Review of The Two Doctors: Unnecessary Travelling Nostalgia

By David Parkinson

Written by: Robert Holmes
Directed by: Peter Moffatt
Starring: Colin Baker, Patrick Troughton, Nicola Bryant, Frazer Hines, John Stratton, Jacqueline Pearce and Laurence Pearce.



You might say the setting makes the story, which is certainly the case for some shows (Midsomer Murders, King of Queens etc.) but in the case of The Two Doctors, it's extremely unnecessary to be set primarily in Spain. Granted, it would've been worse if J N-T got his way to set it in New Orleans, which would not have worked at all. Saying that though, this doesn't really work either.

It's sad to see something like this coming from Robert Holmes. A writer whose previous scripts for Who ( Spearhead From Space, Deadly Assassin to name a few) were brilliant, and whose period as script editor on Doctor Who is widely regarded to be one of the best. He uses his creations, the Sontarans ( more on them later) , and reintroduces the Second Doctor and Jamie.

Let's talk about them. This was the last time Troughton played the Doctor on TV, and boy, is he underused. Episode One only has him in it for about Five minutes, Episode Two he appears a bit more, then in Episode Three, they turn him into an Androgum (Again, more on them later.). You can tell that Troughton loves the Androgum acting, and does a fine job of acting like a hungry pig. It's a pity still though that he's underused.

Now, Androgums. Shockeye is one of the most irritatingly bad enemies I have ever seen. His whole 'Arggh, I am gonna eat ya!' bit gets old quickly, and his most stupidest moment comes in Part 3. Here's a picture to basically sum it all up.

Oscar the thespian, pictured, is also a waiter, and when he refuses Shockeyes' Narg note, Shockeye feels the need to stab him in the chest with a two pronged fork and runs off, which is Oscar's fault, for not noticing how odd the ginger man with cereal stuck to his face looked..

Shockeye is also part of a really controversial moment, when the Sixth doctor kills him using cyanide.

Also comes with an inappropriate Bondish quip.

The Sontarans. So, yeah. Group Marshal Stike is seemingly cursed with getting injured horribly, resulting in only his leg remaining at the end.

The Sontarans are 

1. Both taller/shorter than each other
2. playing second fiddle to Chessene
3. Horribly used (They appear for about 10 minutes in total, one gets killed rather easily, Stike just goes around covered in coronic acid)

+

• Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines are back!
• Colin Baker does a good job, as does Nicola Bryant

-

• Chessene and Dastari are unconvincing villains
• Shockeye is more irritating than a hyper Stacy Solomon (google her Americans)
• The Sontarans
• The setting is unneeded.
• It's unlikely two people would take seeing 1) A giant silver globe flying over them as a plane, or 2) a police box that wasn't there when they arrived as normal.

RATING: 

62%

                     NEXT TIME: Robot, for real this time (hopefully).

I used to be a Group Marshal like you, then I took an arrow to the knee