The Twin Dilemma (TV story)

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The Twin Dilemma was the seventh and final story of Season 21. It was the first full story to feature Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. It was also the last story to feature half-hour episodes until Season 23.

Synopsis

A race of giant gastropods has taken over the planet Jaconda. Their leader, Mestor, now intends to cause an enormous explosion in order to spread his people's eggs throughout the galaxy, and he kidnaps juvenile twin geniuses from Earth to work out the necessary mathematical equations. Space fighters led by Lieutenant Hugo Lang are dispatched to get the twins back, but they come under attack and Lang is the sole survivor when his ship crashes on the asteroid Titan 3.

A newly regenerated Doctor and Peri become involved and help Jaconda's elderly former ruler Professor Edgeworth, who is really a Time Lord named Azmael, to defeat Mestor and free the planet's bird-like indigenous people from the gastropods' reign of terror. Azmael, however, sacrifices his life in the process.

The danger over, The Doctor tells Peri, "I'm the Doctor - whether you like it or not!"

Plot

Cast

Crew

References

Story Notes

  • This story had working titles of; A Stitch In Time, A Switch In Time.
  • New opening and closing title sequences make their debut a more colourful version than the previous one, incorporating Colin Baker's face rather than Peter Davison's designed by Sid Sutton and Terry Handley.
  • The cat badge worn by the Doctor in his lapel for this story was hand-made and painted by Suzie Trevor, and purchased for the programme from a specialist badge shop in central London.
  • Fabian was originally envisaged as a male character, and the Jocondan Chamberlain as a female one.
  • The Doctor attempting to strangle Peri marks the first (and to date only) time on television that the Doctor has intentionally attempted to kill a companion (his destruction of Kamelion doesn't count as that was a robot).
  • When in 2009 readers of Doctor Who Magazine readers voted on their favourite story The Twin Dilemma came in at 200 making it reader's least favourite Doctor Who story. Ironically, this dubious honour was achieved at about the same time the story was released to DVD in the UK, completing the DVD releases of the Sixth Doctor era.

Ratings

  • Part 1 - 7.6 million viewers
  • Part 2 - 7.4 million viewers
  • Part 3 - 7.0 million viewers
  • Part 4 - 6.3 million viewers

Myths

  • The Edgeworth character was originally intended to be the first Doctor. (He wasn't.)

Filming Locations

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

  • The altered revitaliser machine sends Peri 10 seconds back in time, and thus... back to the TARDIS? The revitaliser itself does not achieve this. However, the Doctor is fully aware that the TARDIS would detect any unusual time/space disturbance in its viscinity and redirect it to the control room for the Doctor to study (See Pyramids of Mars, The Awakening, Timelash, and The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, to name a few).
  • Why does Azmael bother with the 'Edgworth' alias? Anything to help cover his tracks. He has just kidnapped two children.
  • The Jocondan's awful death by embolism.
  • Azmael keeps a slug-killing potion hanging around, but has never thought of using it. It wouldn't have done anything if he did, since Mestor could shield himself from the attack. Azmael probably knew this, but since the Doctor didn't let him in on his attack plan, he never got the chance to warn the Doctor.
  • The tin foil sofa.
  • The twins believe Edgeworth's story that his teleportation into their living room is a conjuring trick.
  • Why do the kidnappers stop off on Titan 3? Their ship apparently took some damage in the pursuit.
  • Peri makes no mention of the Doctor's heroic sacrifice on her behalf, nor thanks him for it (no wonder he's touchy). Possibly a bit rude, but remember that she'd seen the man she knew completely transform into another one. That's bound to have thrown her off a bit.
  • Peri is lusted after by an alien hermaphrodite slug. Depends on how you interpret Mestor's "pleasing" comment.
  • She has a touching faith in the notion that, as a policeman, Hugo cannot be a homicidal maniac. That might be a bit naive on her part, but police forces are generally careful about admitting people that might have murderous tendencies.
  • The twins' father is indeed being 'melodramatic' when he tells them that their mathematical skills could change events on a massive scale. This isn't actually without precedent - it's appeared before in the form of Block Transfer Computation.
  • Why does Mestor need the twins to produce calculations to stabilise the orbit of the smaller planets, when in fact it would run counter to Mestor's objectives (and, according to the Doctor, is actually impossible anyway)?
  • when Elena operates her monitor to check out the freighter, it's filled with a mass of text. But towards the bottom, it says, "Run", allowing the actress to press one key and activate the graphics.
  • Sylvest tells Hugo that he found zanium on the floor of his house. When Hugo relays this to the commander, he elaborates it into "a dust-like deposit on the floor."
  • When the twins are playing equations, they suddenly move about a metre apart so that they have room to turn around and face each other.
  • After the Doctor regenerates, a smudge of mud has disappeared from his sweater.
  • The silver computer terminal in the safe house on Titan 3 is prone to wobbling - most obviously when Peri spots the bomb and the Doctor walks away to have a look.
  • Mestor's hair-brained scheme defies the most basic laws of physics and any kind of logic. The smaller mass of Jaconda's neighbouring planets will not cause their orbit to decay (in fact, Jupiter shares an orbit with the small trojan asteroids). Even if they did, the tiny mass of a planet would not cause a massive sun to explode. Weirdly enough, throwing a big enough planet into a star actually could cause its reactions to halt and begin a nova, at least in theory. The process would likely take centuries however, far longer than what the episode implies. Even if the gastropod eggs could survive a nova, it would be tens of thousands of years, at minimum, before a very tiny fraction of them would reach a planet.

Continuity

  • The transmat beam leaves behind a dusty residue, an effect also produced by the transmat used in DW: Bad Wolf.

DVD and Video Releases

  • The Twin Dilemma was released on DVD on September 7th, 2009. This was the last Colin Baker story to be released on DVD.
  • The Twin Dilemma was released on video in May 1992.

Novelisation

Twin Dilemma novel.jpg
Main article: The Twin Dilemma (novelisation)

External Links


Template:Season 21

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