A review by otherwyrld
Doctor Who: The Three Doctors by Terrance Dicks

4.0

This is the novelisation of a four part serial that ran from December 1972 to January 1973 and featured the Third Doctor as played by Jon Pertwee, Jo Grant and UNIT in the form of the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton. It is of course notable because it also starred the Second and First Doctors, though William Hartnell was too ill to do much more than a cameo appearance, so much of the hard work falls of the shoulders of Patrick Troughton.

This was a well written and thrilling story as the three Doctors are sent by the Time Lords to work together to save the universe from being destroyed by a mad Time Lord called Omega. There's a lot of adventure as our heroes are sucked into Omega's anti-matter universe and have to find a way to stop him from sucking all the energy from our universe into his. Omega is actually something of a tragic hero, as he was responsible for providing the source of all the Time Lords energy, but millennia tapped in another universe has sent him mad, especially as he thinks that the Time Lords abandoned him. The two Doctors each have their moments and play to their own strengths, although they also have a tendency to bicker with themselves, which the First Doctor has to clamp down on. Jo Grant, the Brigadier and Benton also have plenty to do battling Omega's minions, blob-like creatures created from his own will.

The Doctors succeed in destroying Omega, who is discovering to comprise only of pure will as his physical body has been destroyed by the hostile environment of the anti-matter universe. As a reward, the Time Lords restore the Tardis's ability to travel through time and space. It is a bitter sweet moment for Jo as she realises that the Doctor will soon be off on his travels, and that she may not end up going along for the ride, though he assures her that she is welcome to travel with him. The story is also notable for it being the Brigadier's first trip in the Tardis - needless to say he doesn't believe that it really is bigger on the inside, he thinks it is some kind of optical illusion (typical Brigadier).

I think that this is one of those stories that is better on the page than on the screen, as there are a lot of special effects here that sound good but I'm willing to bet looked a bit rubbish. It's a good story though, and an important one for the reasons I have already mentioned.