TV Review: Doctor Who: The Two Doctors directed by Peter Moffat
One of the fun things you can do in a long-running series about time travel that regularly replaces the main character’s actor is have “crossover” episodes where more than one version of that main character team up. Doctor Who had already done this with “The Four Doctors” and “The Five Doctors” as anniversary specials, but this one came about because Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor) was available and wanted to appear again before he became too old as might happen by the next big anniversary. So this story is less of an extravaganza, and more of a personal story for the Second and Sixth (Colin Baker) Doctors.
The Second Doctor is traveling with his young Scots piper companion James Robert “Jamie” McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) on a mission for the Time Lords. (This makes no bloody sense in continuity for a number of reasons, and there is a fair amount of ancillary material trying to make it fit in.) He visits the research space station where his old friend Dastari is sponsoring time travel experiments. The scientists have managed to send objects through time, but no living beings survive the trip–it’s still causing small time-space anomalies the Time Lords are concerned about.
Dastari scoffs, saying that he is only the facilitator here and has no authority to stop the experiments, and besides, isn’t the Doctor in no position to make demands? The Doctor admits he’s only here unofficially–he’s still an outcast, so the Time Lords can disavow his actions. If they have to get out of their own seats, things might get messy. Dastari abruptly stops responding as he’s been drugged. The Sontarans, a hostile and militaristic group of aliens, are attacking the station! Jamie manages to escape for now, but the Doctor is captured.
The Sixth Doctor is, as usual, arguing with his latest companion, Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown (Nicola Bryant), an American botany student with a thing for clothing that shows off her cleavage. (Dad service!) He is suddenly stricken with a “memory” of being executed in the past that does not match any of his other memories. If someone has interfered with his past timeline, he himself may cease to exist once the repercussions catch up to him in his “present.” Peri suggests seeking medical assistance, and the Doctor decides to visit his old friend Dastari, who is a whiz at genetic manipulation.
Six and Peri arrive on the station several days after the attack, and the corpses are stinking of rotten meat. Station records indicate that the Time Lords were responsible for the carnage, and the security system tries to wipe out the intruders. In the process of getting it turned off, the two run into Jamie, who’s been hiding in the vents, and establish that the “execution” was fake.
In reality, Two has been taken to Earth, near the Spanish city of Seville. (The budget had been moved around to allow one foreign location shoot.) The Sontarans are in cahoots with Dastari, who is infatuated with Chessene, a woman of the Androgum species who he’s artificially given superintelligence. The actual plan is hers; the idea is to find the genetic information that allows Time Lords to survive time travel and implant it in herself so that she can become supreme. Naturally, she plans to betray the Sontarans as soon as they’re no longer useful. The Sontarans in return want the time travel technology for themselves and plan to betray Chessene and Dastari as soon as they’ve got it.
Chessene’s primary supporter is Shockeye, a non-enhanced Androgum who acted as the station chef and is obsessed with eating, particularly meat, and would dearly love to get his hands on a tasty human. He’s not happy that Chessene has seemingly lost the Androgum bottomless appetite, but she assures him that it’s simply been refined by her greater intelligence. (Androgums are not particularly “civilized” but are often used as servants by the more “advanced” species of their space quadrant, so have a higher technological baseline than Earth humans.)
Having arrived on Earth, Six, Peri and Jamie are brought to the correct hacienda by Oscar Botcherby, a moth collector who’s currently working as a restaurant manager in Seville between acting jobs, and Anita, his coworker and sweetheart. The locals are then sent away by Six to protect them, but we’ll be seeing them again later.
Can the Doctors and their companions unravel this knot, or will the Androgum rise to eat the universe?
Good: Having just two Doctors allows time for both of them to shine and explore their different personalities. Troughton has serious comedic chops and gets to go all out when Two is temporarily infected with the Androgum instincts. Jamie and Peri each get moments to shine as well. The Spanish locations are a nice change from the usual British ones.
Less good: The “meat is murder” message is heavy-handed, especially having both the Sixth Doctor and Peri become vegetarians at the end. (The author was himself a vegetarian.) For the Doctor, his vegetarianism stuck until the Ninth Doctor decades later.
This series of Doctor Who was significantly more violent than some of the preceding ones, and this story is a prime example. Not only do most of the non-continuing characters die violently, but the Sixth Doctor straight up kills a man and quips about it.
The Sontarans feel like a bit of an afterthought, slotted in to be familiar enemies for Chessene to ally with so less needed to be explained about how she got to her current status.
Content note: Several horrific deaths, Shockeye keeps trying to eat people, a severed leg is used for comedy. Maybe not for the very young or sensitive viewer.
Weirdness: My older DVD copy came with the unexpurgated version of “A Fix with Sontarans.” This was a skit on the Jim’ll Fix It show, which had popular TV and radio personality Jimmy Savile granting requests by children. The Sixth Doctor and surprise companion Tegan (as Nicola Bryant was…unavailable) team up with an Earth child in Sixth Doctor cosplay to ward off a Sontaran attack. The skit itself is harmless fun if not particularly good.
Unfortunately, after his death in 2011 it was revealed to the public that Mr. Savile had been a sexual predator, largely hushed up during his life. The skit was pulled from subsequent releases, until an edited version that removed Mr. Savile’s part in the opening and closing of the skit was completed.
Overall: An exciting episode that gives Patrick Troughton fun stuff to do. You may want to have seen a couple of the stories from his era first to get a feel for the Second Doctor, and it’s not a good first introduction, but definitely worth watching for Doctor Who fans.
