The Two Doctors (TV story)

Look at the size of that thing, Doctor!Jamie McCrimmon

The Second Doctor and the Sixth Doctor bump into each other and a group of Sontarans.

Synopsis

The Sixth Doctor arrives at Space Station Chimera and bumps into an old friend, Jamie. The two incarnations of the Doctor join forces to stop Dastari and Chessene from performing dangerous experiments in time.

Plot

Part One

The Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon land the TARDIS on board Space Station Chimera in the Third Zone, on a mission for the Time Lords, who have also installed a teleport control on the TARDIS that grants them dual control for the occasion. The Doctor explains to Jamie that the station is a research facility and they are here to have a discreet word with Dastari, the Head of Projects. The TARDIS materialises in the station kitchen, where they meet Shockeye, the station cook. Shockeye is an Androgum, a member of a primitive, emotionally and ethically bestial humanoid race which acts as the station's workforce, and is confrontational until the Doctor reveals he is a Time Lord. Suddenly deferential, Shockeye eyes Jamie hungrily and offers to buy him from the Doctor as the main ingredient for a meal. The Doctor, shocked, refuses, and takes Jamie away to see Dastari. As they leave, however, they hear the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising. This is observed by Chessene, an Androgum technologically augmented to mega-genius levels. Chessene has plans of her own, involving someone named Stike who will be arriving in force soon, once Shockeye's poisoned meal to the scientists takes effect. She has also taken possession of the Kartz-Reimer module.

The Doctor speaks to Dastari in his office, telling him that the Time Lords want the time experiments of Kartz and Reimer stopped. The Time Lords have an official policy of neutrality, and so have sent the exiled Doctor to maintain deniability. Dastari introduces Chessene, but the Doctor is sceptical as to whether such augmentation can change Chessene's essential Androgum nature, and he considers such tampering dangerous. Meanwhile, three Sontaran battlecruisers appear near the station, on an intercept course. Before the station's defences can be activated, Chessene incapacitates the technician on post and opens the docking bays. Back in the office, the Doctor warns that the distortions from the Kartz-Reimer experiments are on the verge of threatening the fabric of time, but Dastari refuses to order them to cease, accusing the Time Lords of not wanting another race to discover the secrets of time travel. As the argument grows more heated, Dastari grows faint and falls into a drugged stupor. Energy weapons fire begins to sound in the corridors and the Doctor orders Jamie to run as a Sontaran levels a gun at the Doctor.

Somewhere and somewhen else, the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown are on a peaceful fishing trip. When they return to the TARDIS, Peri is startled as the Sixth Doctor sways and collapses — just as, back on the station, Jamie spies the Second Doctor in a glass chamber, writhing in agony as a Sontaran manipulates controls. In his TARDIS, the Sixth Doctor awakens, somehow having had a vision of himself as his second incarnation being put to death. He realizes that this is impossible, since he is still alive, but he is also concerned that he may have died in the past and only exists now as a temporal anomaly. He decides to go and consult his old friend Dastari to see if he can enlist his help.

The TARDIS materializes on the station, but everything is dark, and the smell of decay and death is everywhere. The station computer demands the Doctor leave, and when he refuses, tries to kill him and Peri by depressurising the passageway. The Doctor, however, manages to open a hatch and drag his unconscious companion through to another section. In Dastari's office, the Doctor discovers the scientist's day journal and the Time Lords' objections to the Kartz-Reimer experiments, but refuses to believe his people are responsible for the massacre. Peri suggests someone is trying to frame the Time Lords and drive a wedge between them and the Third Zone governments. They leave the office to enter the service ducts, work their way to the control centre and attempt to deactivate the computer before it succeeds in killing them.

On Earth, Chessene, Shockeye and a Sontaran, Major Varl, take possession of a Spanish hacienda by killing its aged owner, Doña Arana. Varl sets up a homing beacon for the Sontaran ship, while Chessene absorbs the knowledge of the old woman's mind, discovering that they are in Andalucia, just outside the city of Seville. Varl announces that Group Marshal Stike of the Ninth Sontaran Battle Fleet is in descent orbit. Meanwhile, two people, Oscar Botcherby and Anita, are approaching the grounds. Oscar, an ex-English stage actor who is managing a restaurant in the city, is here to catch moths, armed with a net and a cyanide killing jar in his backpack. He and Anita see the Sontaran ship zoom overhead, and observe through binoculars Dastari and another Sontaran carrying an unconscious Second Doctor towards the hacienda. Anita pulls Oscar along, thinking that they are victims of an aeroplane crash and need help.

