Trivia / Doctor Who S10 E1 "The Three Doctors"

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• Blooper:
  • There's a creepy reveal when Omega takes off his mask and he has no body underneath it. Omega puts his mask back on, and flies into a Villainous Breakdown in which he's Chewing the Scenery so much that his mask flips up, revealing the actor's face, in closeup, just before the camera setup cuts to another angle.
  • Maybe because of the resolution and brightness gamut of television sets back then, this blooper was not noticed until modern day, when picture and brightness resolution increased in television and internet streaming services: When the TARDIS is brought into the antimatter universe, and Two, Sgt. Benton, and the Brigadier all exit into the seemingly-unharmed UNIT HQ laboratory, one camera shot gets a good look inside of the large TARDIS prop. Unfortunately, a small gap between the back doors (presumably for multiple actors to walk through comfortably, as if many characters were exiting the TARDIS) is showing through, which also shows the venetian blinds behind it. Plus, one can also see the back windows of the prop painted over to darken them.
  • For a split-second, after Three contacts Omega through the TARDIS (after Three and Two have found the forcefield generator and Two's recorder flute), one can see the BBC production stage behind the actors in the reflection of the TV monitor when it shuts off, as well as later when One contacts both of the Doctors again.
  • In Episode Four, the video of the first Doctor cuts to a close up where he's in a different position even though it should be happening in real time.
• Hostility on the Set: Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee reportedly would have conflicts over their different styles and working methods. A lot of this boiled down to cues – Pertwee was a stickler for memorizing his lines and delivering them exactly, expecting his colleagues to do the same to provide him his cues. Troughton's much freer line delivery often threw him off balance. Once when Pertwee questioned Troughton’s ad-libbing, Troughton replied, "Instead of worrying about what I'm going to say, worry about what you're going to say." The two also quarrelled over Pertwee’s attempts to get good camera angles by moving Stephen Thorne (Omega), something that Troughton was offended by as he felt the camera should be focused on the monsters. Afterwards, the two would become good friends and went on to play up their feud at conventions. Things were also helped when Troughton, recognizing that Pertwee was now the star of the show and he was just a guest, ended up deferring to Pertwee's preferences regarding the ad-libs and reining them in a bit.
• Milestone Celebration: The first multi-Doctor Adventure in honour of the tenth anniversary? ...yep, it's this trope in action! Though because it aired as the first story of the tenth season, and because the starting date of each season had shifted over the years, it actually aired only a month after the ninth anniversary.
• Reality Subtext:
  • William Hartnell was unable to take on a role in the story due to illness, hence he's trapped in a time eddy and only being able to communicate with his successors through a viewscreen in the TARDIS. On top of that, it wasn't just his last appearance as the First Doctor, but his last acting appearance ever.
  • The bickering between the Second and Third Doctors reflects the fact that Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee clashed over acting styles behind the scenes and initially didn't get on very well (they gradually warmed to each other over the years, however).
• Role Reprise: William Hartnell returned to play the First Doctor for the final time, six years after he left it.
• Throw It In!:
  • Nicholas Courtney's line about Cromer was improvised.
  • Patrick Troughton referring to Omega as a "bloke" in an echo of the previous line, delivered by John Levine, was one also.
• Troubled Production: As well as William Hartnell's poor health, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee did not get on well during recording, as Troughton's tendency to improvise whenever he thought that he could improve on the script made Pertwee uncomfortable. This was such an issue for Terrance Dicks that during the making of "The Five Doctors", he wrote it so that the Second and Third Doctors would not meet until the serial’s ending. This was much to the disappointment of Troughton and Pertwee, who had become friends years following through doing fan conventions.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original draft of the story, Deathworld, had the Time Lords in conflict with a Federation of Evil led by a personification of Death. To stop potential war, the Time Lords talked the Federation into sending the three incarnations of The Doctor into its domain. There, the Doctors would do battle against various characters representing Death — which included zombies, the biblical Four Horsemen, the Hindu goddess Kali, and the Greek cyclops Polyphemus — all to determine whether Time Lords or the Federation of Evil would win.
  • Jamie and Zoe, the 2nd Doctor’s companions, were intended to return with the former having a romance with Jo. Frazer Hines, however was busy doing Emmerdale, and Jon Pertwee felt that their appearances would take away from the show’s current cast. Jamie’s lines were instead given to Sgt. Benton, returning from "The Invasion".
  • Richard Franklin's lack of availability meant that Captain Yates' lines also went to Sgt. Benton and Benton's original role went to a new character named Corporal Palmer, making the story (inadvertently) a bit of A Day in the Limelight for John Levene too.
  • The First Doctor was supposed to meet Two & Three in person and be personally involved with their adventure in the antimatter world and the confrontation with Omega. However, because William Hartnell's arteriosclerosis was taking a serious toll on his health when he was called up for the serial, the script was re-written; initially the intention was that Hartnell would only have a major role in Part Four, but it soon became apparent that even this would be beyond him, the story was reworked again to trap One in a time eddy, with his lines being split between Two & Three. A similar workaround would later be devised when Tom Baker rejected the chance to reprise the role of Four in "The Five Doctors".
  • The planet Metebelis III (originally called Metebelis IV), an obsession of the Third Doctor, was first going to be mentioned offhandedly by the Doctor to Jo, meant to set up an arc through the Third Doctor’s tenure. The line was cut for time, and would be mentioned in the next story.
• Word of God: According to Barry Letts in the DVD Commentary, the casting of Clyde Pollitt, who previously portrayed the second of the two Time Lords who oversaw the Doctor's trial in "The War Games", as the Chancellor was a deliberate decision. The two figures were meant to be the same character, thus bookending the Doctor's exile on Earth by featuring it implemented and lifted with the involvement of the same Time Lord.
• Working Title: The Black Hole and Deathworld.
• Written-In Infirmity: The First Doctor only appears on a video screen, recorded at Ealing Studios (not his home as legend has it), as William Hartnell was seriously ill and at times didn't remember he'd played the Doctor. This resulted in an odd situation where Hartnell's wife made a concerned call to the Doctor Who production office when she learned he'd accepted the role and was worried he'd taken on more than his health would let him handle (it turned out that when the production office had first contacted him about the story, they had done so on one of his rare lucid days and so didn't realise how serious his condition was). This was the impetus for the "Time Eddy" video inserts. He died two years later.
• You Look Familiar: The Chancellor of the Time Lords is played by Clyde Pollitt, who played one of the Time Lord judges who exiled the Doctor to Earth in "The War Games". This was deliberate on the part of the production staff, in order to create a link back to "The War Games".
  • Mixed with "You Sound Familiar": Recognize Omega's booming voice? That's Azal from The Daemons! Same actor!

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