November 21: The Two Doctors Part One

Putting the opening moments in black and white is a nice touch, as we see not the sixth Doctor and Peri but rather the second Doctor and Jamie.  They both appear to have aged since the last time we saw them, though -- Troughton's hair in particular appears to have gone silver since 1983.  There's also something deeply weird about listening to Troughton casually talk about the Time Lords to Jamie (and the suggestion that this is during season 5, as the Doctor's dropped off Victoria somewhere, makes it doubly strange -- note how Jamie has no idea who the Time Lords are in The War Games¹³⁹).  The second Doctor's conversations with Dastari don't really help with this feeling of strangeness either.  There's also the rather unpleasant speech from the Doctor after he learns about Dastari's augmentation experiments with Chessene, where he outright states that it's wrong for people to go beyond where they're "supposed" to be: "She's still an Androgum.  You can't change nature. ... You give a monkey control of its environment, it'll fill the world with bananas," the Doctor insists with a close-minded attitude, bordering on racist ("Oh really, Doctor.  I expected something more progressive from you," Dastari replies).  There's also some stuff between Chessene and Shockeye along the same lines, but as neither is supposed to be a terribly sympathetic character, it doesn't have the same distasteful feel as when the Doctor spouts such things.

There also seems to be some commentary from writer Robert Holmes about how we treat meat animals, with Shockeye treating the humans (well, Tellurians -- this is a Robert Holmes script) in much the same way -- interested more in how they taste than in what their feelings might be about it.

But after a certain point this episode feels like it's just spinning its wheels.  The sixth Doctor and Peri investigate Space Station Camera after it's been attacked by Sontarans and spend their time outwitting the computer, which wants them dead as part of a defense mechanism, while Chessene, Shockeye, and the Sontarans set up camp near Seville -- yes, the show's filming abroad again (for what would be the last time in 23 years -- there are no more major overseas film shoots until 2008¹⁴⁰).  The long shot reveal of the Sontarans in Spain is a bit undramatic (particularly as all we saw was a hand when they captured the second Doctor), but to be fair, we did know it was Sontarans when that station technician saw their ships coming in.  The Spanish bits look nice, but they also feel rather undramatic at this point -- after the assault on the station, everything is setup, with little payoff.  But as this is a three-part story, I suppose they can afford to take their time.  And it is a decent cliffhanger -- the Doctor gassed by the station while Peri is attacked by some beast lurking in the station's infrastructure...







¹³⁹ You might be able to get around some of these problems if you assume that it's actually the Time Lords from Colin Baker's era who've fished back through his timeline and pulled the second Doctor out of his timestream, using him as a representative (they can't really use the current incarnation, as he's sort of the President of the High Council at the moment); this would explain why it's the sixth Doctor (rather than any of the intervening incarnations) who feels the second Doctor being attacked (in what appears to be a new event, rather than as part of his personal history).  This might also explain why the second Doctor isn't immediately alarmed when he sees that there's been Time Lord interference with his TARDIS, and why the Time Lords don't just bring him back to Gallifrey.  Then you just have to postulate some sort of mindwipe afterwards as to why Jamie subsequently doesn't know anything about the Time Lords.
     Alternatively, you can postulate that Troughton had adventures after The War Games, where he went on a number of secret missions for the Time Lords before his exile actually began -- this is the so-called "Season 6B theory".  That does lead to wondering why Colin Baker is affected though (does he feel bad every time a previous incarnation gets knocked out or is made to suffer?), if it's Troughton's Time Lords that are getting him involved with Space Station Camera.  (And it should be noted that, other than the general problem of trying to find spots during Troughton's run to put these adventures and why he occasionally looks older, there's not really any on-screen evidence to support the season 6B theory.)
¹⁴⁰ Well, except for the TV Movie, which was shot in Vancouver -- but that wasn't really abroad for them, was it?