6.1: The Twin Dilemma

In which it all goes wrong.

Broadcast: March 1984

Watched: January 2021

The Twin Dilemma, Part One

This is more of a relaunch than I’d realised. The sparkling new credits, in which everything glitters. The colour palette feels different. Also, I’d expected it to look cheap, but – aside from the monsters, which, Malus aside, have been crap in every story this season – it looks pretty good.

It’s just that everything about it is wrong. Maybe I’ve spent too much time on the internet these last few years, but now I can’t help but see the way the Doctor talks to Peri here as an abusive relationship, in the most literal sense. She’s uncertain about the new guy, because he’s an arrogant blowhard prick, but she’s giving it a go, and just as she’s visibly warming up, he literally attacks her. Somehow it’s made all the worse by the fact he’s dressed like a clown. Then she’s too scared to tell him what he’s done, and when he goes into his cycle of self-loathing and bangs on about atonement, it’s an atonement that will somehow require her to suffer more than him.

It’s *horrible*, and I don’t think anyone involved in making it considered for a moment how any of this might read.

Meanwhile, in the A-plot, it’s an everyday story of children being kidnapped from their own home. The fact the children are a bit weird and Midwych Cuckoo-y doesn’t make that any less horrible either.

Then we get the first of many cliffhangers in which we crash zoom on Colin’s face. I’m not sure I even care if Kevin McNally shoots the Doctor.

The Twin Dilemma, Part Two

“It worked! It actually worked!” The fact the Doctor sent Peri through a rigged-up transmat he wasn’t sure would work is not, unlike the strangling, something people tend to comment on, but it might be the most upsetting thing yet. God, the new Doctor is creepy. He’s so moody and changeable that Peri is driving the plot for much of this. The bit where he cowers behind her is just humiliating. Deep Breath feels more and more like an attempt to show you can do this story, but you need to think about it a hell of a lot harder.

The fact the frozen image of the Doctor in the credits starts smirking two seconds in doesn’t help.

Maybe if you swapped Colin with McNally this would work? Have the scary new Doctor be sort of lean and hungry, someone who contrasts with Davison through manner and class?

Anyway. It continues to not be the production disaster I’d expected. The twins can’t act, and it’s odd how one of their voices has broken and the other hasn’t. Not as odd as the gratuitous Hugo Lang fashion show.

“My old friend, the master of Jaconda” – for a moment I thought this was a clever tip off that the Doctor is actually talking sense for once, but maybe I’m giving it too much credit.

I seem to remember the novelisation of this being surprisingly good – lots of backstory and jokes.

The cliffhanger of Peri’s screaming grief is horrifying in the wrong way.

There are 86 episode-length chunks to go. [The fact this is when I started counting down the number of episodes left to watch before I finished the old series feels oddly telling.]

The Twin Dilemma, Part Three

“You cared?” “Of course I did.” See? Abusive relationship.

Anyway. Despite being objectively worse I’m finding this easier viewing than Planet of Fire. Stuff is happening. The peril that comes from the Doctor’s instability goes some way to making up for the failure to articulate what’s at stake in the other plot until half way through part three.

But... what are the twins’ terrifying powers? Why is there no thematic resonance between the regeneration plot and the Jaconda one?

And post-regeneration trauma my arse, the Doctor should never have to be bullied into doing something heroic by his companion and a guest star. Come to that: the guest star should not have to tell the regulars to stop bickering.

It’s not completely hopeless. Even though it’s objectively awful, I’m finding it more watchable than a lot of the Williams ea. And it has some good moments. “Lootenant”/“LEF-TENANT.” The communication of the backstory through the Doctor offering a tour of some hieroglyphics is quite cool. The scene between Azmael and Nestor, in which they discuss freedom of thought and treason, has some potential.

Oh god the Doctor just tried to murder an old man. FFS. “I think you’d better tell me what’s going on here” WHY THE F*CK WOULD THEY?

Another crash zoom. Again, there’s almost potential – the Doctor is forced to choose between his companion, and an entire planet of strangers; that even clicks thematically with the abuse shit – but that’s hidden behind Colin’s leering face.

The Twin Dilemma, Part Four

“I would suggest, Peri, that you wait a little before criticising my new persona. You may well find it isn’t quite as disagreeable as you think. I am the Doctor whether you like it or not.” WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU END THE SEASON HERE? Eat shit, viewers. We’ll be back in ten months. Also, f*ck you.

This should be the episode where things return to normality. The Doctor is stable, he’s solving a Doctor Who problem. It’s kind of interesting that it’s a threat to his companion, and then to the universe, that brings this on... but 

a) they make nothing of that, it’s all stuff I’m reading in;

b) there’s no consequence to his violent behaviour in part one;

 c) I’m not sure it was wise to make us wait three episodes.

The bit where he throws the poison at the throne is clearly meant as a contrast to Davison in Resurrection. There are hints of a plan here, they just can’t bring it off.

The bit where they realise Drak is dead, and the Doctor hisses “Mestor!” is a very good example of Colin being miscast. He just can’t sell it. His grief for Azmael is better – perhaps his best moment in the story. Not sure it’s enough.

For the second, or if you count Howard the *third*, story running, someone wants to keep Peri around after when she wants to go because she looks “pleasing”. This is becoming a problem. Despite the cliches, Leela’s outfit etc, it’s very rare for the subtextual role of the companion as eye candy to become text. With Peri, bad guys are literally just saying it out loud. (Also, for a science undergrad, Peri seems quite shit at physics.) Also for the second story this season: the villain is an invertebrate with a tractor beam.

An under-discussed problem with this story is that a large chunk of the guest cast are wearing blackface.

Oh god the bit where Colin lounges louchely around in a come hither fashion oh god.

Weird how they set up a whole interplanetary police force set in part one and then just... never use it again.

“Listen” – laser noises – “they’ve already started mopping up” feels like it should be a joke but strangely isn’t played as such.

84 to go.