This past weekend when the latest finale of Doctor Who aired I was worried that it would retroactively weaken The Three Doctors as a story, luckily it doesn’t.  This is the best of the anniversary stories because at its heart it is a story.  People like to say that the original series didn’t do character arcs, but this is yet another example of why they are wrong.  For Jon Pertwee as the Doctor this is the moment where his arc completely turns back to the willing hero once again.  The end of this serial sees the Doctor freed from his exile to Earth and able to travel among the stars again, Katy Manning as Jo getting this amazing single moment of sadness that the Doctor might be leaving her which of course would never happen.

The story itself is one that has fairly large stakes: Gallifrey (unnamed for another year) is having its energy drained and anti-matter is seeping into Earth, all the work of our first mythic Time Lord, Omega, a legendary figure who travelled through the black hole to give Gallifrey the ability to time travel.  Future stories would flesh out the mythology but writers Bob Baker and Dave Martin give another script with complete ambition and intrigue.

At the center of it all are the first three Doctors United with Pertwee and Patrick Troughton having this amazing dynamic of utter hatred of one another.  Nicholas Courtney and John Levene also make a great double act and there are two significant outsider supporting characters that have a role to play.  Future anniversaries would lose so much of this element which is what makes The Three Doctors work.  Lennie Mayne’s direction is slick, the performances just bounce off each other (Stephen Thorne gets his one Doctor Who role where he can give depth to the character), and the only thing holding it back are the occasional laughable effect.  It’s a stone cold classic.