Doctors Assemble! (webcast)

Doctors Assemble!
Doctor:	Fourth Doctor
Featuring:	First Doctor, Second Doctor, Third Doctor, Fifth Doctor, Sixth Doctor, Seventh Doctor, Eighth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, War Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, Twelfth Doctor, Thirteenth Doctor
Main enemy:	Pandimensional entity
Main setting:	The TARDIS
Key crew
Writer:	James Goss
Producer:	Emily Cook
Music:	Howard Carter
Sound:	Benji Clifford
Release details
Premiere broadcast:	23 May 2020
Full video
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Doctors Assemble! was a webcast made specifically for the Doctor Who: Lockdown! ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who: Lockdown!"] event, coinciding with a tweetalong for An Adventure in Space and Time ^[+]Loading...["An Adventure in Space and Time (TV story)","An Adventure in Space and Time"]. It was a multi-Doctor story featuring all thirteen of the Doctor's main televised incarnations, as well as the War Doctor.

Though the webcast had a visual element, it consisted only of CGI exterior and interior shots of the Doctor's TARDIS, with pictures appearing on the TARDIS scanner. All of the Doctors appeared via voiceover, though their likenesses were featured in humorous profile pictures in the emergency "group chat" on the scanner. Of the various Doctors, only the First Doctor, Fourth Doctor and Eleventh Doctor were played by actors who had portrayed them before, namely David Bradley, Jon Culshaw and Jacob Dudman respectively, while the other Doctors were voiced by impressionists, some of whom had never contributed to licensed Doctor Who media in the past.

Approximately a year later, Jonathon Carley would go on to play a young War Doctor in The War Doctor Begins ^[+]Loading...["The War Doctor Begins"] audio series.

Synopsis

Trapped in his TARDIS by a mysterious entity intent on conquering Earth, the Fourth Doctor contacts his past and future selves via his TARDIS's telepathic circuits. Can the fourteen bickering Doctors come together across Time and Space to work out a solution before the Fourth Doctor is crushed by the collapsing internal dimensions of his Ship?

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The First Doctor - David Bradley
• The Second Doctor - Chris Walker-Thomson
• The Third Doctor - Jon Culshaw
• The Fourth Doctor - Jon Culshaw
• The Fifth Doctor - Jon Culshaw
• The Sixth Doctor - Angus Villiers-Stuart
• The Seventh Doctor - Wink Taylor
• The Eighth Doctor - Angus Villiers-Stuart
• The War Doctor - Jonathon Carley
• The Ninth Doctor - Pete Walsh
• The Tenth Doctor - Elliott Crossley
• The Eleventh Doctor - Jacob Dudman
• The Twelfth Doctor - Jonathon Carley
• The Thirteenth Doctor - Debra Stephenson

Crew

• Written by by James Goss
• VFX & Video Editing - Rob Baines
• Artwork - Will Brooks
• Profile Pictures - Andrew-Mark Thompson
• Audio Editing - Scott Handcock
• Sound Design - Benji Clifford
• Music - Howard Carter

