Holistic Review: Despite its inventive monster and a surprisingly fun (if slowish) plot, The Twin Dilemma struggles to overcome its sometimes cringeworthy scripting and highly variable performances; even Colin Baker, who never met a line he couldn't deliver, is somewhat undermined by characterization that flirts with taking 'bold and innovative' to unwise extremes.
So here's the thing: for me, the choice between "fun but deeply flawed" and "dull but deeply flawed" is a very easy one. And if there is one thing that The Twin Dilemma isn't, it's dull. So, unlike the majority of fandom, my ranking doesn't put The Twin Dilemma anywhere near the bottom five. Don't get me wrong, it's never gonna make my list of favorites either, but despite all of its missteps, The Twin Dilemma does a few things very well indeed.
First let's talk about our new Doctor, Colin Baker, who burst onto the scene so memorably at the end of The Caves of Androzani. I often find, when reviewing Doctor Who stories, that I don't typically have that much to say about the Doctor, because his or her characterization remains relatively consistent from story to story. That is certainly not the case with The Twin Dilemma, which takes the exceedingly bold and daring tack of making the sixth Doctor not just short-tempered and occasionally rude — both features of Hartnell's Doctor as well — but actively unlikeable. Personally, I completely applaud that decision. One of the great things about Doctor Who is the way that a change in lead actor completely refreshes the series, and to some degree even shapes the types of stories that are told. This is all the more true if a new Doctor has idiosyncratic character quirks, particularly when their personality is a dramatic change from the Doctor before them. So I'm all in favor of experimenting with a wide range of possible personalities for the Doctor, up to and including a prickly, curt, arrogant, narcissistic one.
For the most part, it works really well here. Indeed, the script even derives a fair amount of comedic mileage out of the Doctor's new personality, above and beyond what natural humor and charm Colin Baker brings to the role. He's effusively complimentary of his own new appearance, he shows particular concern at the thought of his "noble" blood being spilled, he snaps his fingers at Peri to open the TARDIS door, and it's all played with a knowing wink at the audience. This is a vitally important detail: part of the reason why the fourth and sixth Doctors are so loveable, despite their occasional tempers, is that the scripts — and often their companions, and sometimes even they themselves — poke fun at their egos. (The third Doctor, in contrast, is hardly ever the subject of even gentle teasing, except rarely by the Brigadier, which is perhaps part of the reason why I find his haughtiness and self-centeredness so much less appealing.)
Hands-down, The Twin Dilemma gives us the series' best portrayal of post-regeneration instability. Most Doctors, if they experience any negative side-effects at all, suffer mild personality swings or, at worst, temporary amnesia and mixing up names. But the sixth Doctor — possibly as a result of the spectrox toxaemia, which was so severe that the fifth Doctor feared it might flat-out kill him — is plagued by extreme manic personality swings and paranoid delusions. I can't honestly say that if I'd been in the production team's shoes, I would've been comfortable making all the same choices they made, but I admire them for taking a risk, especially one which probably would've paid off had the sixth Doctor been allowed to mellow as planned over three-plus years.
The production team's most daring move, by most metrics, is the strangulation scene. As an adult, this scene is really difficult to watch, bearing in mind its parallels to real-world domestic abuse and violence against women. But viewed purely within the Doctor Who context, I think it's brilliant, precisely because it's a truly shocking moment. The Doctor is always protective of his companions' well-being — for goodness' sake, he literally just gave his life to save Peri's — so this unnatural murderous rage clearly signals that something is very wrong with the Doctor's regeneration. And, of course, it immediately conveys that the sixth Doctor, at least during this story, is going to be highly unpredictable. The scene is also resolved well, in that the Doctor has absolutely no memory of attacking Peri, which makes it clear — as he himself asserts — that he would never have been able to do such an awful thing if he were in his right mind. As I recall, the novelization ended this scene with the Doctor mewling in the corner, horrified by what he'd just done to Peri; but that scene almost portrayed the Doctor as a victim, so I think the onscreen version is preferable.
One might also raise the concern that the Doctor's first resort in this story is to kill Mestor with acid. Honestly, by now, we're long past the point when the Doctor's hypocrisy about weapons and killing was new and shocking, but perhaps it bears repeating, given how often this issue is going to crop up during Colin's era. Even Peri picks up a gun in this story, and it won't be the last time for her either. (Thanks, Eric Saward! I feel sure you had a hand in this!)
