Day 327 — November 23rd 2021
The Two Doctors Part One
The Two Doctors — Part One
Very few Doctor Who stories transport me back to a time and place like The Two Doctors does. I bought the DVD from a WH Smiths in Cambridge during an A-Level field trip around the autumn of 2005, and just thinking about the story makes me recall that day. I don’t know if I’d not seen the DVD available before, but for some reason I was so amazed to find a copy, but I didn’t have enough cash on me to buy it, so a friend stepped in and made up the shortfall. I can recall sitting on the coach back home so excited to sit down and watch the story for the first time. I love little memories like this. For so many of my Doctor Who DVDs the story boils down to ‘it arrived on release day and I put it on the shelf’, so when there’s something a bit more special that a story conjures up it makes me very happy.
It was also one of the most exciting stories to someone who was still in their first flush of fandom — a multi-Doctor story starring Patrick Troughton, who I think I’d already decided was my favourite on the basis of The Tomb of the Cybermen. Even before I’d seen it I was awash with ‘facts’ — it was the final time Troughton played the part, they went to Spain to film, the Sontarans made their final appearance and written by their original creator. All things considered this one had a lot going for it to make it an exciting proposition, which is presumably why it was one of the earlier releases for Colin’s era.
But as we’ve approached it this time around I’ve found myself dreading it a little. This era isn’t holding up as well as I thought it would (although we’ve yet to have any proper stinkers, we’ve not had anything spectacular either) and the more I thought about The Two Doctors the more I thought ‘yeah, that one’s not very good either’. Thankfully, actually watching the episode has reminded me of just how much there is to enjoy about this one, and I think this is probably the best episode we’ve had in this era so far.
The biggest thing for me is that this one looks better than any of the other Colin stories so far. While Attack of the Cybermen had some gorgeous stuff in the London-set episode, the cheapness of Telos let the side down. Varos was all a bit flat and grey and as nice as the exteriors looked in Mark of the Rani, sets for places like her bath house were just as flat and drab. Her TARDIS Control Room was beautiful, but even that had the same flat-looking walls. Here, we get a new space station, which I think looks fantastic. It’s got a really recognisable visual identity, with the triangles making up the larger wall panels, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the ‘concrete’ pillars before. The sets look nice enough when Troughton and Hines are wandering around them in full lighting, but they look even better once the Sixth Doctor Who rocks up and finds the station in the aftermath of an attack. There’s little bits of design — like the way the doors open with their overlapping panels — which I think hold up really well, and you could get away with returning to the station on screen again now I reckon.
And that’s nothing to the set for the inside of the station’s structure, which looks brilliant in itself, all scaffolding and wires. It’s as bright and garish in the design as you’d expect from this period of the programme, but it holds together well and is lit beautifully. There’s a few shots of Colin and Nicola where the light hits their face just right and I think they’re some of the best shots we’ve had in ages. Certainly it gives lie to the idea that 1980s Doctor Who was always harsh and over-lit.
Sadly, the direction across the board isn’t something I can particularly praise. For every moment like the one described above, you get a bizarre choice like hiding the reveal of the Sontaran bearing down on Troughton’s Doctor Who even though we’ve already had it announced that they’re the monsters closing in on the station. It could have been a fantastic chance to reveal the monster — who haven’t been seen in the series for seven years — but instead we get one just vaguely wandering about in the background when we get to Spain. This has been a repeated issue with the series in recent years, from the Terileptils to the Silurians, so it’s a shame to see it’s still a problem.
This is Peter Moffatt’s final outing as a director on the series, and he’s been a director that I’ve both praised highly (with his work on State of Decay) and found fairly lacklustre, so perhaps it’s fitting that his final story should operate at both ends of the spectrum?
I’ll tell you what’s surprised me the most about this one; just how much focus they give Patrick Troughton’s Doctor Who at the beginning of the story. He’s the first character we see on screen, and we spend the first ten minutes of the episode following his adventure to the space station. There’s no attempt made to introduce the idea that he’s a previous incarnation or that there’s anything out of the ordinary going on (aside from opening in black and white before fading into colour, which is a touch I love. And I think it looks better in black and white, I’d love to see a version where these first ten minutes are all shot that way!). By the time Colin Baker finally shows up it’s almost a bit of a shock. I find it baffling that the production team at the time were so willing to sideline their lead stars like this, and wonder how Colin and Nicola felt about it at the time? I’d also be interested to know what kids watching at home thought was going on if they weren’t overly steeped in the programme’s history. If this is your first season of Doctor Who, would you not wonder who the little bloke and the highlander were?
Thankfully I am a fan, and I can never complain about being given more time with Pat Troughton, who’s lost none of his skill in the 16 years since leaving the programme. While he’s still playing a slightly heightened version of his Doctor Who in this one it doesn’t feel quite so broad as his appearances in the anniversary episodes, which I think makes this more like a regular adventure. tell you what, though, my most hoped for special feature for the Blu-ray release of this story is for them, to darken his hair to its usual black — the grey takes me out of it too much and feels like I’m constantly reminded that I’m watching an actor years later, when I should just be enjoying the story.
The same thing’s true for the odd continuity blips this story gives us — it just feels wrong to hear Troughton and Hines talking so freely about the Time Lords, and piloting the TARDIS to wherever they need it to go. I was expecting to sit here and say that none of that stuff bothers me and that I’m happy to just go along with it, but I’m surprised by how much it niggles.
We can add another zoom in on Colin’s face to the list as we crash into the cliffhanger, and I think I’m going with a 7/10.
