Multi - Doctor story In common fan parlance , a multi - Doctor story is one that involves more than one incarnation of the Doctor . Typically , although not necessarily , such tales are reserved for anniversary and / or charity events . The term is " not " usually applied to stories like " The Almost People " which involves a doppelgänger , or " Father ' s Day " , which has multiple instances of a single incarnation . Despite this the " Doctor Who " team published an article in which they listed " Day of the Daleks " as one of their favourite multi - Doctor stories , citing the scene in part one in which the Third Doctor and Jo meet future versions of themselves . They are exceedingly rare on television and audio , but much more common in short stories and comics . Multi - Doctor stories include : < dpl style = " text - align : center " > allowcachedresults = true category = multi - Doctor stories columns = 3 < / dpl > Many aspects of the multi - Doctor story have been explored over - the - years in many different forms . The Multi - Doctor story bases itself in the bending of the Laws of Time , as the Doctor is explicitly disallowed form crossing his own time - stream . A contentious topic for fans ( and for a time , only fans ) was if the characters featured in Multi - Doctor stories would actually be allowed to remember the events of the story afterwards . If , for instance , the Second Doctor did not forget the events of TV : " The Three Doctors " , then it would make little sense for the Third Doctor to not also remember meeting himself . Many fans speculated that this meant that the Time Lord s simply wiped the Second and First Doctors ' memories afterwards . This some somewhat supported by such stories as PROSE : " The Empire of Glass " and PROSE : " Briefly Noted " . Writers at the time , however , were not concerned with this continuity point . Indeed , in the televised story TV : " The Five Doctors " the first , second , and third incarnations of the Doctors consistently speak as if they recall the events of " The Three Doctors " . On one occasion , the Second Doctor directly mentions fighting Omega to the Brigadier , and upon meeting his third incarnation , the First Doctor asks where the " little fellow " is . An early script for the TV : " Dimensions in Time " featured a scene where Jamie McCrimmon would suddenly find himself next to the Sixth Doctor , leading Jamie to recognise him from their encounter in TV : " The Two Doctors " . This scene was cut after Frazer Hines realised that he would not be able to meet the schedule of production . One of the most notable examples of versions of the Doctor remembering the events of the story was in 2007 ' s " Time Crash " , where a central plot point to the Fifth and Tenth Doctor ' s survival in the story is that the Tenth Doctor remembers seeing himself save the day from the point - of - view of the Fifth Doctor . Since these stories , most mainstream and secondary stories have to come to accept the idea that characters lose their memories after the events of Multi - Doctor stories . TV : " The Day of the Doctor " features the realisation that the Tenth Doctor and the War incarnation of the Doctor will both forget the events of the story in due time . COMIC : " Four Doctors " expanded on this , stating that in multi - Doctor events , all but the final incarnation of the Doctor will forget about the story ' s taking place . His companions , however , will remember . Later stories contradicted this , with COMIC : " Lady of the Blue Box " suggesting that Gabby barely remembers the events of " Four Doctors " and COMIC : " The Heralds of Destruction " implying that even the Third Doctor had all - but - forgotten the events of " The Three Doctors " . Like most things in the impossibly large spectrum of " Doctor Who " content , deciding which of these accounts hold true is up to each and every fan to decide .