Doctor Who Club of Australia

[ADAMK]

What do people make of this (Season 22) 1985 story written by Robert Holmes?

This is the analysis from the official BBC website (WARNING! SPOILERS): http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/twodoctors/analysis.shtml

[The Master_BeyondTheGrave]

killa!

[SharazJek]

I can't say this is excellent, due to the story having some very signficant flaws. Unusual for a Holmes script.

But I can go for very good, because Colin's got his coat off for most of it, and PT is in it. He and Fraser had lost little if none of the synergy they had in the 60's.

[meglos]

I Like It

[Dazza]

This is one of the better stories from this season. It probably would've been better as a four-parter.

Poor old Colin is totally upstaged by Patrick Troughton. The Black & White opening is a nice touch.

[Theta Sigma]

[Theta Sigma]

Part 3:
When the Sixth Doctor asked Peri if she ever been to Seville, she responded, "No. Have you?" Duh, he just told her that where his earlier self has been held captive, of course he's been Seville before.
Love the Sixth Doctor's use of personal pronouns when he talked about what could happen to his earlier self.
It's quite fun that Oscar would think the Sixth Doctor is a police officer just by coming out of the Police Box.
Part 3 ends with a shot of Oscar, Anita and the Sixth Doctor with Anita saying she knows the way to go to the hacienda. I found this ending to be quite unexpected.

Part 4:
Why would Peri say that she doesn't speak Spanish? It had been established in the 1976 serial The Masque of Mandragora that the TARDIS occupants can communicate with anyone outside of the TARDIS no matter what language they are speaking due to her telepathic circuits. The Masque of Mandragora was a serial that Robert Holmes script edited himself. Therefore (just guessing here) he would have been the one to have inserted that line about the TARDIS instead of that serial's writer Louis Marks.
When Peri asked Chessene how many bedrooms the hacienda has, she replied "Seven." I had speculated that it may have been an in-joke to Jackie's association with Blake's 7 but people have said that it was just a coincidence.

Immediately after the original airing of the second episode (45 min) of The Two Doctors, BBC1 showed the children's programme Jim'll Fix It that saw young fan Gareth Jenkins getting his wish to appear alongside the Colin Baker's Doctor in the TARDIS. Also appearing was Janet Fielding making a brief return as Tegan (Nicola Bryant was on holiday at that time). Clinton Greyn and Tim Raynham who were the Sontarans, Stike and Varl respectively in The Two Doctors, wore their Sontaran costumes again for this "episode".

Presumably this is the same Gareth Jenkins who has been doing work on the Big Finish audios.

For the benefit of new viewers, this edition of Jim'll Fix It is included as an extra in The Two Doctors DVD release.

[Greg]

[Wester]

i am really enjoying this story. I think its gets better every time i see it.

[The Master_BeyondTheGrave]

[Greg]

[Amano07]

...its funny though about colins doctor and JNT fashion sense.
i have seen some photos of JNT with some shocking coloured shirts on!!..i wasnt aware he was gay until he died... the only thing i didnt like about him really is that he got rid of the sonic screwdriver...i miss that ..

[charlie]

I didn't realise how addicted I was to those cliffhanger endings. There doesn't seem to be that many with the Sixth Doctor.

I am glad that they didn't stick to the strict 4 part structure, I liked it more when the first couple of Doctors spent 5-7 episodes on a story.

Not having his coat on makes it so much more enjoyable that I am voting for Very good

Pat played a very good Androgum I thought.

[SharazJek]

[Beatly]

I just watched this one on DVD t'other day, and it's a great deal better than I remembered it to be. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's great. Patrick Troughton really was a wonderful actor. It's no big secret that the 6th Doctor is my favourite, but that's usually based on his character and the potential, rather than the stories; this story gets a definite thumbs-up now that I've seen it again. Just hope the BBC and 2|entertain get round to releasing more C.Baker stuff. That statement might not make me too popular...

And if it takes gayness to bring a colourful exuberance to Doctor Who, then long may it last!

[SharazJek]

Yes please. More Colin Baker on DVD!!!

[Theta Sigma]

Part 5:
Seville is so stunning that it led me to decide to do a course about Spanish history at uni in the first half of last year. When asked in class why I am doing this course I mentioned seeing Seville but did not mentioned that it was from the Two Doctors.
The Sixth Doctor's explanation on why two of him can be at the same point in time and space was so inadequate that Colin had to state clearly on the DVD commentary that he did not write that line.
Part 5 ends with The Sixth Doctor saying that he is alright after having a drink of water at a fountain.

