The Two Doctors Part Two (includes 'A Fix with Sontarans')

The one where the Sixth Doctor is reunited with his old friend Jamie McCrimmon...

What exactly is the savage creature trying to do when it attacks Peri? She claims it's her own fault as it was merely "protecting its nest", but when we subsequently learn that this growling, feral entity is actually Jamie McCrimmon, it's not made clear how or why he's ended up this way. How long has it been since the space station was attacked, leaving all but Jamie massacred by the Sontarans? In the meantime Jamie appears to have undergone a bizarre regression, reverting back to an unconvincing primitivism to survive. Protecting his nest he may have been, but why physically molest Peri? Why is he dressed in grubby overalls? Why has he built a nest in the bowels of the station and surrounded himself with half-eaten animal carcasses?

The whys and wherefores are disappointingly ignored, presumably because it made a good cliffhanger and that's it. When the Doctor sees that the poor creature is actually Jamie, he's barely moved at all to be reunited with his old friend (and one of the most faithful companions he'd ever had). "I seem to remember I was always very fond of Jamie," recalls the Doctor. Well, obviously not fond enough to be pleased to see him, or want to reminisce, even briefly. He does very little to convince Jamie that he is the Doctor, he just tells him that he is a future version without the Scotsman understanding that there can even be different versions of him. Jamie knows nothing of regeneration, but just accepts what he's told without question.

In truth, I don't think Jamie would accept this patchwork loon claiming to be the Doctor (and I'd be with him on that to a degree!). The Second and Sixth Doctors are so starkly different that Jamie would surely struggle to comprehend without a much better explanation. A short but concise scene between Peri and Jamie where the American explains regeneration to him would not have gone amiss here, and there's plenty of time to do it in. It'd also help generate some kind of bond between the companions, who would obviously have shared experiences of the Doctor, as well as give poor Frazer Hines something to say and do. As it is, Jamie McCrimmon is only in this story because he travelled with the Second Doctor. He's given little agency or value.

Too long is spent with Jamie telling the Doctor what happened in the first 10 minutes of part 1. The viewers know it already, and the scene where the Doctor produces a medical kit stocked with muscle relaxants to calm Jamie down is tortuously slow and unnecessary.

The Doctor also spends far too long wittering on about time embolisms and filling Peri in on the completely irrelevant war between the Sontarans and the Rutans. At the moment where he lies on his back and tries to communicate with his other self on the astral plain, I wanted to throw a cushion at the screen. However, I must admit I chuckled when the Doctor suddenly exclaims: "Boiiiiiing... Boiiiiing!" I just find that bit really silly/ funny, although how he recognises those boings as the chiming of the bells in Seville is a bit of a stretch. Yes, he might have been to Seville before (as the Second Doctor in this story?), but just how distinctive can one bell's chime be?

Another good bit about the generally very slow and unnecessary first third of part 2 is the short scene where the Doctor considers the end of the universe. Swathed in melancholy, Colin Baker delivers a beautifully thoughtful monologue: "She can't comprehend the scale of it all. Eternal blackness. No more sunsets. No more gumblejacks. Never more a butterfly." Wow! For a few scant seconds, the Sixth Doctor actually feels like all of his predecessors and successors rolled into one, like the Doctor I know, love, appreciate - and prefer. A wistful, pensive soul who takes a moment for himself to consider the wider ramifications that his human companions cannot. This palatable version of the Sixth Doctor does not last long, but I'm glad to see that Colin Baker is capable of it, when given the opportunity.

While the Sixth Doctor is trying to catch up with everybody else (including the six million viewers at home), things are not going well for the Second Doctor, who's shackled to a gurney (or wheelchair) for the entirety of this episode. It's a criminal waste of Patrick Troughton, who, by halfway through the story, has been on screen for less than 15 minutes. Flat on his back and unable to use body language, Troughton struggles to get his Doctor across. The best he can do is say the lines he's given and throw in what was surely an ill-advised ad-lib to try and engender his Doctor ("Oh my giddy aunt, oh crumbs").