Worldbuilding

• The Second Doctor has a picture taken with the Beatles.
• The Third Doctor taunts the Second Doctor by asking him if he doesn't have "a kazoo he could play with". When the Fourth Doctor points out that he has a yo-yo, the Third Doctor then insults him by claiming that "it looks like somebody knitted the Rings of Saturn and draped them around [his] shoulders".
• The Fourth Doctor describes himself as being "trapped on his own, [with] no Romana, [and] no K9". He has been warned by Sarah Jane Smith about the approaching alien threat to Earth.
• The Ninth Doctor compares his other incarnations teaming up to Chuckle Vision ^[+]Loading...["Chuckle Brothers","Chuckle Vision"], while the Twelfth Doctor likens it to The Krankies ^[+]Loading...["The Krankies"].
• The Ninth Doctor has a poster with the tagline "Mechanus is so bracing!" and depicting Mechonoids on it, and another poster for a Titanic ^[+]Loading...["Titanic"] film.
• The Eleventh Doctor is "glad River isn't here" due to what she would think of the Doctors bickering.
• Humanity is currently dealing with "a great crisis".
• Cat pictures submitted by the Sixth Doctor prove essential, as their backgrounds contain encoded location vectors.
• The First Doctor borrows Barbara Wright's cardigan in an attempt to muffle the noises coming from the food machine, unaware of their significance.
• The Fourth Doctor fears he will be crushed into a singularity.
• The Third Doctor attempts to have all the Doctors rendezvous in Geneva at UNIT HQ.
• As the walls close in around him, the Fourth Doctor says he's "starting to feel sorry for marmalade".
• The War Doctor's profile picture features him, as a young man, in front of largely empty shelves of toilet paper, tagged "NO MORE". His attire resembles that of the Eighth Doctor, indicating this story takes place early in that incarnation's lifetime.
• The Sixth Doctor goes back in time to install a yellow button on the First Doctor's TARDIS control console, which, when pressed, flushes the pandimensional entity from the TARDIS's telepathic buffers.
• The Thirteenth Doctor calls the group of her past selves "fam", much to the Sixth Doctor's fury and the Tenth Doctor's approval.
• Like prior incarnations in multiple-Doctor incidents, the Thirteenth Doctor displays disdain for a past incarnation. Upon hearing the Sixth Doctor's answering message, she refers to him as a "boomer".

Notes

• The "great crisis" which leaves humans vulnerable to an outside attack was implicitly the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The War Doctor's profile image depicts him standing next to an almost empty shelf of toilet paper, a nod to the shortage of essentials caused by the pandemic.
• The advert promoting Mechanus behind the Ninth Doctor is a poster entitled "Mechanus Holidays" by Andrew-Mark Thompson.
• The picture of the Sixth Doctor and Peri dancing is a publicity shot that was taken during location filming for The Mysterious Planet ^[+]Loading...["The Mysterious Planet (TV story)","The Mysterious Planet"].
• Doctors Assemble! marks a rare occurrence of the complete moniker of "(Ordinal) Doctor" being used in-universe, as the sixth incarnation refers to himself as the Sixth Doctor in his message. Previous occurrences included PROSE: The Eight Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)","The Eight Doctors"], TV: The Name of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Name of the Doctor (TV story)","The Name of the Doctor"], AUDIO: The Brink of Death ^[+]Loading...["The Brink of Death (audio story)","The Brink of Death"] and COMIC: The Many Lives of Doctor Who ^[+]Loading...["The Many Lives of Doctor Who (comic story)","The Many Lives of Doctor Who"].
• Elliott Crossley, who voiced the Tenth Doctor, improvised the Tenth Doctor's reaction to the Thirteenth Doctor calling the others "fam".
• David Bradley is the only actor featured to have also portrayed his Doctor on screen.
• When forming teams, the Third Doctor claims he'll take any not wearing a bow-tie while wearing one himself.

Easter eggs

• The Third Doctor describes the Fourth Doctor's telepathic message as his having "reached out through the void beyond the mind", referencing the lyrics of "I Am the Doctor", from the album of the same name, a song which was performed by Jon Pertwee in-character as the Doctor.
• The Second Doctor says that "some corners of the universe have bred the most terrible things" when he sees his first incarnation, referencing his famous speech from TV: The Moonbase ^[+]Loading...["The Moonbase (TV story)","The Moonbase"].
• When the Fourth Doctor calls the current crisis the "greatest peril in [Earth's] history", the Fifth Doctor rhetorically asks if it is Tuesday, with the Ninth Doctor and Thirteenth Doctor asking if it could be Saturday or Sunday, referencing the days in the week their episodes aired.
• The Seventh Doctor gets his other incarnations to stop arguing using the same method he did in TV: Battlefield ^[+]Loading...["Battlefield (TV story)","Battlefield"] to stop a battle.
• The Third Doctor promises to give the War Doctor "a hundred cats" in the same vain as how he tried to persuade his second incarnation to sacrifice his recorder in TV: The Three Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Three Doctors (TV story)","The Three Doctors"], with the Second Doctor also hinting to those events.

