Not
necessarily the best Six-era story,
but definitely my favorite, ‘cause Two and Jamie are everything. In fact, purely for those two, it might be my
favorite multi-Doctor story, beating out “The Three Doctors,” “The Five
Doctors,” and new Who’s “The Day of
the Doctor” – I realize that I’m biased, but I really don’t mind (a few
spoilers.)
The
Second Doctor and Jamie (in a seemingly post-“The War Games” arrangement) are
sent by the Time Lords to investigate experiments into time travel, since the
Time Lords aren’t down with anyone else playing with time. While there, everything goes naturally
pear-shaped, so much so that the Sixth Doctor, with Peri, is assaulted by a
memory of being killed, which shouldn’t technically be possible. As it happens, certain Big Bad alliances are
after time travel, and they need a Time Lord in order to get it. Six and Peri find Jamie while trying to suss
out what’s behind the Doctor’s mindslip, and the three work together to rescue
Two from the unsavory clutches of the villains.
As
with, it seems, any multi-Doctor story (on TV, at least – the comic “Four
Doctors” is pretty good,) the plot doesn’t have a whole lot to recommend
it. I like the question of free
scientific exploration vs. regulation, with the Time Lords wanting to keep
their eye on all time-related goings-on, and once the action moves to Seville,
I’m amused by oneshot characters Oscar and Anita. However, I really don’t like the man-eating
Androgums and all the uncomfortable stuff about treachery and killing just
being “in their nature.” Who has introduced a lot of alien races
that are “just plain bad,” but most of them (Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans – the
latter of which also appear here, looking weirdly svelte) are at least
engineered/built/bred specifically to be so.
Here we have a race that’s universally labeled as bad, untrustworthy, and
“savage,” and I never like it when sci-fi series paint with such broad strokes.
But
again, as with any multi-Doctor story, you’re not really there for the
plot. There’s regrettably little
inter-Doctor stuff, since Two is separated from the group for much of the
serial (and is especially poorly-served in a big chunk of the last episode,)
but we do get Jamie palling around
with Six and Peri, trying to puzzle out how this whole “different Doctor”
business works. His presence really
feels like the shot in the arm Six and Peri need in series 212 The Doctor is less disagreeable and not as
vocally critical of Peri – at times, he’s even somewhat nice to her, and I like
how fondly he remembers Jamie. With Who, nothing disappoints me more than
the Doctor and his companion(s) being in a bad place for an extended stretch of
time, and it’s good to see a softer dynamic between them here.
When we
do at last get some multi-Doctor
goodness, it’s pretty fun. Though not
the instant classic of Two and Three, Two and Six get the job done in the midst
of some delightful bickering, and there’s lots of entertainment to be had with
confused personal pronouns. Not to
mention, the very start of the story gives us a nice, uninterrupted bit of Two
and Jamie just doing their thing, which is lovely. We don’t normally get a lot of that in
multi-Doctor stories, and it makes for some fine nostalgia here. Both Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines are
effortlessly up to their old tricks in the roles, feeling so natural that I’m
more than happy to politely ignore the fact that they’re both 15 years older
than they were when we left them in “The War Games” (“The Five Doctors”
notwithstanding.) Just for a few
minutes, it’s as if they never left.
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