However, the story's determination to push the boundaries of acceptable Doctorish behaviour doesn't stop there. There are two things that any Doctor Who fan can tell you the Doctor must never be: cruel or cowardly. Unfortunately, to my mind, there are times when The Twin Dilemma toes slightly over that line. The sixth Doctor is indeed cruel at times; even aside from attempting to throttle Peri (and similarly attacking Azmael in part three), he repeatedly insults her, and he flies off the handle at Hugo for being too slow to free his feet from the slime trail. You could absolutely make an argument that these incidents fall more under 'rude' than 'cruel', but they still didn't sit right with me. As for cowardly, fortunately there's only one relevant scene: when the Jocondans find the Doctor and Peri in the tunnel on Titan III, he gets such an attack of cowardice that he tells them "it's all her fault!" and then uses Peri as a shield! Again, portraying the Doctor this way is an audacious move that on one level you have to respect, but for me, at least, it slightly undermined the character. Fortunately, his cruelty is debatable, there's only one scene of cowardice, and we can chalk it all up to post-regenerative mania, which is partly why this dramatic change doesn't overly bother me. Plus, the script repeatedly makes it clear that these are isolated incidents, and that the Doctor is now completely in control of his 'fits'... but that leads into another troublesome issue.
Problematically, the story never really makes it clear when the Doctor's post-regenerative instability has resolved. He assures Peri that it has, at the end of part four, but he made a similar assertion in part two, only to be proven wrong. This leaves open the possibility that the Doctor is still wrong, and occasional bursts of cowardice or malice might be an innate element of the sixth Doctor's personality. For Colin Baker's sake, I feel like there should have been some more explicit closure on this situation, to help restore Peri's (and the audience's) trust in him. For example, the story could've consistently portrayed the Doctor as an anti-hero up until, say, Peri's life is threatened by Mestor, at which point we see his true self emerge. (But the audience might not have made it through three episodes of a cruel and cowardly Doctor, so doling out regular doses of the character's authentic Doctorish side was probably the wisest move.)
Under ordinary circumstances, that lack of closure might not be such a problem. However, ending the season on that note probably wasn't the wisest move. Had this been the first story in the season, audiences would've quickly learned that the sixth Doctor was, indeed, not such a horrible person as he sometimes seems in The Twin Dilemma. Instead, this story was followed by a nine-month gap before Attack of the Cybermen aired, which threatens to leave a rather bad taste in the mouth for a very long time, and probably didn't leave audiences exactly eager to see what the sixth Doctor would do next. It wouldn't surprise me one iota if that single decision was partly responsible for the poor treatment that Colin Baker subsequently received.
Which, it bears repeating, is really unforgiveable, because Colin Baker is far and away one of the best things about The Twin Dilemma. Not only is Baker immediately charming, even despite the abrasive way his character is scripted, he shows off his acting chops every which way to Sunday, giving such a range of emotion and nuance to every single line, using physicality to enrich his performance, and demonstrating excellent timing, both comic and dramatic. I could praise nearly every one of his lines, but I'll single out "You don't even know what a peri is, do you, Peri?", "I was speaking figuratively; it shouldn't come to that.", "Ooh, no... wait a minute, awkward.", along with the shifting expression on the Doctor's face as he considers Peri's name, and the cat-like way he stalks Peri while she stands stock-still, docile and trembling. Despite how many times he's asked to trot out his trademark "repeat X three times with increasingly greater incredulity" snowclone-catchphrase (which I think is a fun and fitting character quirk), he manages to do it differently every time. It's because of Baker's delivery that some of the sixth Doctor's more arrogant lines are softened; consider the way he says "That's what I mean. It may take even me a few days.", "Do I look otherwise?", "You may well find it isn't quite as disagreeable as you think.", and his rueful admission that "I no longer even have any clothes sense!" These glimpses of the sixth Doctor's vulnerability is precisely what the character needs, especially during this story.
Colin Baker handles the script's grandiloquent dialogue effortlessly, even when it forces him to give an extremely heightened performance, as in the alarming moment when the sixth Doctor cowers into the clothes rack, rambling with paranoia and then laughing maniacally. That can't have been an easy scene to perform naturalistically, but Colin does it, and makes it unnerving too. Clearly someone was clued into his love of language, because the sixth Doctor is already being scripted lots of quotations, and other florid lines, which Baker declaims with relish. (One of my favorites is "I'm a knight errant, not an errant fool.") Just about the only lines he can't spin into gold are "Silence, wretch!" to Noma, "Somewhere, somehow, their seed survived. Now they have returned.", and the unnatural episode 3 cliffhanger which requires him to shout "No! Peri!" at a room where Peri is not (much like the episode 2 cliffhanger, which gives Nicola Bryant equal difficulty when she has to sob to the tune of "Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, Doctor!").
