Reviews for episode ‘Doctors Assemble!’ • Doctor Who

During the middle of the pandemic, Emily Cook, then editorial assistant of Doctor Who Magazine, created a multimedia campaign to help keep the show going and to provide outreach to people trapped at home. This project was called Lockdown! and it involved live streams of older episodes, original minisodes, singlongs, comics, short stories, charity outreach, and even fanworks.

The project had it’s own website, youtube channel, and twitter feed. It also featured cast and crew from various areas of Who, to provide semiofficial media.

Doctors Assemble! is a minisode, that’s more like a mini-podcast. It features all 13 Doctors (plus War) communicating over a live screen share chat as they try to figure out how to stop the Fourth Doctor’s Tardis from collapsing. The story is told through voice over only and still images. The only thing animated is the interior of the Tardis. This is both because of safe social distancing practices, and because none of the original actors reprise their roles here.

All of the voice actors are good, though some are better at impersonating their respective doctors than others. Some are uncanny in their recreations, and others you can tell are a recast but they get the personality right which is what’s really important.

Of course though what really shines here is the writing. It’s nothing complex and half the dialogue is in-jokes and memes, but the characterization is spot on and it’s just pure fun listening to all the Doctors bounce off each other. I especially like the dynamic of them all acting like bickering siblings, except for the first, who is their clueless old Grandpa who can’t figure out the tech and who they’re all trying to avoid getting in trouble with.

Also if you can track it down, Cook posted a special edition with a fun extra cameo at the end.

bethhigdon

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Review last edited on 13-06-25

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This was an utter delight from start to finish! Many of those voices were spot-on, as well.

Dragonwitch

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Review last edited on 12-06-25

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A simple story with great execution.

The whole Doctor Who Lockdown iniciative during the pandemic was increible per se. It was a little beacon of light in a very dark time we were passing together. Just for that alone this story deserves a high rate.

The story itself is simple but so well-executed. All voices are on point. Jon Culshaw was a madman taking all those roles just for himself, and as usual, was rockin' it.

The Doctors interacting was totally on point. The script really got the spirit of how each of the incarnations would react to a group chat, down to the profile pictures they would use and all! The part when all of them start arguing at the same time and out of the blue we start hearing the recorder blasting in the background was simply precious and cracks me up every time.

Hope we have another one like this in the future (no pandemic needed of course. One was enough)