Down in the bowels of the station, the Sixth Doctor tries to disconnect the main circuit. Suddenly, Peri is attacked by a humanoid in rags, and when her cries distract the Doctor, he is hit by a gas trap and falls unconscious, becoming entangled in the wires.

Part Two

Peri knocks out her attacker and frees the Sixth Doctor, who saved himself by shutting off his respiratory passages. He disconnects the computer's main circuit, and the two find that Peri's attacker was a half-delirious Jamie, who has been hiding all the while. Jamie moans that "they" killed the Doctor, and under hypnosis, tells the Sixth Doctor what has transpired, giving a description that the Doctor recognizes as the Sontarans. Returning to the office to examine the station records, the Doctor suddenly sees Peri in the glass tube, writhing in pain. As he frantically works the controls to free her, the person in the tube changes from Peri to Dastari to the Second Doctor and even to himself. When Jamie and Peri return to the office, the Sixth Doctor explains that what Jamie saw was an illusion designed to make people believe the Doctor was dead and not investigate further (the animator had been left on and captured Peri's image), which means the Second Doctor is being held captive somewhere. The Sixth Doctor theorises that the Sontarans kidnapped Dastari as well because Dastari is the only biogeneticist in the galaxy who could isolate the symbiotic nuclei of a Time Lord that gives them the molecular stability to travel through time. If given time travel, the Sontarans will be unstoppable. The Sixth Doctor decides to put himself into a telepathic trance to try and determine where his past incarnation is being held. He awakens having heard the sound of the Santa Maria, the largest of the 25 bells at the Great Cathedral of Seville.

In the cellar of the hacienda, Dastari and Chessene set up equipment, keeping the Second Doctor drugged and passive. Dastari questions why they have come to Earth, and Chessene explains that it is conveniently situated for an attack Stike wishes to make on the Madillon Cluster against the Rutan Host, and that Shockeye also wanted to taste the flesh of humans. Dastari heaps scorn on Shockeye's primitive urges, and urges Chessene to remember that she is beyond those, now. The TARDIS materialises on the grounds near the hacienda, and Oscar approaches it as the TARDIS crew emerge, thinking it is a real police box and that the Doctor and his companions are plain-clothes police officers. Taking advantage of the mistake, the Doctor asks that Oscar lead him to the hacienda.

Dastari reveals his plan to dissect the Second Doctor's cell structure to isolate his symbiotic nuclei and give them to Chessene. The Second Doctor calls him mad, and protests that her barbaric Androgum nature, coupled with the ability to time travel, will mean that there will be no limit to her evil. The Sixth Doctor asks Peri to create a distraction at the front door of the hacienda while he and Jamie make their way into the cellar via a passage in the nearby ice house. Peri calls out, interrupting Dastari's operation. She poses as a lost American student, but Chessene is suspicious, having read thoughts of the Doctor in her mind. Chessene gets Shockeye to bring the Second Doctor, strapped into a wheelchair, through the hall, to see if Peri reacts. She does not, as she has never seen the Second Doctor before. Peri makes her excuses and leaves, but Shockeye chases her anyway, eager for a meal.

Meanwhile, the Sixth Doctor and Jamie are in the cellar, where the Doctor examines the Kartz-Reimer module, a prototype time machine modelled on Time Lord technology. He explains to Jamie that once the briode nebuliser of the module is primed with his symbiotic nuclei — the Rassilon Imprimatur — it will be safe for anyone to use. Unfortunately, the Sontarans have heard him. Outside, Shockeye also catches up to Peri.

Part Three

Shockeye knocks Peri out and brings her back to the hacienda kitchen. In the cellar, Stike threatens to kill Jamie unless the Sixth Doctor gets into the module and primes it with his symbiotic print, and the Doctor does so. Stike is about to execute Jamie anyway, but Jamie stabs Stike's leg with a concealed knife, and the Doctor and he run off upstairs, where they find the Second Doctor. Before they can release the Second Doctor and escape the hacienda, however, Shockeye shows up with the unconscious Peri. The Second Doctor feigns unconsciousness while the others hide.

