Dimensions in Time (TV story)

Dimensions in Time was a two-part sketch broadcast in 1993 as a part of that year's Children in Need appeal. A nominal "celebration" of the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who it was largely made because TV movie executive producer Philip Segal stopped production of the BBC's original idea for a 30th anniversary story, The Dark Dimension. Since the BBC had already obtained, at least in principle, agreement from most of the ex-Doctors to do some sort of a 30th anniversary programme, they went ahead with a charity sketch. (DOC: The Seven Year Hitch)

A major narrative feature of the piece was the fact that it was a full crossover between the EastEnders and Doctor Who universes. That is, the characters were narratively implied to be a part of the same universe. As the years have gone by, this odd narrative choice has caused the piece to be viewed with suspicion by both fan groups. Ignored by both Doctor Who and EastEnders writers, Dimensions is a largely irrelevant story. Still, there have been a few prose stories in the DWU which have tried to follow on from Dimensions. Steven Moffat's pre-titles sketch for the 2011 NTAs is the only televised narrative to come close to acknowledging the story, because it implies that Dot Cotton had met the Doctor before.

Dimensions was a milestone production in many ways, It was the first and only time that John Nathan-Turner received a writing credit on a televised story. Despite the fact that its narrative is largely ridiculed, it attracted the biggest audience of anything JNT produced. It was also the final BBC One appearance for most of the Doctor Who characters involved, the first time in Doctor Who history that 3D technology had been used in the recording and broadcast of a television story, and the first time that the televised audience was able to affect the outcome of a Doctor Who story by telephone vote.

Plot
The Rani is assembling a menagerie of sentient life-forms from throughout space and time, hoping to use them to gain control of all individual minds in the Universe. She requires only one more specimen, a human from Earth. Knowing that the Doctor will act to stop her, she creates a temporal trap to ensnare the Doctor in all his incarnations.

The Rani has already captured the First and Second Doctors, and the Fourth Doctor attempts to send a warning to his previous and future incarnations, but is too late.

The renegade Time Lady seizes control of the TARDIS and the Seventh Doctor and Ace, en route to China, find themselves instead materializing in Cutty Sark Gardens in 1973. They then find themselves jumping time tracks between the years 1973, 1993, and 2013, in an area within a few miles of Albert Square in London's East End. The Doctor is also changing back and forth between his Third, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh incarnations, while Ace keeps being replaced by various past companions. Worse, the Rani has released her menagerie, all under her control, to attack the Doctors and their companions.

Cast

 * Seventh Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Sixth Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Fifth Doctor - Peter Davison
 * Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Third Doctor - Jon Pertwee
 * The Rani - Kate O'Mara
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Susan Foreman - Carole Ann Ford
 * Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
 * Romana II - Lalla Ward
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
 * Leela - Louise Jameson
 * Peri - Nicola Bryant
 * Mel - Bonnie Langford
 * Voice of K9 - John Leeson
 * K9 Operator - Matt Irvine
 * Liz Shaw - Caroline John
 * Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
 * Victoria Waterfield - Deborah Watling
 * Gita Kapoor - Shobu Kapoor
 * Grant Mitchell - Ross Kemp
 * Phil Mitchell - Steve McFadden
 * Sharon Watts - Letitia Dean
 * Frank Butcher - Mike Reid
 * Pauline Fowler - Wendy Richard
 * Vanir - John Frank Rosenblum
 * Mandy Salter - Nicola Stapleton
 * Pat Butcher - Pam St. Clement
 * Kathy Beale - Gillian Taylforth
 * Sanjay Kapoor - Deepak Verma
 * Big Ron - Ron Tarr (scenes not shown in televised version)
 * Cyrian - Sam West
 * Ian Beale - Adam Woodyatt
 * Sea Devil - Michael Fillis
 * Ogron - Derek Handley
 * Tractator/Tetrap/Zog/Dragon Operator - Martin Wilkie

Crew

 * Theme Music composed by - Ron Grainer
 * Theme music arranged by - Cybertech
 * Incidental Music - Keff McCulloch
 * Production Manager - Gary Downie
 * Assistant Floor Manager - Jenny Drewett
 * Visual Effects Designer - Mike Tucker
 * Video Effects - Dave Chapman
 * Graphic Designer - Oliver Elmes
 * Costume Designer - Ken Trew
 * Make-Up Designer - Leslie Smith
 * Designer - Derek Evans
 * Producer - John Nathan-Turner
 * Director - Stuart McDonald