There's a nice scene where the Doctor tries to get a rise out of Stike, challenging him to a duel and dishonouring him so that he might release him from the gurney, but even that is ruined by this era's tendency toward violence. When Stike slaps the Doctor across the face like he's Jack Regan in The Sweeney, all hope that Troughton can come out of this with any dignity is lost for me.

We learn that Dastari is trying to isolate the symbiotic nuclei that exist in every Time Lord and enables them to travel through time safely. Non-Time Lords do not have this nuclei, or Rassilon Imprimatur, so Dastari seeks to use the Doctor's to essentially democratise time travel. He will give the Sontarans time travel technology, as well as the Androgums, including his beloved Chessene. It's interesting when the Doctor says that giving Sontarans time travel ability would make them invincible, as we see just what havoc they'd cause in Flux.

What puzzles me about this special time travel cell Time Lords have is how other people and races have travelled in time so far? How have the Daleks managed it, or come to that, how have all the human companions that have travelled in the TARDIS managed to do it? I don't know if all this is explained eventually, or at all, but for the time being, I'll let it simmer in the background.

Despite that brief connection with "proper" Doctor Who, the Sixth Doctor falls so easily back into his old, disagreeable ways, patronising Peri in yet another example of emotional abuse: "Do try and use your brain, my girl! Small though it is, the human brain can be quite effective when used properly." I don't know what retort Peri mutters under her breath, but it's surely deserved. Oh, and then there's the bit where the Doctor slags off another of his predecessors in an act of pure egotism, labelling the Second Doctor an "antediluvian fogie". That's just insulting, and also untrue because the Second Doctor is considerably younger, and "cooler", than this psychedelic narcissist.

The loss of that awful coat in the scenes set in Spain is a blessed relief, and I rather like the Sixth Doctor's flowery waistcoat as it seems more in-keeping with the environment. Not nearly as appropriate is the heavy, ceremonial highland outfit poor Frazer Hines is given to wear. He must have been absolutely boiling under all that tartan (if well-ventilated).

Robert Holmes continues to write Oscar Botcherby as a modern-day Henry Gordon Jago, but I don't mind the similarities because John Saxon is so good at it. He delivers the magniloquent lines with admirable equanimity, and provides much-needed light relief every time he appears. When Oscar and Anita witness the arrival of the TARDIS, his response is classic: "Isn't that incredible? Police! And they say they're never there when you need them... Interpol, my dear. They have branches everywhere!" You can just hear Christopher Benjamin delivering these lines, but conversely I can well imagine Saxon delivering the Falstaffian phrases given to Jago. "Stark disaster has struck this simple countryside," he tells the Doctor, then introduces Anita as a "dark-eyed naiad"! Love him!

Oscar's got so much more about him as a character than poor Anita though. We know that Oscar is an out-of-work actor - sorry, "between roles" - and currently managing a friend's restaurant in Seville. We know he has a passion for moths, and that he's done something wrong which would warrant forgiveness by the British Council (I'm desperate to know what he did!). We know very little about Anita (she doesn't even have a surname) apart from the fact her mother used to work for Don Arana at the hacienda. It's a shame she's drawn so weakly, and although Carmen Gomez is strong in the part, it's typical of the paucity of strong roles for women in Holmes's wider body of work.

The Doctor hatches a plan to infiltrate the hacienda through the cellars while Peri acts as a distraction. Wonderfully, Peri knocks on the front door ("What if a Sontaran answers the door?") and pretends to be an American tour guide scouting out locations to bring students to. This ingenuity, along with the scene on the space station where she looks in the mirror and calls herself a mess, makes Peri that bit realer. I bet Nicola Bryant enjoyed giving Peri something proper to do, even if it does descend into something akin to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre when she's chased across the barren countryside by a monstrous cannibal. The cliffhanger, which sees the slavering Shockeye, blades and knives swinging from his belt, looming over the helpless Peri and intent on eating her with a piquant sauce, is deeply distasteful (if you'll excuse the pun).