Part 6:
The last half of the previous episode and the first half of this episode has the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Jamie and Chessene and Dastari chasing after the Second Doctor and Sockeye (I am not calling him Shockeye) in Seville that by the time the former party finds them, Sockeye had just killed Oscar. Not impressed with this at all.
Script Editor Eric Saward could not provide a good explanation for Oscar's death when asked about that in the concluding part of his interview with DWM published in issue 348. He says simply there "were ten thousand brilliant reasons for it at the time."
The Doctor's rival on ITV during season 22 was The A-Team and Oscar's unnecessary death alone is reason enough to watch The A-Team over the Two Doctors.

Years ago when I first saw the story, the first thought I picked up which no one else has when Chessene touches the Sixth Doctor's blood is not that of her reverting to her barbaric ways. No what I was thinking is that by touching the blood she finally knows who the Sixth Doctor really is, that was why she ordered Dastari to kill the Second Doctor, so that the Sixth will be dead as well.
Jackie Pearce was not the only Blake's 7 star to appear in Doctor Who during season 22 as Paul Darrow will appear in the next story Timelash.
Quite obvious why the Sixth Doctor would not have a remote control for the TARDIS for the same reason why Producer John Nathan-Turner got rid of K-9 and the sonic screwdriver. A remote control would have provided an easy escape.
The Sixth Doctor says he is going on a vegetarian diet but that is clearly no longer the case by the time he becomes the Ninth as he ordered a steak in the 2005 episode Boom Town.
During the closing credits, Robyn Williams in the voiceover mentioned that he was once in Doctor Who but not that one as he tells viewers about his show on Radio National.

The Two Doctors dealts with no.6 and no. 2 together. In an amazing coincidence, The Prisoner also had a Number 6 dealing with a Number 2 in each episode of that series.

Unlike The Three Doctors & The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors was not made to celebrate a special anniversary. However the novelisation of it was the 100th to be published by Target.
Unlike those two stories, The Two Doctors was really true to its name.

In the DWCA survey a few years ago, The Two Doctors was voted by DWCA members to be the best Sixth Doctor story. This presents a damning indictment to the quality of the Colin Baker era. Of all the stories to be chosen it just happens to be the one that Colin shares the limelight with one of his predecessors. This brings into question about whether it got chosen because they were really liked Colin in this story or they were just glad to see Pat back as they were not impressed with Colin.

Whatever the reason for voting for it, bringing Pat back at this point in Colin's tenure was a mistake. This was Colin's fifth formal adventure therefore he was still relatively new to the job. This was a time when Colin should have firmly established himself with the audience but by bringing back a past Doctor it undermines the audience's confidence in him. This was a time that Colin should have proved that he can stand on his own. Therefore Russell T Davies did absolutely the right thing by resisting the temptation to have former Doctors (with Tom and Colin being the ones strongly mooted) to appear in the first season of the new series. The one advantage the 2005 season has over season 22 is that it looked completely fresh and relied on the past as little as possible.

The one person who really hated The Two Doctors was Robert Holmes himeslf as Eric Saward recounts in the aforementioned DWM interview:
"Robert Holmes, the writer was apprehensive. "Bob came in to be briefed on the serial," Eric recollects, "and I asked him how he felt about it. Now, Bob rarely swore and he said, "This is a pile of
s--t. Why are we doing this? I said, "Thanks Bob, I've been saying that for a year-and-a-half and no one has been listening! They all think I'm mad.' Bob said that there no point to it. I agreed with him. I said, 'Look, do you want to do it?' He asked who else I'd offer it to if he said no. "Any number of people,' I said, but I really wanted him to do it. 'Well, I'll do it,' Bob said......It's quite clear that The Two Doctors had run out of steam by the middle of Part Three [Parts 5 and 6 in the 25 minute format]. I don't think Bob's heart was in the script, and that shows."
Since Bob Holmes himself did not like it why the hell should we.

When I first saw this story years ago, I thought it was charming but had no idea how wrong I was when I saw it on DVD. It wasn't help with the bland DVD notes which spent much of the time mentioning practical jokes that were made while the serial was recorded. It was obviously one of those "you had to be there" moments to fully appreciate it because it was not amusing reading about it on screen.

My distaste for The Two Doctors was increased when after finishing the DVD, the next DVD of the classic series I bought was the Sylvester McCoy story Curse of Fenric. Curse of Fenric is fantastic. It is 100 no 1000 times better than The Two Doctors.

[The Master_BeyondTheGrave]

[The Master_BeyondTheGrave]

[Theta Sigma]