The Two Doctors

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140 [1] –The Two Doctors
Doctor Who serial
Cast
Others
Production
Directed by Peter Moffatt
Written by Robert Holmes
Script editor Eric Saward
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Music by Peter Howell
Production code6W
Series Season 22
Running time3 episodes, 45 minutes each
First broadcast16 February 1985 (1985-02-16)
Last broadcast2 March 1985 (1985-03-02)
Chronology
← Preceded by
The Mark of the Rani 		Followed by →
Timelash
List of episodes (1963–1989)

The Two Doctors is the fourth serial of the 22nd season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who , which was first broadcast in three weekly parts on BBC1 from 16 February to 2 March 1985.

Contents

The serial is set on an alien space station and in and around Seville. In the serial, the alien time traveller the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), his former travelling companion Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines) and his current companion Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant) work to save the younger Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) from the biogeneticist Dastari (Laurence Payne), who intends to steal the knowledge of how to travel in time from the Second Doctor's genetic make-up.

This serial marks Troughton's final appearance as the Second Doctor before his death in 1987.

Plot

The Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon land the TARDIS on board Space Station Camera, where they talk to Dastari, the Head of Projects. The Doctor tells Dastari that the Time Lords want the time experiments stopped, but Dastari refuses. Also on board are the Androgums, a gluttonous alien species who are conspiring with the Sontarans to take over the station. The ship's Androgum cook, Shockeye, drugs the crew's dinner to give the Sontarans an opportunity to invade.

In the TARDIS, the Sixth Doctor has a vision of his second incarnation being put to death. He decides to consult his old friend Dastari to see if he can help. The Doctor and Peri arrive on the station and are taken prisoner by the Sontarans. The ship lands in Seville, Spain, where the Androgums and Sontarans take over a local hacienda to use as a base of operations.

Dastari reveals his plan to dissect the Second Doctor's cell structure to isolate his symbiotic nuclei and give them to Chessene, an Androgum technologically augmented to genius levels. Upon discovering there are two Time Lords on the ship, Chessene asks Dastari to turn the Second Doctor into an Androgum instead. They also intend to eliminate the Sontarans.

Dastari implants the Second Doctor with a 50 per cent Androgum inheritance. The Second Doctor and Shockeye go to a restaurant and order gargantuan amounts of food. When the restaurant's owner, Oscar, demands that they pay, Shockeye fatally stabs him, just as the Sixth Doctor and the others arrive. Shockeye leaves the Second Doctor, who slowly reverts to normal. Chessene and Dastari take them back to the hacienda at gunpoint.

The Sixth Doctor frees himself and kills Shockeye. Chessene sees the Doctor's blood and starts licking it. Dastari realises that no matter how augmented she may be, Chessene is still an Androgum, and decides to free the Second Doctor, Peri, and Jamie. When Chessene sees this, she shoots and kills Dastari. She tries to shoot the Second Doctor and Peri, but Jamie throws a knife at her wrist, making her drop the gun. Chessene goes into the module, hoping to escape, but the sabotaged module explodes, killing Chessene and reverting her back to her Androgum self. Jamie and the Second Doctor depart in their TARDIS, whilst the Sixth Doctor tells Peri they're both going on a vegetarian diet from now on.

Production

Robert Holmes, a vegetarian, wrote the serial as an allegory about meat-eating, hunting and butchering. "Androgum" is an anagram of "gourmand". [2]

Holmes's original brief from producer John Nathan-Turner was to write a serial taking place in New Orleans, involving the Sontarans, the First Doctor portrayed by Richard Hurndall and the Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman, played by Carole Ann Ford, reprising their roles from "The Five Doctors". [3] Hurndall's death in April 1984 saw the brief revised to feature the Second Doctor and Jamie, [4] but the setting had to be changed to Spain instead when the expected funding for location filming in the United States fell through.

In his 1986 interview for Starburst , script editor Eric Saward said he thought this story was "poorly directed". [5]

Cast notes

This story marked the final appearance of Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor and the final on-screen appearance of Frazer Hines as Jamie. Veteran actress Aimee Delamain appears in a cameo role as the ill-fated hacienda owner the Doña Arana.

