"Doctor Who"
The Two Doctors: Part 2 (1985)

Director:

Peter Moffatt

Writer:

Robert Holmes (writer)

TV Series:

"Doctor Who" (1963)

Original Air Date:

23 February 1985 (Season 22, Episode 8)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

1980s | Kilt | Second Part | Number In Title | Space Hero

Cast

Colin Baker	...	The Doctor
Patrick Troughton	...	The Doctor
Nicola Bryant	...	Peri
Frazer Hines	...	Jamie
John Stratton	...	Shockeye
Jacqueline Pearce	...	Chessene
Laurence Payne	...	Dastari
James Saxon	...	Oscar
Carmen Gómez	...	Anita (as Carmen Gomez)
Clinton Greyn	...	Stike
Tim Raynham	...	Varl

Runtime:

45 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Sevilla, Andalucía, Spain

Quotes:

The Sixth Doctor: There was an echo. An after-resonance. When you've been locked in as many dungeons as I have, you wouldn't fail to recognize it.

'I am another aspect of him, just as he is of me'

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In this episode of Doctor Who, the Second Doctor is imprisoned in an Andalucían hacienda four kilometres outside Seville. There, the biogeneticist Joinson Dastari, the technologically augmented Androgum châtelaine Chessene and the Sontarans Stike and Varl seek to isolate the Second Doctor's symbiotic nuclei, in order to master the technology of time travel. The Sixth Doctor, with companions Jamie McCrimmon and Peri Brown, comes to the Second Doctor's rescue.

We begin with the strange conceit of the bedraggled Jamie, on board the space station Chimera, looking and sounding like a snarling monster – to the extent that the Sixth Doctor and Peri talk of the monster 'protecting its nest'. The Doctor treats Jamie's distress by taking what looks like a makeup pouch from his pocket, removing two long needles, pushing the needles deep into Jamie's neck to 'help him to relax', hypnotising him with a pendulum, and then pulling the needles out again – a procedure which looks very painful.

The Doctor fears that 'the collapse of the universe has started and nothing can stop it'. He pursues this apocalyptic red herring for a while before reverting to his usual obnoxiousness and pedantry, prompting Jamie to tell Peri 'I think your Doctor's worse than mine'. But to his credit, the Doctor is suitably distressed and quick to act when confronted with an illusion of Peri being tormented, and describes the Time Lords with admirable bluntness as 'rabidly xenophobic'.

Having shown that he can close his respiratory passages at will, the Doctor also boasts telepathic talents. Connecting with the mind of his drugged earlier incarnation, he is able to identify accurately the distant sound of the Santa Maria – the largest of 25 bells in the Cathedral of Seville. Even more impressively, he is able to infer from this sound that his earlier incarnation is being held captive at a location three miles from Seville. This prompts him to sing the aria 'Largo al Factotum', from Gioacchino Rossini and Cesare Sterbini's opera 'The Barber of Seville'.

In the TARDIS, Jamie procures a new Scottish outfit which seems to have a large tartan carpet randomly attached to its left shoulder. The Doctor expresses concern for his earlier incarnation 'languishing in some dark dungeon at the mercy of the Sontarans', but then disparages the 'antediluvian fogey' for 'allowing himself to be captured by the Sontarans'. He goes on to say that 'if anything happens to myself as a result of it, I will never forgive himself' – to which Peri responds, quite properly, 'I do wish you'd stop switching personal pronouns'.

The Second Doctor is as impressively resourceful as the Sixth. Stirring from unconsciousness on Dastari's operating table in the hacienda, he recognises instantly that he has been drugged with 'one of the anomode group' – siralanomode as it turns out, which 'affects the memory'. His response on being told that Jamie has been killed is a simple but heartfelt 'poor old Jamie', and he sums up his predicament by saying 'oh my giddy aunt, oh crumbs'.

Stike and Varl are amusingly impatient to join the Ninth Sontaran Battle Group's attack on the Rutans in the Madillon cluster. Stike marches around swinging a swagger stick and saying 'stand at ease' like a stereotypical human military officer – aside from the large brown head, silver collar and padded outfit, that is. 'It is not easy being commander', he muses in a rare moment of reflection, bemoaning 'the loneliness of supreme responsibility'.

The Second Doctor shows admirable pluck in enraging Stike – telling him 'a face like yours wasn't made for laughing', suggesting that the he resign and take a pension, and even challenging him to a duel. When the Doctor hurls the ultimate insult and calls the Sontaran a coward, Stike gives an enraged glare from deep within his enormous, immobile head.

The scenes in Andalucía have a muted tone, that makes the muggy heat seem more intense. This gives the Sixth Doctor an excuse to remove his garish outer coat, revealing an equally garish floral waistcoat underneath. Then there is the pleasing incongruity of a Sontaran scout ship – looking like a steel pétanque ball – parked outside the hacienda, before it is placed in clear and disappears from view.

The actor/restaurateur Oscar Botcherby – with his moustache, neckerchief and binoculars – is amusingly foppish. He tells his partner Anita 'you are such a pragmatist my little flower', and introduces her to the Doctor as 'this dark-eyed naiad'. He informs the Doctor melodramatically that 'stark disaster has struck this simple countryside', claims that 'we Botcherbys have never shirked public service', and responds to the Doctor's claim that 'alien beings' have taken over the hacienda with 'you are joshing me'. Most amusingly, Oscar's attention is diverted from Sontaran skulduggery by 'an exquisite feathered Gothic'.

The outlandish attire sported by the Doctor, Peri and Jamie – made even more striking by the sweltering Andalucían backdrop, and the fact that the three are mistaken for Interpol agents – prompts Oscar to observe that they 'obviously belong to the plainclothes branch'. Equally farcical is Peri's inspection of the hacienda in the guise of a student, while the imperious Chessene plays mistress of the house, and Dastari and Shockeye drag the drugged Second Doctor around.

Continuing the story's theme of meat and murder, Dastari is interrupted just as he is about to take a saw to the occipital bone at the back of the the Second Doctor's skull. Shockeye bites into a rat but thinks little of it, saying 'smoke-dried it might just be tolerable'. He then browses Chinese and Spanish recipes, noting approvingly that 'there cannot be a creature on the planet that humans do not kill and eat', and that 'many beasts are bred especially for table...force-fed to improve the flesh, and penned in small, confined quarters to fatten more rapidly'.

We conclude with Peri lying on scorched grass, while Shockeye leers over her grotesquely.