But in contemporary terms, a lot has happened between parts two and three of this story. The Tuesday following the broadcast of part two (so 26 February 1985), it was announced that the BBC was temporarily suspending production of Doctor Who for monetary reasons -- they had a lot of expensive shows in the pipeline, and they needed to make up the money somewhere (About Time submits that Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective was the primary destination for the BBC's money, while The Handbook: The Sixth Doctor speculates that needing to produce 104 episodes (aka two episodes a week) of the BBC's new soap opera EastEnders was the culprit). However, this was portrayed in the papers as the first step toward dropping Doctor Who completely, a situation which the BBC (initially) denied, citing the monetary reasons -- Doctor Who had essentially been delayed from a spring 1986 premiere to an autumn '86 one.
As time went on, though, there began to be rumblings that this wasn't a purely financial decision -- by 6 March, the first hint that this was also a creative decision on the part of the BBC's upper management surfaced (and as an aside, anyone interested in this period of the show's history would do well to check out Chapter 7 -- "Cancellation Crisis" -- of The Handbook: The Sixth Doctor by Howe-Stammers-Walker). Certainly by the end of March BBC1 Controller Michael Grade started making noises that the decision was more about the content of the show than because of money. (About Time suggests that this may have in part been an act of revenge by Grade, whose reputation as TV's miracle worker was allegedly tarnished when his revamping of ITV's Saturday night schedule almost completely failed to make a dent in Doctor Who's ratings in 1978 -- there's no real evidence for this, but it might help explain why Grade was so antagonistic toward the show.) This also led to discussion about how Doctor Who was becoming too violent -- a discussion almost certainly informed by Mary Whitehouse's attacks on what were termed "video nasties" (excessively violent footage being sold on this newfangled video tape format) that were roughly concurrent with season 22.
But the content-based reasons for the 18-Month Suspension are still in the future (which really began shortly after transmission of season 22 concluded); at this point in time, all the British public know is that the show is taking a longer-than-usual break, and many (almost a million, in fact, if the ratings jump between parts two and three can be attributed to this) are curious as to what they've missed in the interim. And so Part Three of The Two Doctors is what they saw.
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| The second and sixth Doctors look as Dastari taunts them with the keys to their manacles. (The Two Doctors Part Three) ©BBC |
This story is occasionally referred to as a black comedy, and it's probably the second Doctor/Shockeye scenes that are the most obviously intended to be comedic. It's certainly a bleak form of humor though -- the scenes where the Androgumized Doctor is explaining human customs and cuisine are probably the most successful, but Oscar's death, which seems to also be played for laughs, is wide of the mark. This is partly because James Saxon does such a good job that Oscar is probably the most likeable character in the entire production, but also because the actual murder of Oscar is quite shocking, particularly as it comes right after a moment of comedy regarding the bill -- and then they immediately try to follow it up with a laugh (to put it generously -- it could also just be a poorly acted and directed moment). The whole sequence is misjudged as a result.
And, because this is a script edited by Eric Saward, basically everyone ends up dead by the end. The Sontarans are betrayed by Chessene -- which leads to a lot of green gunge as some sort of acid kills them. (The severed Sontaran leg that Shockeye finds is probably the most successful blackly comic moment in the whole piece.) Dastari is killed by Chessene, who dies when their time travel capsule fails. The most controversial moment is probably Shockeye's death at the hands of the sixth Doctor; the Doctor is admittedly in a fight for his life, basically, as Shockeye intends to butcher him with a knife, but it does look a tad planned. But like Vengeance on Varos, the real issue is the Doctor's subsequent "bad taste" remarks: "Your just desserts" is awkward enough, but the later remark of how Shockeye has been "mothballed" is in particularly poor taste, and it does leave a bad taste in the mouth.
But the problems with The Two Doctors began long before Shockeye was killed. The underlying central concern with the story is how intolerant it is -- the problems start because Chessene has been elevated above her station, and this is a bad thing because it's just in the nature of Androgums, as a species, to be savage and cruel. There's never a suggestion that not all Androgums are like that, and in fact the script goes out of its way, near the end of part three, to show that even though Chessene has been augmented, she'll still revert to those base instincts that Dastari attempted to suppress/overwhelm. The takeaway message is, "you just can't change those people", which is just about the worst message the show has ever produced.
Now combine that with an overlong story that's been stretched to almost breaking, rather than padded with extra incidents, and one that's squandered its actors. It's admittedly fun to see Frazer Hines effortlessly slip back into the role of Jamie and interact with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, but what's the point of putting Patrick Troughton in a story where he's unconscious or restrained for two-thirds of it? And Nicola Bryant doesn't even get to include her usual joke. The most successful part might be the vegetarian message, and even that feels squandered in a rather distasteful way. The Two Doctors somehow manages to be both unpleasant and rather dull -- no mean feat.