While the Sixth Doctor and Jamie watch from their hiding place, they hear Chessene voice her concern that now that a second Time Lord is involved, the other Time Lords will be arriving as well. However, she has a contingency plan. She asks Dastari to implant the Second Doctor with some of Shockeye's genetic material, turning the Doctor into an Androgum and under her thrall, following which they will eliminate the Sontarans. However, Dastari and Chessene are unaware that the module is now primed, and that, outside, Stike is preparing to leave in it once Sontaran High Command has been notified and leave no one alive when he does so. Stike orders Varl to set the Sontaran battlecraft's self-destruct mechanism.

Interrupting Shockeye as he is about to slaughter Peri, Chessene gets him to bring the Second Doctor to the cellar. Once there, she stuns Shockeye so that Dastari can remove his genetic material. The Sixth Doctor revives Peri in the kitchen and ushers her and Jamie away. The Sixth Doctor tells them that what he revealed about the Imprimatur in the cellar was not strictly true — he had heard Stike approaching and the speech was for the Sontaran's benefit. The machine worked for the Doctor, but will not for them because the Doctor has taken the briode nebuliser.

Dastari has implanted the Second Doctor with a 50 percent Androgum inheritance, and when Shockeye wakes in a rage, he finds a kindred spirit in the transformed Doctor. They decide to go into the town to sample the local cuisine. In the meantime, Dastari lures the Sontarans into the cellar, where Chessene attacks them with two canisters of coronic acid. Varl is killed, but Stike, though wounded, manages to escape. He tries to use the module, but without the nebuliser, it severely burns him instead. Stike staggers towards his battlecraft, forgetting about the self-destruct. The ship explodes, taking him with it.

The Sixth Doctor, Peri and Jamie follow the Second Doctor and Shockeye into Seville, hoping to cure him before the change becomes complete and affects the Sixth Doctor as well. Dastari and Chessene are also seeking the two of them, knowing that unless the Second Doctor undergoes a second, stabilizing operation, he will eventually reject the Androgum transfusion. The Second Doctor and Shockeye go to Oscar's restaurant, ordering gargantuan amounts of food. When Oscar demands that they pay, Shockeye stabs and kills him, just as the Sixth Doctor and the others arrive. Shockeye leaves the Second Doctor behind, who slowly reverts back to normal. As all of them leave the restaurant and the distraught Anita, however, Chessene and Dastari appear, taking them back to the hacienda at gunpoint.

Chessene and Dastari find the nebuliser on the module missing, and the Sixth Doctor tells them how he primed the machine for Stike. To test the truth of the Doctor's claim, they replace the nebuliser and send Peri on a trip with the module, and she survives. Chessene gives permission for Shockeye to eat Jamie, and the Androgum takes him up to the kitchen. Left alone for the moment, the Sixth Doctor smugly confirms the Second's suspicions — the nebuliser is sabotaged, with a thin interface layer so it would only work once for Peri. Flipping the table over on which the key to their chains rests, the Doctors retrieve the key. The Sixth Doctor frees himself first, and runs up to save Jamie. He encounters Shockeye in the kitchen, and the Androgum wounds him with a knife. Shockeye pursues him through the grounds, but the Sixth Doctor finds Oscar's pack and his cyanide killing jar. The Doctor ambushes Shockeye, covering his head with Oscar's butterfly net and pressing the cyanide-soaked cotton wool to his face, killing him.

The sight of the Time Lord's blood on the ground is too much for Chessene, who falls to her knees and starts licking it, to Dastari's disgust. He realizes that no matter how augmented she may be, Chessene will always be an Androgum, and decides to free the Second Doctor and his companions. When Chessene sees this, she shoots and kills Dastari. She tries to shoot the Second Doctor and Peri as well, but Jamie throws a knife at her wrist, making her drop the gun. Chessene goes into the module, hoping to escape, but the module explodes, molecularly disintegrating her and turning her back into a common Androgum in death.

The Second Doctor uses a Stattenheim remote control — which the Sixth Doctor covets — to summon his TARDIS. He and Jamie say their goodbyes and leave. As the Sixth Doctor and Peri make their way back to their own TARDIS, the Doctor tells her that from now on, it will be a healthy vegetarian diet for both of them.

Cast

Crew

References

The Sixth Doctor fishes for Gumblejack.
The Doctor's multicoloured umbrella makes its first appearance.
The Doctor attended the inauguration of Space Station Chimera before "falling from favour". Somehow Dastari has heard that the Doctor is no longer "flavour of the month" on Gallifrey.
The Doctor is able to close his respiratory passages when he detects the poisonous gas, and can telepathically contact his previous incarnation on the "astral plane".
The space station was created by various Third Zone governments.
Sontarans have green blood, and are vulnerable to coronic acid.
Shockeye calls humans Tellurians. His money (narg notes) is redeemable on any of the Nine Planets.
Peri offers to get the Doctor celery when he seemingly faints, and he then talks of jelly babies and his recorder.
The Doctor has been to Seville before.

