Day 328 — November 24th 2021
The Two Doctors Part Two
The Two Doctors — Part Two
As ever, I don’t want to appear massively arrogant by rewriting Robert Holmes, but I can’t help thinking that he’s got everything in the wrong order for the drama to really land in this story. It’s been happening since the very beginning, and it’s in this episode that it really comes into focus, because every time they try to make you concerned about something it’s undermined by the back of my head going ‘yeah, but…’
Take for example everything which happens with Troughton’s Doctor Who. We open the whole story with him, discover that the Time Lords have sent him to the station to stop the time travel experiments, and watch the arrival of the Sontarans who take over the station. It’s at this point we cut to the current Doctor Who, who’s feeling some inner turmoil at his previous self being put to death. The problems start creeping in once we’ve headed off to investigate.
There’s a really great moment in Part One — which I think was the cliffhanger for international viewers who kept the 25 minute format;
Doctor Who: ‘When I first saw this station, I thought of comet strike, or some such natural disaster, but it’s been deliberately destroyed! Now, what kind of monster would want to stop the brilliant work that was being done here? Pure research, for its own sake, It threatened no one!’
Computer Voice: ‘It threatened the Time Lords.’
That should be a brilliant moment! All of this death and destruction, and the suggestion that the Time Lords were involved? Fantastic! Only, we already knew the Time Lords were involved because we watched Troughton have an argument about it. And therefore we know the computer is over-stating the situation.
Once we get into this episode, Doctor Who discovers Jamie hiding in the vents. It does still work as a bit of a surprise, because the implication at the end of Part One was that it was some kind of feral creature pursuing our heroes, but then we get an extended sequence in which a hypnotised Jamie recounts the opening ten minutes of the last episode and our Doctor Who concludes that he really could have died here once upon a time. But all of that is spoiled because we’ve already seen the unconscious Second Doctor being carried into the villa in Spain, and confirmation that he’s still alive. There’s a weird few minutes where they try to have their cake and eat it, making you worry that Troughton might be dead while reminding you that he absolutely isn’t.
Ass to this things like the Sontarans being revealed early on, then played as a secret before just showing up in the back of a shot on location and I think it’s fair to say that there’s some serious issues with the structure of this story. I think it would work so much better if you didn’t see Troughton on his diplomatic mission until Jamie tells the Sixth Doctor all about it. You could even play it as a flashback, and if you’re feeling really fancy you can render the whole sequence in black and white.
I’d make more of Doctor Who and Peri exploring a wrecked space station and trying to avoid the murderous instincts of the computer, so that when the Time Lords are mentioned it really lands. The Ark in Space Part One got away with 25 minutes in that format, and I reckon you could do it again here. Doctor Who, Peri and Jamie can discover a way of tracing Troughton to Spain and go there in the hope of finding him alive, but I think it needs to really play with the idea that he could have been killed and that Colin’s entire timeline could be unravelling behind him.
I think I’d also try to make the reveal of the Sontarans more of an actual… y’know, reveal. Show the ships heading towards the station if you like, because that looks fab. But don’t have anyone say who’s piloting them. If fans recognise the iconic design then great. If not, then it doesn’t matter. There’s a moment in this episode when Group Marshall Stike is announced as entering and he just strolls in and starts talking. There’s no attempt to make his arrival look impressive or exciting. I reckon if you have to have the junior Sontaran on the scene before this moment then he should keep his helmet on, so that you can do the impressive reveal of a face here.
The one other thing I think this episode is missing is a bit of concession to the people who might not really get who Jamie is. Obviously, we’ve seen him as a companion of Troughton’s Doctor Who in the first episode, but this feels like the perfect time to do one of the montages they were so fond of in the Davison era. Given the show’s increasing interest in it’s own history this season I’m a bit surprised we didn’t get one.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve not enjoyed this one, though, because I think this is probably the first episode of the current era that I’ve just watched and liked without that nagging sense of ‘this isn’t very good’ which has accompanied almost all of the earlier instalments. It might not all work as well as I think it could, but there’s certainly enough in here to enjoy. And it has to be said that you can always tell a Robert Holmes script because the dialogue takes a definite turn for the better. I’m especially fond of the joke in this one when it comes to making contact with the aliens;
Doctor Who: ‘Knock on the door and say you’re lost.’
Peri: ‘I don’t speak Spanish.’
Doctor Who: ‘That’s all right. Neither do they.’
All in all I’m going for another 7/10.