When the sixth Doctor actually gets to be Doctorly, he's superb. He shows no hesitation about trying to rescue the crash survivors, he intuits the kidnapping scheme with impressive accuracy, and most wonderful of all, the second he steps into Mestor's throne room, he's instantly commanding, refusing to be intimidated in the slightest by a giant slug. The moment he starts to get sassy with Mestor, the Doctor we know and love comes roaring back in full force (and I mean those words quite literally).
And you know what? I love his coat of many colors. I don't care what anyone says. (Except Colin Baker, of course. For his sake, I wish he'd gotten the black leather duster he wanted!) Yes, Colin and the fans are absolutely right that this is not the sort of coat that anyone should wear if they want to stay hidden in the shadows, as the Doctor often does, but I sort of think that's a key point. Contrary to what this story sometimes implies, the sixth Doctor has no desire to remain unnoticed. If he doesn't like something that you're doing, generally speaking, he's going to march straight up to you and tell it to your face. The brashness of this attention-grabbing coat is a perfect match for the sixth Doctor's personality, and its alleged tastelessness — though in my opinion it's no more tasteless than the majority of multicolored patchwork quilts — tells me that the sixth Doctor is not a man who cares one whit what other people think of him. He's perfectly confident in who he is, and stylistically, he likes what he likes, which is admirable. Is this magnificent coat something I would ever wear? Heavens no, not with a straight face. But I am not a trendsetter, a fashion icon, or an eccentric alien genius. I can totally believe, however, that the Doctor would wear it. This outfit also makes him instantly recognizable, especially from a distance, so from a marketing standpoint, it's shrewd. (I only feel bad for the poor comics artists who had to draw this multi-patterned coat repeatedly from every possible angle! And I do wonder: with all the blues and greens in the shoulder-area fabrics, however did they manage any CSO effects during his tenure?!) My other favorite elements of his outfit: the brightly-colored watch fob, and of course the rotating cat badge (this week it's white with black stripes), which he cutely rubs for luck. (We cat people have to stick together.) The only part that I might have changed out are the striped yellow trousers, but that's purely because of my personal bias against yellow clothing. (See Mysterious Planet comma The. And for that matter Terror of the Vervoids. What is it with the Colin Baker era putting everyone in yellow?)
Poor Nicola Bryant is quite poorly served by The Twin Dilemma, in some ways moreso than Colin. Not only does it give Peri essentially zero role in the plot — the only positive contribution she makes is spotting the self-destruct mechanism — it seems actively determined to torpedo her winning personality. Sure, Peri has a tendency to be nervous and sarcastic and pessimistic and forthright, but in her first two stories, we've never seen this unattractive side of her. Long before the Doctor tries to strangle her, Peri sets the tone for their new relationship when she repeatedly hurls cruel insults at the Doctor, who's initially quite chummy and eager to please. By her own admission, his only crime thus far is that, in Peri's eyes, he's no longer — gag — young and cute. Her attacks on his self-esteem are nothing short of bullying:
Peri: "Have you the faintest idea what you look like?"
Doctor: "Eh, my outward appearance is of no importance whatsoever."
Peri: "Well, it is to me. I have to live with it." (She reaches into his pocket for a mirror.) "Here. Look at yourself."
Despite her cruel insults, the Doctor keeps trying to win her over, but now Peri's in a mood and angrily rebuffs him at every turn, making no effort to be gentle with his feelings:
No wonder the Doctor can't pass up the opportunity to smugly get his own back, by "yuck"ing her own outfit. Peri's coming across as resentful and vindictive, continually provoking him, and in contrast to previous (and future) companions who experienced a regeneration, her primary emotion is neither disbelief nor curiosity; rather, she seems to be pouting. It's suuuuuch a bad look.
This is a huge shame and an opportunity lost, because Peri is critically important as an audience surrogate during this story. Like Peri, we're shocked to find that our 'sweet' Doctor has been replaced by a bellowing, hot-tempered egomaniac. Had she attempted to bridge the gap between them, or at least maintained her faith that the true Doctor was buried somewhere underneath all the bluster and delirium — rather than lashing out and fighting back at every opportunity — Peri could have guided us all through the Doctor's unstable regeneration. Instead, we're presented with near-constant bickering, as the two of them compete to launch the most hurtful barbs. It's almost as uncomfortable as watching your parents fight.