Broadcast and reception

EpisodeTitleRun timeOriginal air dateUK viewers
(millions)  [6]
1"Part One"44:2216 February 1985 (1985-02-16)6.6
2"Part Two"44:4923 February 1985 (1985-02-23)6.0
3"Part Three"44:452 March 1985 (1985-03-02)6.9

The Two Doctors was one of several stories from this era to provoke controversy over its depiction of violence. In 1985, Australasian Doctor Who Fan Club president Tony Howe criticised the murder of Oscar with a kitchen knife as being an instance of "sick, shock violence" that was present for "cheap shock value only". [7]

Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times awarded the serial two stars out of five, stating: "The Two Doctors wasn't dire, but the actors and audience deserved better." [8] In Doctor Who: The Complete Guide, Mark Campbell awarded The Two Doctors seven out of ten, describing it as "a Doctor Who version of Last of the Summer Wine as sponsored by the Vegetarian Society." [9] Television historian Marcus Harmes says of it "Besides the inherent joy of having Troughton and Hines back, the location filming around the hacienda and up and down the alleys in Seville is evocative, and the guest cast is brilliant". [10]

Commercial releases

In print

The Two Doctors
Doctor Who The Two Doctors.jpg
Author Robert Holmes
Cover artist Andrew Skilleter
Series Doctor Who book:
Target novelisations
Release number
100
Publisher Target Books
Publication date
5 December 1985
ISBN 0-426-20201-5

The novelisation of this serial, by Robert Holmes, was published in hardback and paperback in August 1985 as the 100th Doctor Who release by Target Books. This was Holmes's only complete novelisation and seeks to clear up some of the continuity errors in the original broadcast. With a gold foil-embossed cover, it was billed on release as the 100th novelisation and featured an introduction by John Nathan-Turner.

Home media

The Two Doctors was released on VHS in November 1993. It was released on DVD in the UK in September 2003 in a two-disc set as part of the Doctor Who 40th Anniversary Celebration releases, representing the Colin Baker years, with many extra features, including the Jim'll Fix It sketch A Fix with Sontarans . The DVD contains a full-length commentary provided by director Peter Moffatt and actors Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Frazer Hines, and Jacqueline Pearce. The DVD was subsequently incorporated into the box set Bred for War, along with The Time Warrior , The Sontaran Experiment and The Invasion of Time . Following the sexual abuse accusations regarding Jimmy Savile, the DVD was withdrawn from sale but has since been rereleased with the offending sketch removed. [11] The BBC has made the serial available for download on Apple iTunes. It was released in issue 45 of Doctor Who DVD Files.

It was released as part of the ‘Doctor Who The Collection: Season 22’ blu-ray box set on 20 June 2022. An extended cut of Part One was included as an extra on the set with a runtime of 47:33, running 3 minutes and 11 seconds longer than the original broadcast episode.

Notes

  1. ↑ Also supplied the voice of the Space Station Camera Computer, uncredited.

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References

  1. ↑ From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide , which counts the unbroadcast serial Shada , lists this as story number 141. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system.
  2. ↑ Howe, David J.; Stammers, Mark; Walker, Stephen James (1993). Doctor Who The Handbook - The Sixth Doctor. London: Doctor Who Books. p. 99. ISBN   0-426-20400-X.
  3. ↑ Doctor Who - The Complete History, Stories 139-141. Panini UK Ltd., 2016
  4. ↑ "BBC - Doctor Who Classic Episode Guide - the Two Doctors - Details".
  5. ↑ "The Revelations of a Script Editor". Starburst . September 1986. Issue 97. Page 16.
  6. ↑ "Ratings Guide". Doctor Who News. Retrieved 28 May 2017.
  7. ↑ Tulloch, John; Jenkins, Henry (1995). Science Fiction Audiences : Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek . London: Routledge. p.  160. ISBN   0415061407.
  8. ↑ "The Two Doctors ** | Radio Times". Archived from the original on 24 June 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  9. ↑ Campbell, Mark (2011). Doctor Who: The Complete Guide. Robinson Publishing. ISBN   978-1849015875 . Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  10. ↑ Harmes, Marcus (2023). The Two Doctors: Food, Deadly Food! in Outside In Regenerates: 163 New New Perspectives on 163 Classic Doctor Who Stories by 163 Writers. ATB. p. 373. ISBN   9781735545455.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  11. ↑ "Doctor Who News - the Two Doctors: Revised release clarification".

Target novelisation

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