Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (1984)

Made at a point when the series was back on Saturday teatime but in an uncongenial 45-minute-per-episode form, this three-parter ought to be special but is badly muffed: it tries to trade on the teaming of two incarnations of the Time Lord (Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton) and brings back an old enemy (the potato-headed Sontarans) but is shaky on continuity. By suggesting that Troughton's Doctor was sometimes used as a secret agent by the Time Lords and always at their beck and call, the whole premise of the first versions of the show is undermined (writer Robert Holmes got him mixed up with Jon Pertwee) - that Doctor was supposed to be on the run from his people. The Sontarans are secondary goon-type baddies, and the main villains an odd job lot - renegade scientist Dastari (Laurence Payne), who has raised an 'Androgum' slave Chessene (Jacqueline Pearce) to genius-level but can't curb her barbarous instincts, with Shockeye (John Stratton), an omnivorous chef slavering over the idea of dressing, cooking and eating a human as an odd mix of comedy relief and genuine nastiness (a likeable guest dolt is stabbed to death out of the blue). In the mix is some new information about a Time Lord's symbiotic relationship with his TARDIS, which sort of makes sense but might have been mentioned earlier.

Another problem is that John Nathan-Turner, shark-jumper extraordinaire, decreed this be one of the show's occasional trips abroad, so the Earthbound section is set in and near Seville (though it was written for New Orleans) which means running around landscape and the city for no real reason. Nicola Bryant's Peri, of the ghastly cod American accent, dresses in blue shorts and a middy blouse and is continually groped, exposed and slung around, though there's a nice bit with Frazer Hines apparently improvising (or taking an opportunity) as Jamie greedily eyes his replacement.

There's a weird, vaguely racist undercurrent about the idea that Androgums are human-shaped, irredeemable scum who can't better themselves - though it may be because they're more human-looking than Sontarans and thus are harder to write off as monsters who need killing. Pearce, always striking, is wasted as an ill-defined villainness, who can't help but sound like a slave liberator between regular rants about ruling the universe. The Doctors take two episodes to meet, and Troughton is shunted off into a double-act with Stratton as he is semi-Androgummed for most of the third show - but when Baker and Troughton are interacting, they do strike some sparks. The Sontarans bleed green and a severed leg is brandished at one point but get a better death secene in the (dire) Jim'll Fix It appearance included on the DVD.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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