6.5: The Two Doctors

In which, no really, they should have had tone meetings, and also maybe found a way of getting the two Doctors into the same bloody scene.

Broadcast: February-March 1985

Watched: January 2021

The Two Doctors, Part One

I am a season 6b truther now – the Doctor looks old, Jamie knows about Time Lords, this doesn’t fit otherwise. [Fan theory, later introduced in various books and audios etc, that there’s a gap between the second and third Doctor eras in which the former is sent on missions for the Time Lords.]

Anyway. This has everything you need for a great Doctor Who story but fails to make one. The set up, of the Time Lords using the Doctor on missions to block time travel science, is cool. Starting with the 2nd Doctor in black and white is a nice touch (though why the reference to Victoria I’ve no idea... oh wait Fury leads directly into Wheel doesn’t it that does fit never mind). There’s some great design work and a nice guest cast. The sequence in the abandoned space station – especially the bit where the computer suddenly announces, “It threatened the time lords” – is genuinely creepy.

But it feels like you could have more fun with that, and the episode somehow doesn’t exploit what it’s got. The sudden appearance of a single, grumpy Sontaran feels like it typifies the problem – we don’t get an army, we get one bloke who doesn’t want to be there. And the two Doctors never meet.

The 2nd Doctor’s racism about Androgums feels a bit off, too. And both the random Peri bikini shot, and the attack on a blind old woman, are both utterly gratuitous.

Worst of all: the two Doctors never meet.

Oh well. Nice to see Jacqueline Pearce. The guy playing Oscar is 30 fuuuuck. The cliffhanger of the Doctor passing out and hanging from the set like an idiot is quite funny.

Not bad, but about 2% as good as it should be.

The Two Doctors, Part Two

Just realised that the halfway point of Colin is after The Two Doctors. I’m nearly halfway through Colin. Bloody hell. Anyway:

“Tea time already, nurse?” I wonder if this inspired Strax. The speech about the loneliness of command sounds a lot like the documentary filmmaker from H2G2.

Anyway, this continues to frustrate. It’s one of those that must have looked great on paper – the second Doctor and Jamie! Sontarans trying to hack time travel! A foreign location shoot! – but just doesn’t quite cohere. The first ten minutes are the Doctor and Peri finding out stuff we already know, veeeeeeeeery slowly.

There’s a good bit where the Doctor stumbles on an illusion of Peri/Dastari/the Doctor being killed, and I like that he can work out to go to Seville based on the sound of a bell (I was going to ask when, but... they don’t have time travel, that’s kind of the point, so “now”). And “a very few centuries”, followed by Colin mourning the universe, is pretty good.

But the Sontarans aren’t threatening. Troughton is underused. It’s all very gentle. This should have been a ***BIG STORY*** with a gradual increase in intensity. Instead it feels like the extra run-time is just used to do things slower. It’s quite Chibnall.

The casual way Shockeye mentions having eaten the old woman, tell not show, feels like it typifies the problem. Though I like his genuine surprise that humans don’t eat each other.

I’m confused by Dastari’s role – at the start the plot seemed to be against him, now he’s in on it. Did I miss something?

Other things. “So that’s how you control the TARDIS! Symbiosis!” How on Earth did you work that out, Peri? Anita repeatedly flirting with Oscar, who doesn’t seem to notice, is kind of aggravating because my god man get in there.

The thought occurs that the kid audience were probably excited to see the guy from The Box of Delights as the Doctor.

Anyway, my main takeaway is annoyance that they’re pissing away a lot of potential because there’s no drive to anything – which, given Holmes’ last effort [The Caves of Androzani] is all drive, is a bit weird. It needs a script editor and possibly a writer who isn’t already dying and hasn’t realised it.

The Two Doctors, Part Three

“Snap.” Grotesque and weirdly tonally uncertain. Seems to be deliberately playing a lot of sick stuff for laughs except not always?

What is this story trying to say? Okay, eating meat and telling ourselves animals can’t feel it is inconsistent and hard to justify. Got that. But... Sontarans trying to become Time Lords. An androgum becoming human. A Time Lord becoming an androgum, all the while yelling racist comments about androgum nature. Also – all the villains betray all the other villains. It feels like there *should* be a theme but I can’t work out what it is. 

I am slightly concerned it might be a bit racist though.

Androgum Troughton is upsetting more than scary. Colin trying to eat a cat would be more of a pointer to his changing nature if he wasn’t a dick to start with. Troughton also says that some humans practice cannibalism. Again, I think Holmes might be a bit racist.

Shockeye murdering Oscar is genuinely horrible. He’s a comedy sidekick, this is a weird twist.

And then Colin deals with Shockeye with Oscar’s butterfly killing equipment! Again... it feels like this should be saying something but it's not quite there? Also did the Doctor just kill someone in cold blood?

“Pretty, pretty.” Even when Shockeye is sizing Peri up as a possible meal he perves on her. This never happened to Leela. The scene where he’s literally seconds away from slicing into her neck is horrible.

Oh, and then the 2nd Doctor gets better all by himself, thank god for a moment there I worried that someone might need to actually do something.

The bit where Chessene lies down and starts licking the Doctor’s blood is extremely odd. For a moment I thought she was dying. It’s played weirdly sensually and I can’t work out why.

Seville looks nice, though.

Anyway: a completely wasted opportunity. They had the best writer on the roster and a great guest cast and they gave us this.