Time Crash

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"Time Crash"
Doctor Who charity special
"What!?" The Doctor meets himself.
Cast
Doctor	David Tennant (Tenth Doctor) Peter Davison (Fifth Doctor)
Production
Writer	Steven Moffat
Director	Graeme Harper
Producer	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner
Series	Children in Need special (2007)
Length	8 minutes
Originally broadcast	November 16, 2007
Chronology
← Preceded by	Followed by →
"Last of the Time Lords"	"Voyage of the Damned"
IMDb profile

"Time Crash" is a "mini-episode" of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One as part of the 2007 appeal for the children's charity Children in Need on 16 November. Written by Steven Moffat, it starred David Tennant and Peter Davison as the Doctor.^[1]

The episode depicts a humorous encounter between the Doctor's fifth and tenth incarnations, played by Davison and Tennant respectively. "Time Crash" was a ratings success, with a viewership of 10.9 million and a 45% share of the total television audience that night, making it both the most watched portion of the 2007 Children in Need special and, at the time, the most watched Doctor Who episode since the show's 2005 revival.^[2]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Continuity 3 Production 3.1 Cast notes 4 Broadcast, reception and release 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Plot

After saying farewell to Martha, the Doctor encounters a problem with the TARDIS. Because of this the Fifth Doctor appears in the console room. The Tenth Doctor is gleeful at the meeting, but the Fifth Doctor is initially baffled, assuming his future incarnation is a deranged fan, possibly from LINDA.

The Tenth Doctor explains that he forgot to put the shields up after rebuilding the TARDIS and it collided with the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS (its earlier self) in the timestream. This is generating a paradox at the heart of the ship, which is powerful enough to rip a hole in the universe the (exact) size of Belgium. The Cloister Bell signals the impending end.

However, without a thought, the Tenth Doctor manipulates the TARDIS controls to manipulate a supernova into exact counterbalance; it cancels out the black hole caused by the paradox, so that all matter remains constant. This amazes the Fifth Doctor, but he quickly realises that the Tenth Doctor 'came up with' the solution only because he remembered this encounter. The Fifth Doctor says his farewells, and the Tenth Doctor tells the Fifth of the personality traits that he retained from his fifth self (trainers, the altering pitch of his voice and his spectacles), also telling him he loved being him and that he was "his" Doctor (a meta-reference).^{[citation needed]}

As he departs, the Fifth Doctor reminds the Tenth to raise his shields again, but it appears that he was too late, since the hull of the Titanic crashes through one of the TARDIS walls, as originally seen at the end of the last series.

[edit] Continuity

• Both the Fifth Doctor and the Tenth Doctor make references to each other's respective storylines throughout the episode. The Tenth Doctor mentions Nyssa and Tegan, the Mara, Time Lords wearing funny hats, as well as commenting at length on the Fifth Doctor's clothing. The Fifth Doctor asks the Tenth Doctor if he's connected with LINDA and uses the phrase "Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey" first heard in "Blink", also by Steven Moffat. Other elements from the series such as Zeiton crystals, the helmic regulator and the thermobuffer are also mentioned.

• Both Doctors refer to common elements throughout the series such as the Cybermen and the Master. The Fifth asks if the Master still has "that rubbish beard" (referencing the fact that actors Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley portrayed the character with a beard), and the Tenth replies "No, not this time...well, a wife..." (referring to Lucy Saxon).

• The Fifth Doctor notes that the TARDIS's "desktop theme" has been changed, accounting for its radically different appearances throughout the series, and resolving a longstanding issue dating back to the 1996 TV movie.

• The Tenth Doctor offers to lend the Fifth Doctor his sonic screwdriver, which the Fifth Doctor declines. The latter's own sonic screwdriver was destroyed in the serial The Visitation, as then-producer John Nathan-Turner saw it as an "easy way out" for writers to resolve any difficult situation the Doctor faced. The sonic screwdriver would not appear in the show again until the TV movie in 1996.

• During the original run of Doctor Who, the Doctor met different incarnations of "himself" in three stories: The Three Doctors (1973), The Five Doctors (1983) and The Two Doctors (1985). The Children in Need special Dimensions in Time (1993) also featured all the five surviving Doctors at the time, with specially made busts standing in for the remaining two. In the Comic Relief sketch Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death (1999), also written by Moffat, the Doctor regenerated four times, resulting in five different actors playing the role. Multi-Doctor stories have also appeared in Doctor Who spin-off media. "Time Crash" is the first such story produced for television that provides an in-universe explanation which acknowledges the returning actor's visible aging.

