The Five Doctors, What Happened to Baker?

[starsuperion]

Forgive my ignorance, but why was Tom Baker not in the Five Doctors serial? I mean, if it was a conflict of schedules, then why couldn't they have filmed him on location and merged it with the existing footage later? that would have been an awesome surprise for the video release..

Just don't know why, so many things could have been done with getting to him.. unless he didn't want to do it, but then again, I ask, why??

I am confused..

 

[The Nth Doctor]

He didn't want to do it because he had left the show only a few years prior to the making of The Five Doctors. He said in interviews years later that he regretted that decision.

 

[starsuperion]

He didn't want to do it because he had left the show only a few years prior to the making of The Five Doctors. He said in interviews years later that he regretted that decision.

where is my sliders remote, I need to go to a parallel earth where the only thing that is different is that Baker said yes to the 5 doctors serial..Damn!!!

Oh and maybe Hartnell was well enough to do the 3 doctors..

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ And still alive enough to do the 5 Doctors.

 

[Mr Light]

It would have been awesome to have Tom Baker in the special... but to be fair he would have completely over-shadowed the other four characters. But it is a shame we never got to see how he would have interacted with his other incarnations. I love the way they bicker amongst each other

 

[starsuperion]

^ And still alive enough to do the 5 Doctors.

agreed..

It would have been awesome to have Tom Baker in the special... but to be fair he would have completely over-shadowed the other four characters. But it is a shame we never got to see how he would have interacted with his other incarnations. I love the way they bicker amongst each other

yeah you may be right, Baker was such a presence, that the episode would have been kinda 1 sided.. though I could see the rest of the doctors even it out..

I must say though as Classic who goes, the 3 doctors and the 5 doctors is definitely the best of the best!

anyone notice how both times those episodes dealt with Time Lords? It is kinda a tradition that if you are going to bring the doctors together, that they must have time lords in the story.. a fact that I hope is carried on into the new series..

 

[Starkers]

I was going to say there were no Timelords in the 2 Doctors, but they do seem to be pulling the strings behind the scenes.

No timelord involvement in Time Crash however

 

[Mr Light]

There were two Time Lords in Time Crash Well, technically one, I guess...

 

[ClayinCA]

There were two Time Lords in Time Crash Well, technically one, I guess...

[OMEGA]Two Time Lords?!?...Ahhh! The SAME Time Lord![/OMEGA]

 

[23skidoo]

The Special Edition DVD release of Five Doctors has some interesting tidbits of information about the making of the show. Such as the fact Colin Baker was going to return as Maxil but was cut because he was cast as the Doctor before filming began. And it was originally called The Six Doctors (I think the idea was one of them was going to be a fake - shades of Jackson Lake, perhaps? I believe at the time FD was made it had been announced Davison was leaving so it might have been a Next Doctor-like ruse). And apparently Tom Baker did agree at first to appear, but then backed out. He also was supposed to take part in the famous photo shoot, but backed out at the last minute which is why a Madame Tussauds wax dummy was used instead.

Alex

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Forgive my ignorance, but why was Tom Baker not in the Five Doctors serial? I mean, if it was a conflict of schedules, then why couldn't they have filmed him on location and merged it with the existing footage later? that would have been an awesome surprise for the video release..

Just don't know why, so many things could have been done with getting to him.. unless he didn't want to do it, but then again, I ask, why??

He was at first ambivalent, then somewhat intrigued, and finally he said no.

JNT really wanted Baker to do "The Five Doctors," and Baker had a number of demands -- he wanted to work with Lis Sladen, he wanted to be the "central" Doctor in the story, he wanted to see a script. Dicks' script would have had the fourth Doctor "going bad" by all appearances, until at the end where he turned on Borusa. Baker backing out, after seeing part of the script, upended the story somewhat -- to Dicks' relief, actually -- and made the fifth Doctor the "central" Doctor.

And it was originally called The Six Doctors (I think the idea was one of them was going to be a fake - shades of Jackson Lake, perhaps? I believe at the time FD was made it had been announced Davison was leaving so it might have been a Next Doctor-like ruse).

Robert Holmes' "The Six Doctors" had the Doctor regressing back along his own timeline -- he would have begun the story as the fifth, then turned into the fourth, and so on, until it reached the first Doctor, and he wasn't exactly right. Holmes recycled an idea from that story (it never got as far as a script) for "The Two Doctors" -- the Rassilon Imprimature -- as the Cybermen (Eric Saward's pet alien race) were trying to discover it and, through it, the secret of time travel.

JNT recycled other ideas from the story for "Dimensions in Time," namely the retro-generations.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ The idea of the Doctor regressing into his earlier incarnations could be retooled if they ever did a multi-Doctor story again. It would also allow them to use some mumbo-jumbo to explain why Tom or Colin Baker looked so old, something like the explanation thrown out in Time Crisis.

On topic, even as a 11 year old who wasn't a big DW fan, I couldn't believe that THE most popular, definitive Doctor was hardly in TFD. We weren't privy to the behind-the-scenes machinations in my school and didn't know why Tom was stuck under a fence or whatever while the rest of them got on with the adventure. But we knew that it really detracted from the story.

Didn't Tom explain at the time, with characteristic humility (cough) that he didn't want to over-shadow Peter Davison?

 

[The]

As I understand it, Tom was (self-admittedly) proprietary about the part, because he had done it for so long, and so recently. He's certainly mellowed in his older age, of course.

If he had done it, Baker's Doctor would have been the one that transmatted to the High Council and faced Borusa (instead of Peter). Peter and Tegan would have gone through the front door, Pertwee and the Brigadier would have gone in through the top, and Troughton and Jamie would have come in through the caves below. Susan and the First Doctor would have remained in the TARDIS, instead of Susan and Turlough. Don't know where Turlough or Sarah would have factored in there.

As for the original "The Six Doctors" idea, from what I remember, it was supposed to be an android-First Doctor (which was supposed to explain why they had a different actor in there) as part of the bad guys, or something. Thus, the "sixth" Doctor...

 

[starsuperion]

I think the old guy they got to play the 1st doctor was excellent.. and I loved the whole thing, where else can you get 5 time lords in one show! But to miss out on Tom playing in the show was kind of a let down to me.. to this day I wish he had done the show..or they got a bit more creative with his footage..

if BBC ever put in a bit of money and did some CGI stuff (like was done in the Terminator movie with a young Arnold), and baker voiced him, that would be pretty cool..

like a remastered version..released to DVD.. a separate story that explains his absence a bit better..

 

[I am not Spock]

I pray for an 11 Doctors special for the 50th anniversary in 2013. I know, I know, Hartnell , Troughton, and Pertwee are no longer with us. You'd have to find especially good lookalikes. Any suggestions? (BTW, the guy who subbed for Hartnell in TFD is no longer with us, either)

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Any suggestions?

Muppets.

 

[Orcus]

Any suggestions?

Muppets.

David Troughton? In a wig...

 

[Captain Pike]

Too tall and big-boned..

 

[G2309]

It would have been awesome to have Tom Baker in the special... but to be fair he would have completely over-shadowed the other four characters. But it is a shame we never got to see how he would have interacted with his other incarnations. I love the way they bicker amongst each other

I think the earlier Doctors would be surprised what they would turn in to.

 

[Marc]

It would have been awesome to have Tom Baker in the special... but to be fair he would have completely over-shadowed the other four characters. But it is a shame we never got to see how he would have interacted with his other incarnations. I love the way they bicker amongst each other

I think the earlier Doctors would be surprised what they would turn in to.

"So you're what I've become, a dandy and a clown"