Nor do matters improve much as the story progresses. The Twin Dilemma brings out all of the worst facets of Peri's personality. Aside from her cruelly sharp tongue, Peri reacts to the Doctor's out-of-character (for her) melodrama by swinging to the opposite extreme, trying to balance out his reckless bravado with excessive caution, to the point that she constantly tries to talk the Doctor into giving up and just staying in (or going back to) the TARDIS. She panics about the atmospheric conditions and radiation levels on Titan III without even looking at the readings, she protests that they won't be able to defend themselves from aliens (since when has that ever stopped them?), she attempts to talk him out of looking for crash survivors, she accuses the Doctor of not knowing where they're going (uh, there don't seem to be many options in this non-branching service duct) and then begs to rest although time is of the essence, then pleads, "Oh, let's get out of here." (The Doctor is understandably dismayed by her apparent disregard for human life, but the mutual name-calling that results from both sides is upsetting.) As cowardly as the story occasionally makes the Doctor look, Peri comes off even worse.
Happily, there is one upside to the Doctor's apparent cowardice. When he decides that Peri's right, and maybe they should just go back to the TARDIS, his determination to retreat forces Peri to reconsider her own position, stop being such a contrary Mary, and instead urge him onward. For that reason alone, it's a brilliant and much-needed scene, despite its effect on the Doctor's character. But it's a shame that there was any need for it at all.
Along with her apparent cowardice and nonstop complaining, Peri remains foul-tempered throughout the story. When the Doctor innocuously (if conspicuously) quotes Longfellow's Excelsior, Peri snipes, "Oh, Doctor, stop it!" (She doesn't say this like she's concerned about him drawing attention to their presence, but rather as though everything about him is annoying her.) Roughly 25 steps away from the TARDIS, Peri whines, "I'm so tired!" (I could maybe forgive this one, given that she's still recovering from spectrox toxaemia, but she's so accusatory about it.) Upon finding that the TARDIS has materialized on a muddy Jocondan hill, Peri spits, "Doctor, it's absolutely ghastly!" When the Doctor admits she was right about his coat and confesses to his mental health issues, Peri snaps, "Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself!" As the Doctor leads them through the Jocondan palace, Peri pessimistically huffs, "Well, I just hope you don't get us lost!" Can the woman say a single nice thing to him? When Peri verbally savages the bad guys, her moxie makes me cheer, but I find it uncomfortable to watch her dressing down the Doctor. (Not that he doesn't at times deserve it, as when he unfairly accuses her of getting Hugo stuck, or abandons her in his impatience to find Azmael.) It's so pervasive and so awful that at one point, I had to wonder if The Twin Dilemma was single-handedly trying to sink Peri as a companion. Had she continued on in this vein, rather than being one of my favorite companions, Peri would've become one of my least favorites.
Fortunately she did not. In the hands of other writers, Peri returned — if not quite to her Planet of Fire glory days — to a much more mellow, lighthearted character. So I really have no-one else to blame but scriptwriter Anthony Steven for treating her character in such an appalling way, though John Nathan-Turner and especially script editor Eric Saward, who performed significant rewrites, must unfortunately take part of the blame too, for allowing it to happen. As we'll see throughout this review, poor scripting doesn't only affect Peri. This is, however, the story which kicks off the writers' tendency to script Nicola Bryant very un-Peri-like flowery dialogue. Surely the scriptwriters just had no idea what an actual American college student would sound like. Instead of giving her naturalistic spoken lines, they typically script her dialogue as if she were a native speaker of written English (!), often an antiquated British dialect to boot. This week, I present these as evidence: "What absolute rubbish!", "It's the diminutive of my proper name, Perpugilliam.", "I haven't the faintest idea.", "Do you think that wise?", "But do you think that wise? There, there could be enormous danger... even worse!" (the Doctor actually seems to find this convincing!), and "It's called compassion, Doctor. It's the difference that remains between us." Bryant herself reportedly strove to have this sort of dialogue altered — I specifically remember her pointing out that no American would ever say 'rubbish' — but to no avail. Therefore, I have to give an extra thumbs-up to the rare lines that really do sound like something that would come out of Peri's mouth, including "I think I'm gonna be sick." and the delightful "That's the seediest-looking stately home I've ever seen."
