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THE TWO DOCTORS: THE PLOT
3 episodes. Approx. 133 minutes. Written by: Robert Holmes. Directed
by: Peter Moffatt. Produced by: John Nathan Turner.
THE PLOT
The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companion, Jamie (Frazer
Hines), are on a mission for the Time Lords. It's a simple diplomatic
affair. The Doctor is to meet with station head Dastari (Laurence
Payne) to ask him to suspend some time experiments - something which
doesn't please Dastari one bit. The negotiations are already going
badly when the station suddenly comes under attack by Sontarans.
Feeling ripples of the attack on his earlier, the Sixth Doctor decides
to visit the station. He and Peri arrive to discover the effects of
the massacre. Everyone is dead - save for Jamie, who escaped into the
station infrastructure. They learn that the Second Doctor was
kidnapped by Dastari, and follow the trail to modern-day Spain, just
outside Seville. That is when they discover the real architect of this
plot: Chessene (Jacqueline Pearce), an Androgum - a race driven
entirely by their drive for sensual pleasures. Chessene has been
genetically engineered to genius level, and is now manipulating
Dastari, the Sontarans, and her fellow Androgum, Shockeye (John
Stratton) in an attempt to gain power over the whole of creation!
CHARACTERS
The Sixth Doctor: This script is a particularly good match for Colin
Baker, with Robert Holmes' florid dialogue a perfect fit for the
actor's theatrical tendencies. The Doctor's speech about the stench of
decay and death when arriving at the space station is a wonderful
marriage of language and performance. There's what seems to be a ham-
fisted moment in Episode Two, in which the Doctor imparts exposition
to Jamie just in time to overheard by Field Marshall Stike... which
Episode Three then reveals was deliberate on the Doctor's part; he
noticed Stike's approach, and so he decided to say what he did to push
the Sontaran into action. Therefore, Holmes' script tailors this most theatrical of Doctors to actually give a performance for the benefit
of his enemy.
The Second Doctor: The last of Patrick Troughton's three returns to
the series and, in my opinion, the best. In the multi-Doctor
anniversary specials during the Pertwee and Davison eras, Troughton
was fun to watch and certainly gave his scenes a boost with his
energy. But when I watch The Three Doctors or The Five Doctors, I can
never escape the sense that Troughton is playing a caricature,
essentially a send-up of what people remember his Doctor being like.
He was rarely as purely comical as the character we saw in those
specials. The script to The Two Doctors does seem to have mixed up
Doctors Two and Three a bit (the Second Doctor working for the Time
Lords, for instance), but it is the only of Troughton's returns that
allows him to play both his Doctor's comical and serious sides.
Peri: The Sixth Doctor/Peri partnership has settled in nicely by this
time. The two bicker, but it seems clear to me while watching that the
two characters are genuinely fond of each other. Even in the midst of
arguing on the space station, the Doctor pauses to lay a comforting
hand on Peri's shoulder, for example. Peri also shows a basic, person- to-person compassion both Doctors lack. After Oscar's murder, the two
Doctors bundle out of the restaurant and start arguing about which way
they should go. Peri lingers a moment to comfort Anita, then angrily
quiets them.
Jamie: This story was made almost two decades after Frazer Hines' time
as a regular, and the years definitely show. Still, Hines' performance
is a good one. He and Troughton recapture their chemistry instantly,
and the interplay between the Second Doctor and Jamie in the opening
sequence is a joy to watch. He also plays well opposite Colin Baker,
to the point that I think it's actually a shame Jamie doesn't stick
around with the Sixth Doctor and Peri at the end of the story - The
dynamic works among the three characters, and the way in which Jamie
casually pokes at the Doctor's ego when he falls down a rickety ladder
is a wonderfully relaxed counterpoint to the more strident Doctor/Peri bickering.
Shockeye: Of the many pleasures I find in this story, John Stratton's
Shockeye is the greatest. Shockeye, the Androgum chef, may be the
series' single greatest example of Douglas Adams' description of the
perfect Doctor Who villain: He's initially hilarious because of the
ridiculous things he says, then monstrous as you come to realize that
he means every word he says. His desire to eat a human begins as a
whim, then builds to an all-encompassing obsession. For the first two
episodes, his antics are largely comical, albeit darkly. Then he turns frightening. The effective Episode Two cliffhanger sees him looming
over Peri, hands outstretched, intoning, "Pretty, pretty," in eager anticipation of his next meal. His murder of Oscar in Episode Three is
casual violence, an act committed without thought and probably
forgotten by him within minutes. He becomes progressively more violent
from there, until he is finally chasing a wounded Sixth Doctor through
the fields, determined to kill him and probably eat him when he's
done.
THOUGHTS
The Two Doctors is an often criticized story, and not without reason.
The 45-minute format of Season 22 required this story to be a 3-
parter, which is at least half an episode too long. This results in
some pacing issues, and some general structural messiness.
The worst of the padding is in the slow-paced opening episode, which
sees far too much time devoted to the Sixth Doctor and Peri evading
the space station's automated defenses while picking their way through
the station infrastructure. These scenes really aren't bad. But given
that this material is only peripherally related to the main action,
it's ridiculous that the characters are still there for a good chunk
of Episode Two. Peter Moffatt's direction is too stagy to make up for
the lagging pace with atmosphere, and the Episode One cliffhanger is
one of the limpest of the entire series.
