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The Two Doctors Format Reviewed: DVD Review The Two Doctors brought together the current Doctor, Colin Baker, with one of his predecessors Patrick Troughton. Multiple Doctor stories have been produced twice before, with The Three Doctors during Jon Pertwee's reign and The Five Doctors during the Peter Davison era. The previous multiple Doctor stories were produced to mark signicant anniveraries of the show. Not so for The Two Doctors, and it seems a strange step to take to bring back Patrick Troughton for this but as we all love him we won't mind too much! The story sees the second Doctor and Jamie visit Joinson Dastari on a mission for the Time Lords, and also meets Chessene, an Androgum who is working with the Sontarans who attack the space station they are all on. The survivors then travel to Earth where the second Doctor is tortured, bringing on a feinting fit in the sixth Doctor. He and Peri travel to the space station seeking Dastari, but find it wrecked by the Sontarans. They do however find Jamie and the three follow the second Doctor to Earth, who is being transformed into an Androgum in an attempt to steal the Time Lords secrets. The time travellers are reunited, but are then recaptured while Chessene is betraying the Sontarans. Dastari then kills Shockeye and Chessene kills herself in her faulty time travel machine, leaving the TARDIS crews safe. As a story, The Two Doctors has many elements and facets to it, but to a certain degree it seems as though the writer, Robert Holmes, has tried to be too clever with it. Reviving the Sontarans, bringing back the Second Doctor and one of the best loved companions, filming in Spain combined with introducing a new evil and ferrocious race, the Androgums smacks of a bit of desparation to me. Whilst it is very true that the series could be described as in turmoil at the time, stories like this seem to be over-egging the pudding somewhat in a season that also contains Cybermen and Dalek stories. Patrick Troughton, despite his age at the time of filming, slips back into the role of the Doctor with ease. Frazer Hines compliments him wonderfully also, and it is clear from everything these two ever did together that they had a long real-life friendship. Their calmness and ease is in somewhat of a contrast to Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant who here look to be still finding their feet somewhat in the series. Joing the TARDIS crews here was a small guest cast, the pick of which is Jaqueline Pearce as Chessene. John Stratton does admirably as Shockeye, and Laurence Payne performs well as Dastari. The only folk that let the side down are the pointless cameos of James Saxon and Carmen Gomez as Oscar and Anita respectively. THey put in wooden performances and looked very uncomfortable throughout. I suppose the other major problem with this story is that it doesn't really grab the viewers attention. The best Doctor Who shows whisk the viewer from their sofas to another place and time, returning them with a bump aftre the cliffhanger at the end. This story just sort of happens. I have a great love of Patrick Troughtons work on Doctor Who, so for that reason each time I watch The Two Doctors I really want to love it, but somehow I just never do Troughton seems tired, but gives his all, and I suppose it was just too late for him to have been totally effective back in the role of the Doctor. This is a great shame. Troughton does still manage to upstage Colin Baker though, largely due to the ease at which he seems to be in the role. Overall, The Two Doctors is more of a disappointment than a pleasure. Multiple Doctor stories can always be seen as being on rocky ground due to established lore and continuity, but in this case it smacks more of a desparation to bring back past successes. This should be achieved by new and novel stories and enemies, but instead The Two Doctors chose to try to sheohorn in as much from the popular eras of the shows past as possible, rather than being innovative. Rating:  |