Lest it seem like I'm solely harping on Peri this week, I do want to commend The Twin Dilemma for the few things that it does right with her character. First, there are times where Peri's old Planet of Fire assertiveness peeks back through. Granted, as I said earlier, I far prefer this when she's venting her ire at the bad guys rather than the Doctor, but I still appreciate anytime Peri voices her refusal to be silenced. This line, in particular, made me cheer despite myself:
Second, she has a couple moments of proactiveness, when she cleverly thinks to disarm Hugo's gun and hide the power pack, and when she calls the Doctor's attention to the self-destruct mechanism.
And I really like her outfit this week, though I know some elements of fandom disagree. Peri had a few really great looks during her tenure (and a couple of atrocious ones, *cough*Mindwarp*cough*), but I'm a big fan of her plaid blouse (echoing the same fashion sense as her pale pink-and-yellow plaid from Planet of Fire) and kelly-green skirt, with that classy gold necklace. But really, her slouched grey boots are where it's at. I really dig those boots. (Colin Howard's fantastic illustration of Peri in the Time Lord RPG book showed them off really well.) She also gets a handful of great lines which Bryant hits out of the park: "You don't remember what you did, do you?", "But, but there is one thing, though.", "Leave me alone!" to Hugo (woohoo go Peri!), and "I thought you'd been killed." One of Bryant's best scenes is in part one, as a terrified and traumatized Peri tries to convince the Doctor that his 'fits' are becoming dangerous.
The idea of a combative relationship between a Doctor/companion team isn't inherently bad by any means. It's another bold move by the production team, rooted in past precedent. Not only does it hark back, yet again, to Hartnell's characterization, we've also seen comparable interactions more recently, between the fourth Doctor and Leela, the fourth Doctor and Romana, and the fifth Doctor with Tegan. And to be fair, there are a few moments in the script where their argumentative relationship really works, especially when it brings out Peri's unintimidated side. Peri's reluctance to re-engage with the Doctor after his attempt to strangle her is, of course, more than justified, and their confrontation about the Doctor's narcissism is one of their best character-development moments. This could've been a great feature of the first episode, had there been two caveats. First, The Twin Dilemma needed to include more hopeful moments demonstrating that their same caring relationship was still buried underneath all the bickering. By the end, there are tiny hints that their relationship is softening, which is a good start. (For example, Peri and the Doctor seem to bond over healing Hugo, Peri's actively glad to see the Doctor again after believing him dead, the Doctor describes her as "Such a nice girl.", and they actually smile at one another after the Doctor gently informs her "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not.") But given the amount of vitriol that they heap on another throughout the story — which suggests that they're both trapped in a toxic, mutually abusive relationship — the ratio still feels unbalanced. Second, this arc should've played out during Colin's first season, mellowing the two of them more quickly (as in the early Hartnell years) rather than tainting nearly the entirety of Bryant's tenure.
Relatedly, this story has a shut-up counter to rival the Moffat years:
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Shall we talk about Lieutenant Hugo Lang next? Almost every element of his scripting, from his background to the way he meets the Doctor and Peri, screams out that he's being auditioned for a companion role. Plus, as an interplanetary pursuit officer, he has a potentially useful skillset, and a character type (disciplined and weapons-trained) that's never been seen in a long-term companion, unless you count Sara Kingdom and the Brigadier. Sadly, scriptwriter Steven forgets the part about giving him a personality, though I also have to begrudgingly admit that Kevin McNally's performance doesn't fill in any of those blanks. Hugo comes across as half-heartedly aggressive (but quick to back down) and... that's about it, really. But then his plot function also ceases once... well... okay actually he never really has a plot function, aside from putting the Doctor on the twins' trail, and shooting some of Mestor's henchmen. Maybe he would've fared better in the hands of other writers, but I can only breathe a sigh of relief that he wasn't brought on board the TARDIS, no matter how much it might've helped the 6/Peri dynamic to have a third person to bounce off. (I somehow don't think a third hothead like Hugo would've been the best choice in that regard anyway. Can you even imagine?) Besides, he does keep repeatedly threatening to kill the Doctor. Alas, McNally's performance comes across as a bit flat on lines like "What is this place? Who are you?" and "I thank you for your offer, Doctor, but frankly, I find you unreliable." And of course we can't forget about his hilarious pronunciation, re the inherent flaw in Azmael's planet relocation plan: "Does Miss Daw know this could happen?" (I've decided that Miss Daw is Mestor's drag queen name. Just picture him with massive fake eyelashes and glittery antennae. Miss Daw is ready for thou craggy knob, hunty, and she's gonna slay the runway... with embolisms.) I will yet again proudly admit to liking Hugo's metallic jacket; yes, it's rather garish, but I'm a fan of the highly saturated colors! (However, the fact that he picks exactly the garment in which Peri hid his power pack beggars belief. Bad scriptwriter, go sit in the naughty corner and think about what you did.)
