The Twin Dilemma Part Four

The one where Mestor's devious plan is revealed...

"Why don't you kill her?" Noma asks Mestor of the captive Peri. "I find her pleasing. Pleasing!" replies the giant slug, which is the last thing I expected him to say. Why on earth would a giant Gastropod (or Sectom, as the novelisation has it) find the female human form remotely attractive or appealing? Don't giant slugs fancy giant slugs the most? It's the latest of far too many instances when Peri becomes the focus of an alien threat's devotions, like she's some kind of universal sex symbol, devastatingly attractive to almost every species in the entire cosmos, from Androgum to Zarbi!

And apart from the preposterousness of Mestor finding Peri "appealing" (yuk), there's the fact this plot point is very swiftly dropped almost as soon as it's mentioned. Mestor's soft spot for Peri is never mentioned again, meaning the only reason Mestor doesn't kill Peri is because the writer doesn't want him to. In truth, he would kill her, seeing as that's what he's been threatening all along.

The Twin Dilemma Part Three

The one where the Doctor tries to kill his old friend Azmael...

After the success of his character Professor Eustacius Jericho in Flux, it feels so odd to see Kevin McNally look so young as Hugo Lang. McNally was a youthful 28 when he appeared in The Twin Dilemma, and a not-so-youthful (but much more experienced) 65 by the time of Flux. While Jericho is definitely his better contribution to the canon, it's easy to imagine Hugo Lang staying on as one of the Sixth Doctor's companions in an alternative timeline. If only this Doctor wasn't so much of a git, more people might have wanted to travel with him!

Colin Baker definitely settles down a little bit in this episode, relaxing into a level of performance more recognisable as the "normal" Sixth Doctor. But the Doctor is still unstable, and remains unlikeable ("How I hate these hit or miss performances"), as shown when he and Peri argue over compassion being "the difference that remains between them" (this episode is chock full of clunky dialogue like this).

The Twin Dilemma Part Two

The one where the Doctor meets an old friend from the past...

The Doctor's first reaction when somebody points a gun at him is one of self-preservation, demonstrated both when Hugo threatens him in the TARDIS, and when the Jacondans capture him later on. He is aghast that anybody should want to harm him, and shows little compassion for Hugo when he passes out again. Peri expresses pity for Hugo and what he must have been through, and appeals to the Doctor to help him heal, but this new Doctor only thinks of himself and his own preservation.

It's not a good look (and I don't mean just his coat). It's such a mistake to be toying with the Doctor's fundamental character like this, it's dangerous and has the potential to damage the programme's reputation. The Doctor is supposed to be our hero - a fallible hero, I admit, but a hero all the same - someone we can trust in, look up to, and learn from. For all their grumpy spats in previous incarnations, the Doctor has always been a likeable character, but I must admit I'm struggling to warm to this sixth incarnation at all. He's not making it easy.

The Twin Dilemma Part One

The one where the new Doctor tries to strangle his companion...

Same season, new Doctor. Same opening titles, new effects (and face!). The Doctor Who titles have regenerated with the title character and we now have Colin Baker's grinning face swathed in a rainbow of swirling colour. It's great to see the four-year-old titles given a bit of a polish, and I do like the logo zapping at the screen, and the new watery ripple effect for the story title and credits.

And for the second (and last) time in Doctor Who history, viewers get a preview of the new Doctor's outfit before the story's even begun, as we see the shoulders of his coat and the flouncy necktie long before he finds his new clothes on screen. Similar happened with the Fourth Doctor, as we could glimpse his scarf in the opening titles of Robot part 1 before it ever appeared on screen proper.

The Caves of Androzani Part Four

The one where the Doctor sacrifices himself to save Peri...

Roger Limb's score for The Caves of Androzani is one of my favourites of the entire canon. The music evokes a creeping, almost subcutaneous feeling of dread and doom, a constant background thrum which throws you emotionally off-kilter. It's a subliminal special effect (all the best music is subliminal in its effect) which tells you that something is coming, something bad. It has a doomy, uncompromising, funereal feel, telling us that the end is nigh, culminating in that gothic death knell, counting down the minutes until this Doctor's final end...

And what an end! The Fifth Doctor is seen as one of the most self-effacing incarnations, a man who feels things more than most of his other selves. This Doctor wears his hearts on his sleeve, and so must we as we enter his final phase. This is a brutal, challenging world he finds himself in at the end of his life - so different from the pastoral simplicity of Castrovalva, where he began.

The Caves of Androzani Part Three

The one where the Doctor almost has his arms ripped off...

The magma creature may not be the most realistic monster ever, but you have to admit it's a lovely design and, in a static sense, looks stunning. It probably looked better in an Doctor Who exhibition than it ever did on screen, but nevertheless, some of director Graeme Harper's camera angles manage to give the costume a degree of menace, at least for younger viewers. It advances on the armed soldiers mercilessly, all fangs and talons. It's not as lamentable as some people claim.

Salateen and Peri scramble back to Chellak's headquarters and the Major reveals all about his android copy and the fact Sharaz Jek has taps and cameras everywhere. Robert Glenister gives a sterling dual performance in this story (complete with an impressive wave of hair), striking the right balance between the real Salateen and the android version. Glenister is a master of the 'creepy stare', such as when he glares through the wall at the body prints of the hiding Salateen and Peri, or when the android just plain does not believe a word Chellak is telling him. The eyes are piercing and unsettling.

The Caves of Androzani Part Two

The one where the Doctor and Peri discover they have two days to live...

For years I felt that the style of The Caves of Androzani reminded me of something else I'd seen, but I was never able to identify it until this latest viewing. The wonderful politicking that goes on at the top of this episode between Morgus and the President - the knowing comments, the snarky back-and-forth - is like the House of Cards political thrillers written by Michael Dobbs, and which were soonafter adapted into a trilogy of TV mini-series by screenwriter Andrew Davies, producer Ken Riddington and director Paul "Graff Vynda-K" Seed. The way in which House of Cards' Francis Urquhart conspiratorially turned to camera to confide in the viewer is exactly the same as what Morgus does here. Yet The Caves of Androzani made it to screen more than five years before House of Cards...

The majority of this second episode is spent in Sharaz Jek's lair, where the Doctor and Peri get to know their new captor better. Yes, our heroes are still very much alive, not riddled with bullets and bleeding out on the floor of the cave as we were led to believe. Their saviour was Jek, a brilliant android engineer, who somehow managed to create lifelike android duplicates of the Doctor and Peri in super-fast time, replacing the real couple with the copies so that the robots could be executed and the real ones saved.

The Caves of Androzani Part One

The one where the Doctor and Peri are shot in a military execution...

Robert Holmes! Remember him? It's great to see one of Doctor Who's best ever writers back on the beat, writing for the show in the bright and ballsy 1980s. Last seen limping into obscurity following the damp squib that was The Power of Kroll, Holmes seems to have made a triumphant comeback for what will prove to be Peter Davison's final story. Just seeing that name on screen inspires much confidence.

I adore the opening sequence as we zoom through space towards a planet, accompanied by the familiar sound of the TARDIS materialising. It then fades to a shot of the battered old police box appearing on an alien world, its little light flashing enthusiastically. What a classic materialisation, a meat-and-potatoes conventional arrival for this Doctor's final adventure. Shots of Monument Valley in Utah were used to show the mountains of Androzani Minor, but somehow director Graeme Harper manages to make a sand quarry in Dorset look like an alien world, thanks in no small part to a beautiful glass shot.