and fly away. The Doctors realise that the portal is hidden above them and use their sonic screwdrivers to destroy the invisible barrier covering it and enter the dark dimension that lies on the other side. They find themselves in a dark, empty void, where they are greeted by the voice of "The President," who reveals
that he is actually from a parallel universe created by the Doctor when he destroyed Galifrey. His plan has actually been to gather the Doctors in one place so that he can steal their life force. He also reveals
who he really is.
The Evil Doctor tells The Doctors that they wont live to see their successor. The Third Doctor then reveals that they have already met him. He contacted them all before the adventure began, warning them of The Evil Doctor's plan. He then aided the other Doctors behind the scenes, making sure that there was a jeep with an anti-Dalek device at UNIT HQ, altered the Sontaran weapons so they wouldn't kill The Doctors, and reprogrammed the Raston Warrior Robots with time lord physiology. The whole story was just an attempt by The Doctors to rescue the future versions of the first two Doctors, which The Evil Doctor had kidnapped.The Eleventh Doctor arrives in his TARDIS,
along with The War Doctor and a future version of The Tenth Doctor (Counting as a separate incarnation,
as he once regenerated while keeping the same face.) The Evil Doctor reveals the absorption chambers, causing The Third Doctor to loose confidence for the first time in his life, which he says "goes back several thousand years." This surprises The Fourth and Tenth Doctors, as they are nowhere near that old. However, they decide to ignore this and send the kidnapped Doctors back to their own time, hoping to avert the absorption, but it has already begun.
The Doctor had ten more incarnations before his childhood on Gallifrey. It was the last one of these Doctors
who sealed the rift in the Medusa Cascade, saving all of creation. He was then attacked by the Medusoid, described by the Third Dotor as "a hairy jellyfish," and injured beyond regeneration. But he was saved by the time lords, who gave him a new regeneration cycle, de-aging him into a young child. The Doctors are understandably confused over barely not remembering any of this. Turns out that The Evil Doctor has already absorbed his first regeneration cycle, erasing it from history.
The Doctors activate their sonic screwdrivers, forcing The Evil Doctor to show himself as a huge, holographic head. They are suddenly contacted by The Twelfth Doctor, who - with the help of K-9 - has managed to bring all of The Doctors' TARDISes into the Dark Dimension and temporarily immobilise The Evil Doctor. They now have exactly 11:05 minutes to stop him. The Eleventh Doctor reveals that he has a plan.
Freeze Gallifrey in another universe instead of destroying it. It works. Gallifrey is saved and The Evil Doctor is destroyed. As they celebrate their victory, The Fourth Doctor and K-9 receive a message from one of the Doctor's future incarnations.
The series is not related to the webcomic
The 10 Doctors, though it has a similar premise. It doesn't have anything to do with the trope
Nine out of Ten Doctors Agree, either.
- Part 1: The Abduction: Can be watched here, the teaser can be watched here and a behind the scenes video can be watched here.
- Part 2: The Convergence: The original version can be watched here, the new version can be watched here and the teaser for can be watched here.
- Part 3: The Dark Dimension: The original version can be watched here, the new version can be watched here and the teaser can be watched here.
- Part 4: The Final Trap: Can be watched here. Teasers can be watched here, here and here.
Tropes used in The Ten Doctors include:
- Acting for Two: This is done with David Tennant's Doctor in episode 4, after the original series confirmed his regeneration in Journey's End was an official regeneration.
- Keith Hodiak's preformance as the Raston Warrior Robot is also edited to make him play a whole group of robots while, in reality, there was only one.
- Adaptation Expansion: The scene where The Doctors save Gallifrey is much longer here than in the original show, and shows more of the classic Doctors.
- It is also an expansion of a corresponding scene from Babelcolour's Time War Chronicles videos. Also a case of Once More, with Clarity!.
- Alien Geometries: After The First Doctor has beamed Doctors 2-10 aboard his ship, another TARDIS materialises in the console room. It is revealed to contain the interior of every present Doctor's TARDIS, allowing them all to board their separate ships by entering a single police box.
