In the episode *Blink *the Tenth Doctor is stranded for a while in London in the 1960’s. This means that he almost certainly overlaps with the Second or Third Doctor during their adventures.
What is the largest number of Doctors who have been on Earth simultaneously? Let’s rule out multi-Doctor episodes like The Five Doctors or The Three Doctors – that’s too easy. I’m talking about overlapping timelines in completely unrelated storylines.
The Third and Fifth overlapped in Time-Flight. The Fifth Doctor asked airport security to contact Unit for his credentials.
First and Seventh were both together in Remembrance of the Daleks. There was a third if you count the TV show.
I thought that (ordinarily) the TARDIS couldn’t coexist with itself, so it simply couldn’t land in a time period it already existed in.
But that doesn’t mean the 3rd Doctor was still there working with UNIT. He just wanted them to vouch for him. The Doctor had regenerated and left UNIT by at least 1977 (going by the dating in Mawdryn Undead) and certainly by 1980 (if you go by Pyramids Of Mars), and Time-Flight is set in at least 1981.
The 7th Doctor arrived soon after the 1st Doctor had left.
Professor X is NOT CANON!!1!! [/outraged fanboy]
Great question. I’m really stumped! 1969 is looking good - the Doctor and Martha say they have been stuck there for several months, it’s implied around the time of the moon landing, so it’s likely they overlapped with the 11th Doctor, Amy, Rory and River when they spent several months chasing Silents all over America, also around the time of the moon landing.
If they overlapped with one of the 2nd Doctor’s adventures on Earth, we are looking good for 3 Doctors. Surely we can do better than that!
Has the Doctor ever mentioned going to Woodstock?
Good questilon. While it probably isn’t the record for multiple Doctors, I’d say a strong contender for number of Who stories must be 20 July, 1966.
On that date, the first Doctor was wrappnig up the affair of “The War Games” and accidentally took off in the TARDIS with Polly & Ben.
That very same day, (roughly a year later by Polly & Ben’s reckonings), the 2nd Doctor, Polly & Ben (now with Jamie in tow) returned to Earth and dealt with “The Faceless Ones.” Having returned to their starting point, Polly & Ben chose to remain behind.
The Doctor & Jamie returned to where they’d left the TARDIS - only to discover some shifty fellows stealing the TARDIS. Following the TARDIS led them to be involved in “The Evil of the Daleks.”
By coincidence, at the start of “The War Games”, the Doctor remarked to his then-companion Dodo that he sensed an evil presence that reminded him of the Daleks. This cryptic remark was written in because Terry Nation was by then threatening to take the Daleks away from “Who” and launch his own show. The producers were hoping that the War Machines could become a replacement “big bad / heavy” for the serial to milk. (They couldn’t.) One year and many production head-changes later, and the storyline reveals that the Daleks actually WERE working covertly in London on that date!
I was referring to the Doctor who was just about to appear on the telly.
If you’re willing to go beyond the TV series, the first three Doctors were aboard the Mary Celeste when it was abandoned (only the First Doctor on TV, though).
Is that Canon then*? In season 3 of new Who, the Master stole the tardis from the end of time, and went back to contemporary earth to become a politician. The Doctor didn’t find out until he became prime minister, despite there being several references to John Saxon the politician in earlier stories
Of course, the Master was messing about with the tardis a fair bit at the time, so timey-wimey etc…
In the original concept, the TARDIS could not return to a point where it had already been (it’s a major plot point of “The Chase”) and, of course, can’t control where it’s going.
As time went by, that got changed. In “City of Death,” the Doctor takes a short jaunt from modern Paris, to Renaissance Italy and back.
It think canon now (from “The Doctor’s Wife”) is that the TARDIS can decide to go where he’s needed, even if it’s no where he wants to go.
Actually, that was “The War Machines.” “The War Games” was the last story of the Second Doctor.