Time travel

Ripples in time can be measured on the Bocca Scale (Kartz and Reimer's experimentation measured 0.4).
The Doctor talks of the holistic fabric of time, which might have been punctured by the Kartz Reimer experiments.
Time travel is impossible without some form of molecular stabilization system: Kartz and Reimer used a briode nebuliser, into which the Doctor copies the 'Rassilon Imprimatur', turning the module into a fully functioning time machine.

The Doctor states that much of what he said about time travel was for Stike's benefit and consequently not true. Therefore the following 'statements' could be taken with a pinch of salt:

That the biological make up of Time Lords features symbiotic nuclei, affording protection from molecular break up and symbiotic control of the TARDIS.
This protection is extended to other travellers in the TARDIS.

Story Notes

This story had working titles of The Kraalon Inheritance, The Kraglon Inheritance, The Androgum Inheritance, Parallax, The Seventh Augmentment, Creation.
The story opens in black and white featuring the second Doctor and Jamie.
This is the last occasion that Patrick Troughton features on screen as the Doctor.
This story like many of Season 22 was produced in 45 minute episodes, however when sold to other countries such as Australia and America the episodes were edited into 6 25-minute episodes.
Jacqueline Pearce, better known as Servalan in Blake's 7, appears here as Chessene.
This was the last serial of the 1963-89 series to be filmed on the European continent, thus ending semi-annual tradition that had begun with City of Death, and continued in Arc of Infinity and Planet of Fire.

Ratings

Part One - 6.6 million viewers
Part Two - 6.0 million viewers
Part Three - 6.9 million viewers

Myths

Shockeye is a cannibal. This is unproven as Shockeye, who had wanted to kill, cook, then eat both Jamie and Peri, is not human. For him to be a cannibal, he would have to eat Androgums. However, Chessene makes a statement that not all creatures eat their own kind, implying that Androgums do.
According to tv.com, this story was originally written for Susan and Richard Hurndall's version of the First Doctor. When Hurndall died, however, the show had to be rewritten to accommodate the Second Doctor and Jamie. It's unclear what sources tv.com are using as the basis of this assertion, so their claim cannot be completely ruled out as false. However, Hurndall is not typically associated with this serial, even at the earliest conceptual stages.
This story is the reason for the Season 6B theory. Though a commonly held belief, in fact the need for a gap between The War Games and Spearhead from Space was seen much earlier in Doctor Who fiction. The first proponents of the basic outlines of the Season 6B theory were the artists working on the Second Doctor's TV Comic run. The basic idea that the Second Doctor didn't immediately regenerate at the end of The War Games owes its existence to TVC: "Action in Exile", more than it does The Two or The Five Doctors. It does add a great deal to the Season 6B concept, however. The Two Doctors contains the innovation that the Doctor was, at least for a time before his regeneration, being sent out on special missions by the Time Lords. It also seems to establish that the Doctor might have been able to have gotten Jamie's memories restored, and that he somehow convinced an older Victoria to start traveling with him again. Decades later, the mini-episode DW: Time Crash provided a rationale for the Fifth Doctor having aged; the rationale could be extended to suggest why the Second Doctor appears aged here.

Filming Locations

Dehera Boyar (hacienda), Gerena/El Garrobo, Spain
Country Road, Gerena/El Garrobo, Spain
Seville, Spain
Rio Guadiamar (lake), Gerena/Aznalcollar, Spain
BBC Television Centre (TC6 & TC1), Shepherd's Bush, London