Continuity

• The Fourth Doctor's profile picture features Mona Lisa ^[+]Loading...["Mona Lisa"] in the front, (TV: City of Death ^[+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)","City of Death"]) the Fifth Doctor's picture is an autographed picture of him with the famous cricketeer W. G. Grace, (TV: Black Orchid ^[+]Loading...["Black Orchid (TV story)","Black Orchid"]) the Seventh Doctor's depicts him on Iceworld, (TV: Dragonfire ^[+]Loading...["Dragonfire (TV story)","Dragonfire"]) a picture of Grace Holloway appears on the Eighth Doctor's profile picture, (TV: Doctor Who ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who (TV story)","Doctor Who"]) the Tenth Doctor's features him with the Wire, (TV: The Idiot's Lantern ^[+]Loading...["The Idiot's Lantern (TV story)","The Idiot's Lantern"]) the Eleventh Doctor's profile picture depicts him with Laurel and Hardy, (TV: The Impossible Astronaut ^[+]Loading...["The Impossible Astronaut (TV story)","The Impossible Astronaut"]) and the Thirteenth Doctor's profile picture is her hiding in a wardrobe from a Sontaran. (WC: Message from the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["Message from the Doctor (webcast)","Message from the Doctor"])
• The First Doctor sees the call appear from within the TARDIS's food machine, which he located with the fault locator. (TV: The Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)","The Daleks"]) The Third Doctor picks up the call on John Benton's Bunsen burner in his UNIT laboratory. (TV: Terror of the Autons ^[+]Loading...["Terror of the Autons (TV story)","Terror of the Autons"])
• The Third Doctor says the Fourth Doctor is "all teeth and curls". (TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)","The Five Doctors"])
• The Fourth Doctor states that he used his TARDIS tuner to open the telepathic transtemporal communications channel. (COMIC: Dr Who and the Turgids ^[+]Loading...["Dr Who and the Turgids (comic story)","Dr Who and the Turgids"])
• The Second Doctor suggests the Fourth Doctor check the fluid links. (TV: The Daleks ^[+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)","The Daleks"])
• The Eighth Doctor wonders if the cause of the dimensional anomalies in the Fourth Doctor's TARDIS might not be the Eye of Harmony. (TV: The Deadly Assassin ^[+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)","The Deadly Assassin"], Doctor Who ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who (TV story)","Doctor Who"])
• The Eleventh Doctor mentions meeting Jane Austen with Clara Oswald. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice ^[+]Loading...["The Magician's Apprentice (TV story)","The Magician's Apprentice"]; AUDIO: False Coronets ^[+]Loading...["False Coronets (audio story)","False Coronets"])
• Upon hearing his predecessor mention Clara, the Twelfth Doctor repeats her name with a hint of unfamiliarity. (TV: Hell Bent ^[+]Loading...["Hell Bent (TV story)","Hell Bent"])
• The Third Doctor repeats his anecdote about the "daisiest daisy" in an attempt to cheer up his other incarnations. (TV: The Time Monster ^[+]Loading...["The Time Monster (TV story)","The Time Monster"])
• To solve the TARDIS's malfunction, the Third Doctor proposes that the Doctors synchronise their time streams. (COMIC: The Test of Time ^[+]Loading...["The Test of Time (comic story)","The Test of Time"])
• When seeing previous control rooms, the Eleventh Doctor comments on the "round things". (TV: The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)","The Day of the Doctor"])
• The Fourth Doctor states his TARDIS is growing "smaller on the inside". The Machine was also dimensionally immanent. (PROSE: Cold Fusion ^[+]Loading...["Cold Fusion (novel)","Cold Fusion"])
• When he joins the efforts, the War Doctor is met with embarrassment and dread by his future incarnations. (TV: The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)","The Day of the Doctor"])
• The Doctors occasionally finish each other's sentences. (TV: The Almost People ^[+]Loading...["The Almost People (TV story)","The Almost People"], The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)","The Day of the Doctor"])
• The Tenth Doctor expresses his liking of the word "fam" when the Thirteenth Doctor uses it. He previously expressed his liking for the word "Spoilers" upon hearing the same incarnation say it. (COMIC: A Little Help from My Friends ^[+]Loading...["A Little Help from My Friends (comic story)","A Little Help from My Friends"])