- Aliens in Cardiff: The Sontarans literally try to invade Cardiff while The Doctors happen to be there. Though it's Cardiff in medieval times, so it's a slightly unusual version of this trope.
- Ambiguous Time Period: As a subtle joke about the UNIT dating controversy, the battle against Omega is merely dated as "The 20th Century."
- BBC Quarry: The planet Raston is portrayed with footage of all the various planets from the show that have been shot in these.
- Big Damn Heroes: Happens quite a few times. It is basically the Doctors' role throughout the story. They end up in the middle of ongoing conflicts, defeat the bad guys and save themselves by saving their earlier incarnations. Some specific examples:
- The Tenth Doctor arriving at the Omega-battle with an anti-Dalek device.
- The First Doctor saving his future incarnations from the Sontarans.
- The Raston Warrior Robots which show up and takes out the Daleks and the Cybermen just seems like a case of Villainous Rescue at first, but they are eventually revealed to be an example of this trope.
- The Twelfth Doctor and K-9 bringing the other Doctor's TARDISes to The Dark Dimension and immobilising The Evil Doctor.
- And finally the biggest one. The Doctors saving Gallifrey.
- The Cameo: Steven Taylor, Dodo Chaplet, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sergeant Benton, Jo Grant, Corporal Palmer, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and The General (the Time Lord who served at Arcadia when it fell) appear throught the story in small roles.
- Captain Obvious: Dodo's line "Doctor, you've vanished!" is exclaimed to the Doctor just after he has vanished. Also the Brigadier's line "This could be construed as an invasion" becomes this.
- Cerberus Syndrome: For the most part, the series has a pretty simple action plot, with some dramatic scenes. Once The Doctors enter The Dark Dimension however, the plot becomes much darker.
- Changed My Jumper: While hiding in Cardiff Castle, The First Doctor and Ian Chesterton have disguised themselves as a soldier and a knight, respectively. The Eight Doctor also seems to wear a monk's robe.
- Cliffhanger: All episodes but the last one ends wih one of these.
- First Episode: A Dalek enters the battlefield.
- Second Episode: The Doctors are apparently shot dead.
- Third Episode: The Big Bad reveals himself to be The Doctor.
- Create Your Own Villain: The Evil Doctor was accidentally created by The War Doctor when he destroyed Gallifrey.
- Credits Gag: The titles for the first part start out as black-and-white before gaining colour when Jon Pertwee's name shows up.
- Deus ex Machina: The anti-dalek device and the Sontaran's weapons being non-lethal comes off a bit like this. However, the ending reveals that there actually is a logical reason for these.
- Enemy Civil War: The fight against Omega becomes this when the Daleks and the Ogrons arrive, as they are just as willing to attack the anti-matter monsters as UNIT's soldiers.
- The Doctors later end up in the middle of a three-way shootout between The Daleks, The Cybermen and The Raston Worrior Robots. Subverted when it turns out that the Robots are actually on The Doctors' side.
- Evil Twin: The Big Bad is an alternate, evil version of the Doctor. Complete with a deep voice and an Evil Laugh.
- Evolving Credits: The fourth episode has different opening credits than the rest. They seem to be partially based on the Twelfth Doctor's opening credits.
- Expy: An evil, alternate incarnation of The Doctor who tries to become real by stealing the life force of his other selves. Are we sure that we're not talking about The Valeyard? Also, before his identity is revealed he seems very similar to Doctor Claw from Inspector Gadget.
- Flat "What.": The Fourth and Tenth Doctors do this back to back. The Fourth Doctor points out that he is saying this way too often.
- Foreshadowing: An accidental example, but the first three episodes features connections to all three multi-doctor adventures of the Classic Series. What does the fourth episode include? Why, a tie-in to the big multi-doctor adventure in the Revived Series, of course.
- Hijacked by Ganon: The first rescue mission starts out as a battle against Omega's anti-matter monsters. Once the Daleks enter the battlefield, they take over the role as the primary antagonists.
- Insult Backfire: This exchange:
"The President": It is beyond the comprehension of your puny mind.
