From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated   
   From Address: jphalt@aol.com   
   Subject: Re: jphalt's Doctor Who reviews   
      
   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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