And then of course we have the titular twins, Romulus (Gavin Conrad) and Remus (Andrew Conrad). I actually really love the idea of basing a story in some way around a pair of twins; the concept allows for lots of fun plot possibilities, even though the only one that The Twin Dilemma plumps for is having them occasionally speak in unison. On the plus side, Romulus and Remus are highly intelligent young men, brave and not easily cowed.
The downside is that they highlight the delicate balance between the quality of a script and the quality of a performance. Here's the thing about Anthony Steven's script: most of the 'bad' dialogue, in my opinion, isn't really all that atrocious, but certain performances make the lines seem worse than they are. As I discussed in my review of The Ultimate Foe, even Robert Holmes could script some lines that were real clunkers, and only a handful of lines in The Twin Dilemma are just irredeemably bad. Colin Baker, for example, is able to make practically every line he's given sound like it was written by Shakespeare, but what it takes — what you have to do to salvage a questionable line of dialogue — is find the right angle to deliver it, typically emphasizing some kind of heightened emotion, like the sixth Doctor's unselfconscious narcissism. For example, check out the way Baker delivers "Not for us the pleasures of Vesta 95! [...] If this poor hive is to be cleansed, there's only one recourse!"
The Conrad twins, regrettably, play almost all of their lines straight. Rarely is there a clever twist of intonation, or any particular emotion other than 'stroppy'. That's exactly what the script doesn't need, on lines like these:
Remus: "It's very disconcerting to have a large void in the middle of one's mind!"
Romulus: "Our genius has been abused!"
Between the two, I think Gavin Conrad is slightly stronger as green-clad Romulus, though it might be more accurate to say that his lows are not quite as deep as these:
Remus: (sounding relieved) "I feel... well... I don't feel grown-up any more!" (buries head in hands)
Still, Gavin as Romulus has his unsubtle moments too, as when 'Edgeworth' affixes a green circle to his wrist, and Romulus immediately goes blank-eyed, like a switch has been flipped... or when he gets his memories back and, rather than displaying any signs of relief or joy or disorientation or recollection of any sort, immediately turns to look uninterestedly at Remus, as if assuming he's no longer in shot. Plus the awkward pause in the line "You? We forgive, Father. But not Mother."
As characters, the twins are interesting enough in concept if bland in execution, though I'm not exactly sure why the story decided that the most brilliant mathematical minds in the universe would be two teenagers, rather than say an esteemed scientist. It certainly makes a change, though it carries the risk that sometimes comes with casting child actors. (It's a shame that JNT apparently wasn't opening to casting twin girls; not only might the performances have been stronger, given that the Conrad twins evidently hadn't had much prior acting experience, but it would have also added a lovely feminist subtext.) I must also admit that I'm not sure their particular genius makes any sense. Apparently their specialty is converting equations into... pure energy? That sounds like gobbledegook to me.
Dennis Chinnery only has a couple of scenes as the twins' father, and overall he's perfectly fine, giving the impression that Professor Sylvest is mildly concerned about them but not particularly attentive. The twins demonstrate an effortless ability to get under his skin, though it's impossible to say which came first. It seems that both of the twins' parents want nothing more than to avoid them as much as possible, which hints at an intriguing and sympathetic (though possibly self-inflicted) backstory. But I do have to ding Chinnery's delivery of "Your mathematical skill could change events on a massive scale, don't you realize that!", which sounds purely frustrated and not at all awed, which might be more realistic. Though perhaps I should cut him some slack, seeing as how he is futilely trying to assert his parental authority over two smug geniuses who know perfectly well how wonderful they are and don't need any reminding.
As Commander Fabian, Helen Blatch doesn't seem entirely comfortable with the dialogue ("This is something I've always feared!") but overall she's great as a curt, decisive leader of the interplanetary pursuit squad. Dione Inman, playing her assistant Elena, delivers her lines with an extra oomph of eagerness that I appreciated; it gives her character a hint of backstory (she's obviously eager to please), and it enlivens lines that actually could've been delivered straight.