• There were several instances where the style of incidental music closely matched that used during Davison's era. This differed greatly from the orchestral music now favoured by the programme makers.

• This story, though short, does not feature a traditional companion (apart from the recap with Martha Jones in the pre-credits sequence). The only other story to do this is the Fourth Doctor story The Deadly Assassin.

• It is never explicitly stated where the Fifth Doctor's segment fits into his own continuity.

• The canonicity of "Time Crash" within Doctor Who continuity was confirmed by Steven Moffat in an interview in Doctor Who Magazine #389.^[3]

[edit] Production

The episode was directed by Graeme Harper on October 7, 2007, who twenty-three years previously had directed Peter Davison's last regular appearance in Doctor Who in the serial The Caves of Androzani.^[4] It was officially announced by the BBC on October 21.^[1]

According to the Doctor Who Confidential episode featuring behind-the-scenes footage, the Fifth Doctor's coat and trousers are originals taken from the Blackpool Doctor Who exhibition. The trousers had been previously altered in order to fit Colin Baker for the regeneration scene in The Caves of Androzani (and the opening of The Twin Dilemma). The jumper was knitted especially for this episode, and the hat was a new roll-up Panama hat with an original band added on.

Previous Doctor Who charity specials transmitted over the years include the aforementioned Dimensions in Time, Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death and "Doctor Who: Children in Need". The first two are generally not regarded as canonical by Doctor Who fans, but the last one is, directly connecting "The Parting of the Ways" with "The Christmas Invasion". The anniversary special The Five Doctors was broadcast on Children in Need night for its United Kingdom premier broadcast.^[5]

Time Crash marked the final broadcast of the Doctor Who theme music arrangement by Murray Gold that had been in place since 2005; commencing with the next episode broadcast, the Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned", and continuing into the fourth series in 2008, a new arrangement (also by Gold) was introduced.

[edit] Cast notes

• Freema Agyeman appears, uncredited, as Martha Jones in footage from "Last of the Time Lords" at the start of the episode, adding to the established events depicted then.
• On the date of filming, Peter Davison — still the current record holder for the youngest actor to play the Doctor — was older (at the age of 56) than William Hartnell was when he began his run as the First Doctor, 55 - the oldest anyone has been when they first played the Doctor. From an in-character point of view, the aged appearance of the Fifth Doctor was explained away as an effect of the merge.
• This is not the first time David Tennant and Peter Davison have appeared on screen together - they both appeared in "Death at the Opera", a 1999 episode of the series The Mrs Bradley Mysteries.

[edit] Broadcast, reception and release

• The episode was introduced by Terry Wogan and John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness.

• Children in Need was the most-watched television programme of the night, with an overnight rating of 9.4 million viewers, and figures peaked between 8:15pm and 8:30pm, when "Time Crash" was aired, with a total of 10.9 million viewers. The episode was therefore the most-viewed since the show's revival in 2005, surpassing the revival's premiere, "Rose", which achieved a rating of 10.8 million viewers.^[2] Calls also peaked during the episode's airing.^[6] When the episode was replayed later that night it garnered an audience of 2.5 million viewers.^[7] This rating was later beaten by "Voyage of the Damned", which received 13.3 million viewers.^[8]

• Critical reaction was positive, with reviewers calling it the highlight of the Children in Need special.^[9][10] Steven Moffat was praised for his writing of the episode, which was characterized as witty and clever.^[9][11] The performances of both Peter Davison and David Tennant were also well-received.^[12][10]
• "Time Crash" was released on 10 March 2008 as an extra on the "Voyage of the Damned" DVD release.

• The U.S. premiere of Series 4 (including "Voyage of the Damned") on Sci-Fi did not feature any footage from "Time Crash".

[edit] See also

• Blinovitch Limitation Effect

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "Time Crash" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "Time Crash" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• "Time Crash" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)

v • d • e Doctor Who: Multi-Doctor stories Third Doctor The Three Doctors Fifth Doctor The Five Doctors Sixth Doctor The Two Doctors Tenth Doctor "Time Crash" Audio plays The Sirens of Time • Project:Lazarus • Zagreus Books The Eight Doctors • Cold Fusion • Players • Interference: Book One and Two • Heart of TARDIS • The Colony of Lies • Wolfsbane See also Dimensions in Time • Destiny of the Doctors