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

If the scientists aren't Humans or Androgums then what are they? They could be other species working on the station.
The Sontaran scout ships are called battle cruisers by the space station's computer. The computer may not have any other information on Sontaran ships.
Despite being a recluse, Dona Arana is able to supply Shockeye with a current list of Seville restaurants.
Dastari and the Androgums apparently speak English (according to the Dona Arana's comment on meeting them) despite being aliens who have never visited Earth before.
The Second Doctor was sent to Chimera by the Time Lords. However the Time Lords did not know where the Doctor was and Jamie had not heard of the Time Lords until The War Games. This is the reason for Season 6B theory.
So what is and is not true about what the Sixth Doctor said about the time capsule, when he knew he was being overhead by the General? He seems to imply to Jamie that he was making a lot of it up, but his actions seem to imply that what he said about needing to prime the cabinet was all true.
The Sixth Doctor hearing the Spanish church bell ring, as he linked minds with the Second Doctor while on the spacestation, might give him the location and approximate distance of his past self from it, but not a compass direction - i.e. Is the Second Doctor being held north, east, south or west of the bell? So how does the Sixth Doctor know where on the search radius to land the TARDIS?
Would Jamie really have reverted to such a feral state after having been abandoned on the station... and then recover his civility so quickly?
The concept of the Sixth Doctor slowly becoming an Androgum makes no sense. If what happens to the Second Doctor affects the Sixth then, the Sixth Doctor would not have gotten to this stage of his life - i.e. meeting Peri, coming after his own self, and everything else in between. The whole course of his life would have changed. It's a matter of proximity, and that these two points in the Doctor's life are in the same time zone. Additionally, the Sixth Doctor had just recently made a psychic connection with the Second Doctor.
Many viewers were shocked by the Sixth Doctor killing Shockeye in so direct a manner. This was completely contradictory to the characters of the previous and future regenerations. Other Doctors had killed before, but in self-defence or by accident. But the Sixth Doctor directly kills a humanoid by pressing a cyanide-soaked handkerchief to his face. This isn't the first time; see below for other examples.

Continuity

The Sontarans previously appeared in DW: The Time Warrior, The Sontaran Experiment, and The Invasion of Time.
This is chronologically the first time that the Doctor (in his Second form) has encountered the Sontarans, as the Third Doctor mentioned to Linx that he had met his species before.
The Second Doctor's role in this story is suggested to be part of Season 6B.
This is the first story to ever suggest that Victoria Waterfield is somehow involved in Season 6B. This episode goes out of its way, however, to mention that Victoria is off studying graphology, and that the Doctor and Jamie will return to her after their mission is complete.
In the opening sequence the Doctor and Jamie are clearly standing in the 'old' console room (previously seen prior to DW: The Five Doctors).
The scene where the Sixth Doctor poisons Shockeye is one of the few times that the Doctor has deliberately taken a life face-to-face. Other examples have included the killing of Solon (also using cyanide) in DW: The Brain of Morbius, shooting several Sontarans with the demat gun in The Invasion of Time and the shooting of the Cyber-Leader in Earthshock. (in all cases, there were in self-defence, the First Doctor once mentioned that he only took life when his own was sufficiantly threatened)
When Part 1 opens it begins in black and white but it changes into colour with in the first minute.

Timeline

For the Second Doctor:

This story occurs after DW: The Five Doctors
This story occurs before CC: Helicon Prime

For the Sixth Doctor:

This story occurs after PDA: Players
This story occurs before ST: Old Boys

DVD, Video, and Other Releases

DVD release

Released as Doctor Who: The Two Doctors in a two disc set. Released:

- Region 2 8th September 2003

PAL - BBC DVD BBCDVD1213

- Region 4 7th January 2004
- Region 1 1st June 2004

NTSC - Warner Video E1994

Contents:

- Behind the Sofa: Robert Holmes and Doctor Who - Looking at this popular writer.
- Beneath the Lights - A look at the studio recording.
- Beneath the Sun - A look at the Spanish location recording.
- Adventures in Time and Spain - Production Manager Gary Downie offers his insight into the making of the story.
- Jim'll Fix It - A 1985 edition with Colin Baker and Janet Fielding entitled A Fix with Sontarans.
- Wavelength - A BBC Radio 4 school programme goes behind the scenes (audio only).
- Music-only Option
- Photo Gallery
- Production Subtitles
- Easter Egg
- Commentary: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Frazer Hines, Jacqueline Pearce, and Peter Moffatt

Notes:

Editing for DVD release completed by Doctor Who Restoration Team.

Video Releases

Released as Doctor Who: The Two Doctors.

Released:

UK November 1993

PAL - BBC Video BBCV5148

Boxset release

This story was released in the Bred for War DVD boxset on the 5th May alongside all the classic series Sontaran stories. The DVD is the same as the one sold separately. Released 8th July in Australia.

Novelisation

Main article: The Two Doctors (novelisation)

Novelised by Robert Holmes in 1985.

External Links

Template:Season 22