The Fourth Doctor: Yes my pu- Well it may be puny, but it works!
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The first proper line in episode four, which came out after a lengthy Schedule Slip.
"The President": Years have passed and I have waited.
- Meanwhile, in the Future...: The Sontaran invasion - which takes place in 1415 - is given the subtitle "Meanwhile." Though it's unclear when exactly The Doctors are at the moment ("The President" only tells them where The First Doctor is.) so this might not actually be inaccurate.
- Mr. Exposition: K9, The Evil Doctor, The Twelth Doctor and The Tenth Doctor are all this at various points, as they are all portrayed by impressionist Jonathon Carley and Babelcolour himself, not stock audio from the show. (Though Ten still has David Tennant's original voice in some of his scenes.)
- Once an Episode: The Doctors end up in the middle of a battle between two or three other sides, and make it out alive thanks to a solution deviced by The Eleventh Doctor (though we don't know that he is behind everything until the last episode.)
- Percussive Maintenance: We get a montage of The Second, The Tenth, The Fifth, The Eighth, The Ninth and The Twelfth Doctors all doing this.
- Pinball Protagonist: The various incarnations of the Doctor border on this, as they realise that part of the adventure is Already Done for You. Though this is a unusual example, as the man who went there and did it is their future self. We are just not seeing it from his perspective.
- Also, the Big Bad and his victims are alternate and previous versions of the same man, respectively. This means that - aside from K9 - The Doctor is the only character with a major role in the story.
- Running Gag: The jelly babies from the original show make an appearance. Ironically, they are offered to The Fourth Doctor, not by him. (It is instead Two who hands them out.)
- Stock Footage: The bulk of the series consists of this, taken from both Doctor Who and other sources. Notably, The Evil Doctor is portrayed by Stock Footage of Dr. Totenkopf from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, who was himself portayed by Stock Footage of Laurence Olivier.
- Talking to Himself: Jonathon Carley's impression of David Tennant (and briefly Paul McGann) was used in the fourth episode to explain the Eleventh Doctor's involvement in the previous episodes. At one point, the Seventh Doctor brings up the Raston Warrior robots, but the Tenth Doctor interrupts him, stating that the Evil Doctor already got the point of the conversation. The Seventh Doctor's small line about the robots was also done by Carley.
- Unexpected Character: None of the trailers revealed that K-9 would show up.
- Unfazed Everyman: Ian and Barbara just kind of stand around and look bewildered as nine unknown men and another TARDIS (containing nine different TARDISes) suddenly appear in the console room.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Many medieval extras barely seem to react to the invading aliens who land around the castle, or the teleporting police boxes, for that matter. Maybe they think it's just a trick with mirrors.
- Wham Episode: Episode four, both for this series and for the original show. (Though it is - of course - not considered canon, being a fan series.) Let's count all the big reveals.
- The Eleventh Doctor contacted the other Doctors before the story began and warned them about "The President's" plan. The entire series was their attempt to rescue their previous two incarnations from him.
- The Third Doctor says that he is thousands of years old, surprising his later incarnations, who are supposed to be younger. This later leads to a different wham moment where it is revealed that The Doctor had ten incarnations before his childhood on Gallifrey, the Morbius Doctors.
- It is revealed what The Medusa Cascade has to do with The Doctor's name.
- We even find out why The Doctor was crying in that barn.
- There is a scene where The Doctors life is shown in reverse. We see all of the Doctors before landing on The First Doctor who lands at Foreman's Junkyard, travels through the time vortex, steals a TARDIS and has a nightmare as a child. Then it continues, showing footage of a young Doctor running across the fields of Gallifrey. Something that has never been shown in Doctor Who.
- Then there is the climax, where all The Doctors defeat the villaim by... freezing Gallifrey. Yes, this series is a fanmade P.O.V. Sequel to Doctor Who 50th AS "The Day of the Doctor", meaning that some Doctor Who fans had already seen the story of how The Doctors met before they started asking how it happened. (Though this only applies if you watch it without having seen Babelcolour's Time War Chronicles videos, which revealed the same thing.)