Add in an irritating guest character (James Saxon's imbecilic Oscar
Botcheby). Then mix in some structural issues, many of them the result
of the producer-imposed presence of the Sontarans in a story that
simply doesn't require them. It becomes easy to see why The Two
Doctors comes in for criticism.
So why do I enjoy it so much?
I do enjoy this story a lot. It is unquestionably my favorite
televised Sixth Doctor adventure, as well as my favorite multi-Doctor
story. And while the cast certainly deserve a share of the credit for
that, the main reasons I enjoy it come back to the same source as the
flaws: Robert Holmes' script.
OF POETRY AND PROSE
Robert Holmes has always been a writer who has enjoyed painting
pictures with words. This is one reason, I think, why his scripts tend
to stand out in classic Who. The show rarely had much money for visual
splendor - but at his best, Holmes had a knack for creating that same
feel with language.
The Two Doctors may be structurally flawed, but the language of its
script is rich and resonant. Holmes stuffs his characters' mouths with
words that evoke so much. Take the Sixth Doctor's musing about the
scent of decay:
"That is the smell of death, Peri. Ancient musk, heavy in the air.
Fruit-soft flesh peeling from white bones. The unholy, unburiable
smell of Armageddon. Nothing quite so evocative as one's sense of
smell, is there?"
Then there are Shockeye's many asides about the flavor and preparation
of meat. Or the Second Doctor, in Androgum mode, describing for
Shockeye the benefits of enjoying an appetizer before diving into the
main course:
"One should begin with a light dish, something to bring relish to the
appetite: Pate de foie gras de Strasbourg en croute, for instance, or
a serving of Belon oysters. Even a light salad with artichoke hearts
and country ham will suffice. It gets the digestive juices flowing!"
Only during Oscar's "definitive Hamlet" speech does the flowery
language fall flat. Most of the poetic lines go to Colin Baker,
Patrick Troughton, or John Stratton. And when these actors are
embracing Robert Holmes at his most vivid, the plot ceases to matter -
The language itself soars, creating something that's a genuine
pleasure just to sit back and listen to.
THE OPENING SEQUENCE
Nor is all the plotting as bad as I've made out. I've already
mentioned the structural flaws, most of them caused by overlength. So
now let me praise the serial's opening scenes, whose structural
tightness shows that Holmes still had all his storytelling instincts
fully intact.
The script tidily sets the pieces on the board all within this
sequence. The characters - Dastari, Shockeye, Chessene, and the
Sontarans. Shockeye's overriding desire to eat human flesh, Jamie's in particular. The time experiments. Dastari's enhancing of Chessene, and Chessene's relationship with Shockeye. Virtually every piece of what
follows is either seen or mentioned in these opening scenes, which
also manage to find time for some amusing Troughton/Hines interplay.
THEME
A final word for the way the script plays with theme. Thematic
resonance isn't something you find much of in classic Who, but Holmes'
script is stuffed with it. It's fairly well-known that Holmes, a
vegetarian, wanted to color his script as anti-meat, hence scenes such
as Shockeye detailing the treatment of animals bred for slaughter or "tenderizing" a screaming Jamie while telling Dastari that primitive
humans "don't feel pain the same way you or I do."
But, intentionally or not, the various characters are bound together
by a theme of obsession. Every one of the villains is driven by an
obsession. Dastari is obsessed with Chessene, and so has enhanced her
to a genius intellect in order to "set her among the gods!" Chessene
is obsessed with power, with making the Androgums the dominant species
in the galaxy. Field Marshall Stike is obsessed with turning the tide
of the Sontarans' war agains the Rutans by using time travel
technology. Their obsessions bind them together to destroy the space
station, to blame that on the Time Lords, and to kidnap the Doctor.
But as their agendas start to conflict, the obsessive focus each
places on his or her own goals leads to conflict and ultimately
betrayal.
By contrast with the others, Shockeye's obsession with the purely
sensual (specifically with eating, though it's clear that the sexual
overtones in his menacing of both Peri and Jamie are not accidental)
seems almost pure and simple. Which doesn't make it any less brutal.
Even as the Sontarans literally self-destruct, even as Chessene turns
on Dastari, Shockeye remains intent on sating his appetite for flesh.
In this, he has other mirrors in the story: The Doctor's flirtation
with fishing, Oscar's obsession with his moths which he kills in order
to preserve and admire. Shockeye takes their actions to a new and
horrifying level - one which puts the Doctor straight off meat at the
story's end, as he agrees with Peri to embrace a "vegetarian diet for
both of us."
OVERALL
This is one of those stories, much like Logopolis, where I'm very torn
as to my final rating. As with that story, there are clear narrative
flaws that keep this from being a "10," much as I might like it to be.
The story is clearly overlong and is structurally sloppy. But it's so entertaining as it alternates from comedy to horror to horror that is
blackly comedic. Holmes' script is among his most purely literate, and
his language often soars above the messy plot and pedestrian
direction.
My head says "7," my heart says "10." So I'm going to split the
difference and add in a bonus point for the masterfully grotesque
Shockeye.
Rating: 9/10.
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