140) THE TWO DOCTORS

A strong story that has great pacing and plotting throughout but suffers from many plot points which do not quite fit together. The whole plot about the Sontarans wanting to unlock the secrets of time travel is fine, but why does Chessene turn The Doctor into an Androgum? Patrick Troughton excels, but why? The Sontarans are squeezed into the sidelines and are never used to their full potential unlike in previous appearances. The series best filming location work, due to the Spanish overseas shoot shines throughout and the sets finally have money spent on them. The acting is some of the most memorable, John Stratton as the psychedelic barbaric hoarse voiced chef, Tim Raynham, and Clinton Greyn as the Sontarans, the former being the better of the two and Colin Baker notably improving apart from another ill-fitted line after killing a villain with poison. The script has some decent attempts at dark humour but is equally full of excruciating clichés including the over eccentric Oscar and his love of theatre and nature, the background music does not help one bit. Let us not get started after he is stabbed with a knife whilst terrible extras look on. The script is strong but suffers from some terrible dialogue, an obviously impending double back-stabber narrative, cheap make-up effects, and a rushed ending which is so desperate to kill all of the villains as quickly as possible. An overall good quality narrative which would have worked better as six twenty-five-minute episodes. ****​

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