Talking of distasteful, there's that thoroughly disgusting scene where Shockeye captures a rat, wrings its neck, and chows down on its bloody entrails. "The flesh is rank," he spits, offal tumbling from his lips. With every passing week Season 22 manages to astound, shock and revolt me ever more, making me wonder where this era is going to end up. Scenes such as this are unconscionable in Doctor Who.

Snippets:

• When the 'creature' that attacks Peri bangs its head and knocks itself unconscious, it's rather amusing to hear Frazer Hines muttering "ow, ooh, ow" before he collapses!
• Dastari mentions that the time experiments resulted in several Androgums disappearing into time, unable to get back. This sounds like ripe material for a sequel, or spin-off stories tracing what happened to these cannibals lost in time. Anyone at Big Finish reading this?
• The Sontarans feel oddly incidental to the story, and could quite easily be any old monster, old or new. Group Marshal Stike's collar is particularly ill-fitting, giving him a homespun air. In what has since become quite a tradition, the Sontarans are made fun of mercilessly, the Second Doctor likening Stike and his trolley to a nurse bringing tea ("I do not understand"), adding: "A face like yours wasn't made for laughing."
• Dastari is on the verge of detaching the Second Doctor's occipital bone (the back of his head) when he's interrupted by Peri. The fact he's going to do this with what amounts to an electric carving knife more suited to Sunday roasts is yet another distasteful touch.

We learn more about what the bad guys are up to in this middle episode, but the Sixth Doctor (the star of the show, remember) has yet to get fully involved, while guest star Patrick Troughton struggles to make any real impression due to a somewhat disrespectful treatment of his character. Thank heavens there's Oscar Botcherby to cheer me up.

Straight after this episode finished on BBC1, a special minisode of Doctor Who was shown as part of Jim'll Fix It. A Fix with Sontarans gave eight-year-old Doctor Who fan Gareth Jenkins the chance to show off the Sixth Doctor's costume his Nan had made for him, meet the Doctor himself, and help save the day aboard the TARDIS. Jenkins contributes very little to what amounts to an overwritten mess of a minisode which sees the bizarre return of Tegan Jovanka, bizarrely dressed in the uniform of her former job, and sporting the most bizarre 1980s hairstyle.

The minisode makes little sense, but then this is not Doctor Who, it's just a bit of fun. Colin Baker is his usual belligerent self, but we do get Sontarans (named Nathan and Turner - oh dear), numerous TARDIS console explosions, and the prescient moment where Savile is described as "monstrous and revolting". Sadly, even a fun little skit on Jim'll Fix It can't escape the unsavoury clutches of Season 22's more graphic tendencies, and the Sontarans are dispatched rather vividly in a moment which boasts green goo oozing from the mouth, the sight of them writhing in agony, and finally their heads collapsing and their corpses left drained of all matter, like a couple of de-fleshed skin suits.

Gareth gets a meson gun as a memento, as well as Savile's 'Jim Fixed It for Me' badge, while poor Janet Fielding has to endure one of those oleaginous kisses on the back of her hand which Savile was so keen on dishing out to young women. If nothing else, A Fix with Sontarans is an adequate example of how mixed-up and graphic Doctor Who had become at this time, and how utterly repugnant Jimmy Savile had always been.

Two days after The Two Doctors Part Two was broadcast on BBC1, the BBC's head of series and serials Jonathan Powell told the Doctor Who production team that work on Season 23 was on hold. It would emerge that BBC bosses were unhappy with the more violent direction the programme had taken of late, and considered it needed a fresh look. Given the evidence, I can hardly blame the BBC for putting Doctor Who on hiatus.

First broadcast: February 23rd, 1985

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: "Never more a butterfly..."
The Bad: "The flesh is rank..."
Overall score for episode: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Word repetition: 5 

NEXT TIME: Part Three...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Three

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site.

The Two Doctors is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Two-Doctors-1984-86/dp/B0000AISJA