In a story full of giant slugs, child geniuses, riotous outerwear, and bickering frienemies, Maurice Denham brings a sense of kindly dignity to proceedings as Edgeworth/Azmael. In a questionably-scripted story, the truly brilliant actors rise to the top like cream, and Denham is certainly one of them. Among many great lines, I must single out "Its new master... its new master is a creature of infinite ambition", and "Well, the old times are gone forever." Azmael's exhaustion after communicating with Mestor feels bone-deep, as does his struggle to contain Mestor's mind within his own. His former (offscreen) friendship with the Doctor is a nice touch in the script. It doesn't greatly impact the unfolding plot, but their relationship is ultimately quite sweet, with Azmael dying in the Doctor's arms after confessing to a great fondness for the memory of their last evening in one another's company. Still, even Denham struggles with a few lines, like "Let it not concern you now." and another that I'll mention below, and I'm not sure that his zombie-lipsync, when Mestor speaks through him, is terribly persuasive. (Sashay away, says Miss Daw. And so he does.) On an unrelated note, his name always makes me think of Gargamel's cat Azrael. Sorry.
Barry Stanton flies under the radar as Noma — the makeup disguises so much of his face that he tends to blend in with the other actors playing Jocondans, and the character's plot function is never clearly delineated — but his performance is one of the story's most naturalistic, and he has a lovely stentorious voice. Having perused some other reviews of this story, I seem to be firmly in the minority in appreciating Stanton's performance, but as a scheming second-fiddle villain, I think he works well. Mind you, for all Stanton's acting skill, he too gets a line that tumbles unnaturally out of his mouth (the overly-arch "No, I must remain, I too have been — commanded."), but I like his crowing-style screams as Mestor dies, one of the only non-makeup elements of anyone's performance that's inspired by the Jocondans' avian ancestry.
Drak (Oliver Smith) comes into his own in part three, wherein he declares his desire to be Azmael's friend. It's a sweet moment, but completely out of the blue; nothing he's done up until this point has implied that he was on Azmael's side. And by the start of part four, having gotten nothing further to do, he's dead, his mind burnt out by Mestor's surveillance.
Seymour Green distinguishes himself as the self-important Chamberlain by virtue of his, for lack of a better term, theatrical performance, in the best possible sense. The Chamberlain seems well aware of his privileged position, and lords it over everyone else, especially in Mestor's presence. I loved the dramatic flourish he gives to his line "Vegetables from the royal hatcheries, my lord!" (Vegetables on Joconda are hatched? Who lays the eggs? Please tell me it isn't the Chamberlain.)
I actually really like Mestor, our villain/monster of the week. Conceptually, he's brilliant. Maybe it's just me, but I love the idea of an ancient and feared race of giant stinky space slugs who descend upon helpless planets and rapidly devour every speck of plant life, down to the last leaf and blade of grass. His backstory, that his egg was presumably a lone survivor of the ancient Jocondans' attempts to eradicate the gastropods — a battle that has since passed into legend — introduces some logistical niggles but enriches the story's atmosphere. Delightfully, the story elevates him beyond what could've been a cartoonish portrayal by endowing him with a wide range of truly fearsome mental powers. He can carbonate people's blood, causing them to die by embolism, and he can not only read minds but control them, pluck them out (leaving behind a vegetative body while he rifles through the disembodied mind) or inhabit them (essentially possessing his victim, a process which typically kills them). He's even powerful enough to remotely open the TARDIS door, and invade a Time Lord mind! Given his presumed limited mobility, these mind powers make him a formidable and terrifying foe, which is not the sort of thing you expect to say about a supersized slug. Somehow Mestor still comes across as a second-rate monster, but that's certainly no fault of Edwin Richfield, who turns in a superb performance; his booming mellifluous voice is plenty menacing enough to emote right through the inflexible mask. He even makes "Is this the Earth girl you say you killed?" sound good.
Even the ordinary gastropods (assuming they're not all mind-flayers) have a memorably squicky talent: they leave slime trails that harden like quick-setting concrete. Mind you, this ability is only really useful if someone happens to step into a fresh trail, as Hugo does (in a scene I really enjoy). And it does suggest that every passageway should be thickly carpeted with layer upon layer of slime trails, which they are obviously not. (The handful of pitiful yellow squiggles painted on the floor of Mestor's throne room are embarrassingly unconvincing in this regard, especially when directly compared to the other slime trails that we see. Though perhaps for some reason Mestor doesn't leave slime trails, given that Azmael can walk right up behind him without getting stuck.) Nevertheless, the mere idea of it is evocative and gross.
