OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 332
STORY NUMBER: 065
TRANSMITTED: 13 January 1973
WRITER: Bob Baker & Dave Martin
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Three Doctors
Episode Format: 625 video
The Third Doctor, Jo & Doctor Tyler are taken to see the ruler of this world, Omega, a Time Lord who the Doctor thought destroyed. He was the solar engineer that gave the Time Lords' Time Travel by detonating a star as a Supernova. He feels he was abandoned but the Doctor protests that they thought he had died. He survived in the anti-matter Universe by force of will and controls it by his mind. Omega detects more visitors as the UNIT HQ carrying the Tardis, Second Doctor, Brigadier & Sergeant Benton arrives. The Brigadier believes the Doctor has transported UNIT HQ to Cromer. He goes to find a phone, pursued by the Doctor, who still wants his recorder, and Benton. The Brigadier locates the missing game warden Ollis who's been stuck in the wasteland for a while and sighted The Third Doctor, Jo & Doctor Tyler being taken off by the Gellguards who have now captured the Second Doctor & Benton. They are taken to Omega where they and the Third Doctor are imprisoned. The Brigadier plans to attack Omega's palace. Jo gets the Doctors to use their will to form a door in their cell allowing their escape. The Doctors find their way to chamber where Omega controls the Black Hole's singularity but Omega is angered that they are free. They fight the dark side of Omega's mind in a psychic battlefield as Jo, Benton & Tyler escape meeting the Brigadier & Ollis on their way out. The First Doctor is summoned by the Time Lords, who are desperately low on energy. They send him through the black hole to aid his other two selves as the Third Doctor is overcome by Omega.
Less Troughton in this episode than the last one which is a shame but he does get to deliver a crucial line, still hunting for his missing recorder. To a first time viewer this could be viewed as narrow minded and silly but it's actually keeping the missing instrument in mind so that when it plays a crucial role in the plot next episode it's not been plucked out of thin air. And of course we get Stephen Thorne at his mad, shouty best.
Of the guest cast in these episodes we'll assume you know who William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton are. Several of the others we've seen before as well. Interestingly two of the most prominent Time Lords have appeared as Time Lords before: Clyde Pollitt, the Chancellor, was one of the three man Time Lord tribunal in The War Games while Graham Leaman was also a Time Lord in Colony in Space. He's also been in The Macra Terror (as the Controller), Fury from the Deep (as Price) and The Seeds of Death (as the Grand Marshall). This is his final Doctor Who appearance. Their superior, the President, is played by Roy Purcell who was Chief Prison Officer Powers in The Mind of Evil. Stephen Thorne, here playing Omega, was Azal in The Dæmons, and had played (but not yet been seen on screen as) an Ogron in Frontier in Space. He returns as Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. More on this story in a second... Rex Robinson, playing Doctor Tyler, will return as Gebek in The Monster of Peladon, and Dr. Carter, also in The Hand of Fear. All 3 of his appearances are directed by Lennie Mayne who evidently takes the Camfield/Letts approach to casting actors he knows and is comfortable working with! This is Mayne's second directorial assignment after The Curse of Peladon and it's the third story written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin. Writers and Director will combine again for the Hand of Fear which, as we mention above, features two of the performers from this tale.
The exterior scenes on Omega's world are filmed at Springwell Quarry, situated in Richmansworth near the story's other locations. The Doctor Who team will return here for 1982's Earthshock, 1984's The Twin Dillema & 1987's Delta & the Bannermen. Four appearances may make it the most used quarry, and indeed exterior location, in Doctor Who!
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