Hogan Reviews

Well, this is going to be a short review! “Time Crash” is barely a five minute sketch from Children in Need where the Fifth Doctor ends up on board the Tenth Doctor’s TARDIS. The thing is doing the multi-Doctor Marathon means I can’t ignore it but I can’t slot it in another review either, so… Get ready for a very brief read! (but a very fun sketch, to be fair!)

As mentioned The Doctor (David Tennant) is in his console room and realises he has the TARDIS shields still down and just like that the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) appears. Apparently their two TARDISes have merged due to his older self having the shields down and the resulting explosion could rip a hole in the universe “the exact size of Belgium”. While the Fifth Doctor panics his older self is both loving looking at his younger incarnation and trying to get him to understand the situation, but Doc #5 just assumes he’s a “fan” who somehow got on board his TARDIS and “changed the desktop theme to ‘choral’.”

The Doctor touches his own face.

Their banter is great, and I love the unnecessary mentioning of the Fifth Doctor looking older and how its apparently due to the “time differential” between the two having a knock on effect. Generally, it’s just good fun… for five minutes. Still, I’ll keep the end for the Spoiler section, why not? The “Spoiler Section” picture will make the review seem bigger!

The Continuity:

Beyond being set directly before “Voyage of the Damned” and a few jokey references to old Fifth Doctor companions and foes there isn’t really anything. Given its short length that shouldn’t be a surprise though…

Overall Thoughts:

The Doctor gets yelled at by his own face…?

It almost feels like I shouldn’t really be giving this a rating given it’s a short sketch for Children in Need, but given I’ll be giving it a high score, why not? I mean, judging it purely for what it is you can’t fault it. It’s a fun albeit brief bit of banter between two Doctors from two different eras, you can’t go wrong with that!

As the Fifth Doctor panics his future self kicks into full gear and flicks a bunch of levers and presses some buttons and everything is sorted. His younger self wonders how before realising he knew what to do because he remembered being him and watching him do it, a rare case of a younger Doctor remembering events of a multi-Doctor story. The Tenth Doctor goes a bit fourth-wall-breaky and mentions how the Fifth Doctor was “his Doctor” and how after his earlier selves were “grumpy and serious like you are when you’re young trying to sound old” (which is a pretty good description of Doctors 1 and 3 but doesn’t fit 2 and 4 at all!) he was the cool one who enjoyed the ride. He then shows him how much of his own mannerisms were based around him, so yeah… very David Tennant talking to his childhood hero rather than two Doctors talking, but hey-ho.

The Doctor bits farewell to his own face!

The Doctors part on a pleasant goodbye before the Fifth warns his older self to not forget to put the TARDIS shields back up, but it’s too late which leads into the space Titanic crashing into the console room leading into that year’s Christmas special.