Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma

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The story is not as bizarre as fan reaction to it! We have everything from someone who assumes that Eric Saward, who wrote Colin Baker's best story, is to blame for this, to those who think it is total genius, and everything else in between! Sheesh!
Amazing! How can I put this. This story is remarkable in that, which ever way you want to look at it, it is at least entertaining (then again, so was Plan Nine From Outer Space!)and Colin Baker, while pretty painful at times, is also very compelling and engaging a lot of the time. There is also a beautiful turn from the guest star Maurice Denham as Azmeal, a great, great actor who does wonders with the role.
The script is fairly poor, but contains some outrageous and memorable dialog. The game plan, to make this Doctor seem evil and unlikeable and then redeem him gradually, seems ok in theory but the realisation, having him try to throttle Peri, is really off-putting and many think it hurt the show big time. Here I agree, I met teenagers who hated it and thought it sunk the whole series. The slug villain is pretty poor and the production has a tacky look, with a tasteless costume and garish titles at its heart, too detract further. But it is compelling viewing all the same. I cringe at the Doctor being so twisted in parts, but overall, this is contrived, tasteless but hypnotic viewing. Not a flawed classic, but a shonky pantomine with an utterly compelling black heart. It points to the series it was going to become before Michael Grade interefered, a black comedy of the darkest, most garish variety, realised brilliantly in later Bakers like Varos and Revelation. Initially, I loved the costume worn by Colin Baker, but grew tired of it later. But what an expression of individuality in the face of robotic sameness like Cybermen and Daleks. The last true Doctor is malajusted and over the fence, tasteless and annoying at times, but still has something edgey and interesting to offer. If nothing else, watching this will make you be thankful for the tasteful Peter Davison era!!! Overall, it's a bad story with redeeming qualities and is worth watching. But it's not your regular Dr. Who story!

As Whovians know, Doctor Who experienced its decline in the mid-1980's, and eventual cancellation in 1989. I am fairly convinced that it started with The Twin Dilemma and viewers' reaction to it, for in this serial, the bottom quite simply fell out of Doctor Who. I can understand and accept the idea of the Doctor becoming mentally unbalanced and irrational due to instability in a regeneration (this one didn't work well because the poison that killed the Fifth Doctor was so powerful), but the new Sixth Doctor does more: his behavior seems calculated (by the writers) to pointlessly shock and offend as much as possible. Forget his hideous clothing; did the production team think one would be entertained by the Doctor trying to commit murder; indulging in a pathetic display of self-pity, and displaying extreme cowardice before the enemy? The Twin Dilemma is so bad that it became the first Doctor Who video I ever disposed of (the second being The Happiness Patrol). I wish I hadn't bought my own copy, and I hope you don't, either.
Whovians widely agree that the rest of The Twin Dilemma's plot is pointless--basically, the Doctor needs to foil an attempt by locust-like, ravenous aliens from eating every last organic resource on every planet in their reach--so aside from learning why the Sixth Doctor behaves so strangely, which you now know anyway from reading this review, there is not much reason to see The Twin Dilemma.

Suffering from post-regenerative trauma worse than he did before (q.v. Castrovalva), he chooses as his new outfit a patchwork orange overcoat, yellow trousers with red stripes, a blue cravat with white polka dots. He also sinks down amid his wardrobe and wails of the "grinding wheels of the universe and the crashing boredom of eternity" before breaking down into mad laughter, and to top it all, he attacks Peri. Seeing that in regenerating he has become "unregenerate," he decides to become a hermit in order to cleanse himself and pilots the TARDIS to the moon of Titan III, where by chance his best teacher, Azmael, has kidnapped twins gifted with mathematical genius in order to procure them for his master Mestor.

The Doctor and Peri also rescue Lieutenant Hugo Lang, space corps commander who was pursuing the twins along with his squad, of which he is the sole survivor. After foiling an attempt to kill them by Noma, one of the two Jocondans assisting Azmael, they go to Joconda, once a beautiful forest world devastated by the attack of Gastropods, giant beings half human/half slug.

The new Doctor seems keen on denouncing his previous self, saying that he had a "feckless charm which wasn't me." On an interesting note, when Peri calls him "Doc," he brings up the memory of the First Doctor in "The Five Doctors": "Kindly refrain from addressing me as Doc, Perpugilliam!" And his remark on becoming "unregenerate" forecasts the Valeyard in the Trial Of A Timelord season.

The new Doctor's outfit fits his personality fine, and Peri's plaid blouse is not bad either--it's Hugo's shiny metallic shirt that fits the epithet "yuck." Heck, if I found an outfit like the Sixth Doctor's, I would "go out like that."

Colin Baker's verbal repartee is one of the reasons he was a successful Who actor, whether he is quoting from poets or rattling off words that silkily roll off his tongue: "I'm a knight errant, not an errant fool." Or how about this alliterative verbal attack on his assistant: "Poor pusilanimous Peri! What a pitiful performance!" Mentally wandering off is a "mental stroll in the park of psychic tranquility." It's easy to see why John Nathan-Turner picked Baker to succeed Peter Davison.

His Doctor is very expressive, and unpleasantly arrogant, but beneath all that, beats two kind hearts, which is important in keeping in line with his personality.

Mestor resembles a furry giant snail with a cross-eyed owl-like face. While his tone is menacing, the cross-eyes make him laughable. As the Doctor tells him, "In my time, I've been threatened by experts. You hardly rate at all."

And Gavin and Andrew Conrad as the Sylvest twins give a good performance as being rational, cerebral, but vulnerable. Remus tells his father: "Just because she gave birth to us, does that automatically grant her a place in our affections?" and that "respect must be earned." Those familiar with Roman mythology know the reference to Romulus and Remus.

Not a bad debut story, although not as excellent as Spearhead From Space or Castrovalva.