Story notes

 * This story was broadcast as a segment of the Children In Need charity telethon, with Part One being introduced by Noel Edmonds and Jon Pertwee (in character as the Doctor), and Part Two being broadcast as part of Edmond's House Party programme.
 * Dimensions in Time featured the final BBC One appearance of every companion and incarnation of the Doctor in its cast, except for K9, Sarah Jane Smith and the Fifth Doctor — all of whom appeared in the BBC Wales version of Doctor Who — and the First and Second Doctors, who had made their final, non-archival appearances prior to Dimensions. The Brigadier made his final BBC One debut in Dimensions, but would have his later Enemy of the Bane performance repeated on BBC One.
 * It featured Tom Baker's first and only onscreen performance as the Doctor since leaving the series. He had turned down a part in the twentieth anniversary story, "The Five Doctors," a decision he later said he regretted. In 1997, he reprised his role for VG: Destiny of the Doctors.
 * Because William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton were both dead (as was Hartnell's Five Doctors replacement Richard Hurndall) by the time this story was produced, the idea was developed to use still images of them, already caught in the Rani's temporal trap. Because the stills could not be made to look three-dimensional, busts of the actor's heads were fashioned and filmed.
 * For scenes set inside the Rani's TARDIS, the Doctor's console from the original series was set inside a TARDIS console room mock-up constructed for a recent fan convention, the original console room for the series had already been destroyed.
 * This story features guest and cameo appearances by various characters from the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders, with the bulk of the story being set in the same neighbourhood as that series. While cross universe stories in which the Doctor meets characters from various other television, film, and literary works have long been a popular motif in fan fiction pieces, this is the first BBC-produced instance of such a motif being employed in a Doctor Who story. Five years after this story was produced, Louise Jameson joined the cast of EastEnders for two years as Rosa Di Marco.
 * There were multiple deleted scenes:
 * The Daleks were to have featured (the segment was shot), but due to disputes with Terry Nation's estate, they were removed.
 * The open was to originally to ferature stock footage from the 60's, but was cut.
 * The ending was originally longer, with the Doctor asking Ace where she would like to go now. She states "...when you set the TARDIS to go to the Great Wall of China we end up Albert Square." "Well, in that case," The Doctor states, "Let's head for Albert Square."
 * Lalla Ward, as Romana II, gets the honour of uttering the obligatory "Doctor who?". She is also the only character seen on her own during the story.
 * This was the only story co-written by longtime series producer John Nathan-Turner and marked his final official involvement with the franchise he joined in the late 1970s.
 * This was the last story to be credited to two writers until the 2009 episode Planet of the Dead.

Ratings

 * Part 1 - 13.8 million
 * Part 2 - 13.6 million

Myths
to be added

Filming locations

 * BBC Elstree
 * Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London
 * The Cutty Sark
 * National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Production errors

 * The Rani is seen in Albert Square at the end of episode one and the start of episode 2 - yet manages to get back to her TARDIS in midair later in episode 2.
 * While Ace, Leela, Romana, Victoria, Mel, Mike and Sarah Jane are seen wearing clothes similar to (or at least suggested by) what they wore in the series, and Liz and Peri are wearing clothes of a type they could have worn, Nyssa is shown wearing a regular earth-style blouse rather than something closer to what she might have worn during her time with the Doctor.

Continuity

 * This story is generally not considered canon, by either EastEnders fans or Doctor Who fans, as the continuity problems posed for both franchises are simply insurmountable. For EastEnders fans, one of the bigger issues is surely that Pauline Fowler is depicted as being alive in 2013, when EastEnders continuity has her dead in 2006.  For Doctor Who fans, EastEnders is firmly shown to be a television programme in Army of Ghosts, and implied to be so in The Impossible Planet and Night Terrors, making it hard to explain Albert Square's existence as a "real" place in Dimensions.
 * NA: First Frontier makes a stab at explaining away Dimensions as a dream of the Seventh Doctor.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after DWY: Rescue (takes place during the Doctor's dream)
 * This story occurs before ST: Storm in a Tikka (takes place during the Doctor's dream)

Public Release

 * This story was produced on condition that it would never be repeated or released on home video. Copies are exchanged between fans on the Internet. To date it is the only made-for-charity Doctor Who instalment to not be released to home video, unlike the earlier The Five Doctors, or the later The Curse of Fatal Death, Children in Need Special, and Time Crash.