Mestor's plan is another of the story's major strengths. I absolutely love his hatchery full of leathery eggs, and the concept that the planet must be destroyed in order to trigger their hatching. The way Mestor plans to go about this, too, is pretty brilliant. His idea is to manoeuvre the two outer planets into Joconda's orbit, ostensibly as agricultural resources, but secretly so that the increased gravitational pull will send them spiralling into the sun, where they'll cause a massive explosion that destroys Joconda and scatters his developing young through space in search of new planets to consume. The truly brilliant touch is that he throws off their suspicions by claiming that he'll solve the gravitational complications by shifting the new planets forward in time so that they can cohabit the same physical space as Joconda — a concept which the story has already illustrated to us, when the Doctor tries to teleport back in time to the TARDIS — which handily explains why he recruits a Time Lord. (Or perhaps how he planned to exploit the Time Lord who happened to already be there.) It's surprising that Azmael hasn't spotted the 'flaw' in Mestor's plan, but on the upside, it's always best to give those moments of brilliance to the Doctor. Now, I don't know that Mestor's plan makes total sense — in fact, I'm sure it doesn't, because I know fandom gripes about the science in this story — but it does seem to me that there shouldn't be any problem with smaller plants adjusting to a closer orbit, given that Mercury and Pluto have no problems at opposite ends of our solar system. But it's explained with enough conviction to make me buy it.
Except that I fear there's a fundamental flaw in the premise. We're told that the giant gastropod lifecycle requires exposing the eggs to the intense heat of an exploding sun in order for them to hatch. Later, regarding the original gastropod that invaded Joconda, the legend says that its "offspring were numberless; they ravaged the population." So if the gastropod laid its eggs on Joconda — one of which apparently laid dormant for millennia before hatching Mestor, who now evidently has at least two or three hatchlings of his own — then how did the eggs hatch? And what triggered Mestor's hatching? (For that matter, how do the gastropod eggs ever hatch? Orchestrating the explosion of a star cannot be a simple matter, else Mestor would've already done it himself. Perhaps this is why they're a rare, near-mythical species? After a planet has been stripped bare, their eggs survive dormant for millennia until its destruction?) Is it possible that the gastropods can lay two different types of eggs, one 'instant' version that hatches normal-sized gastropods, and one 'hardy' version that launches giant egg-laying gastropods into space? I should perhaps also criticize the point that hatching his eggs will also mean destroying Mestor and all the other gastropods on Joconda, but maybe they're doomed anyway now that they've eaten everything on the planet; anyway, it's not unheard of in the animal kingdom for mothers to sacrifice themselves so that their young can survive, as in several species of spider including Stegodyphus lineatus and Amaurobius ferox. But it does seem a bit weird that he'd be perfectly happy to kill off his living offspring, after scouring all of Joconda to feed them.
Otherwise, the plot falls between two stools. On one hand, it's rather slow to get moving. The main plot thread doesn't really engage until over an hour into the story, partway into episode three; everything beforehand is setup and filler. On the other hand, all of the padding is pretty fun. The majority of these scenes are devoted to character-building between the Doctor and Peri, which gives us a more personal stake in the unfolding action — not to mention Colin Baker's lively, attention-grabbing performance — and the plot bounces around nicely between the TARDIS and the kidnapping pursuit and Titan III. Once the Doctor and Peri arrive in the safehouse, the action starts to build; even though this plotline is tangential to Mestor's plan, it at least starts to fill in some of the backstory.
Alas, I must admit that I think Malcolm Clarke's incidental music does not help The Twin Dilemma's reputation. Which is a shame, because Clarke has composed a couple of scores that I absolutely adore. But this week, the music hits some really sour notes, literally. It's wince-inducingly atonal as the Doctor pins his new cat badge to his lapel, and to a lesser degree as he tries to cut open a gastropod egg. It comes off way too twee and jaunty when Peri shows off her new outfit to the Doctor, and it puts a ridiculous amount of emphasis on the moment when Noma declares that he's been told to stay put in Azmael's lab. But I do like the score as the twins play equations in their room, as the Doctor examines the orbital model, and as Azmael departs our mortal coil.
For me, the story's sets divide neatly down the middle. In the first half of the story, they're great. The twins' room is such a fitting way to begin the Colin Baker era. It's so bright and colorful, with its soothing purple windows, yellow chairs, neon shelves, and the very cool silver/red and copper/green space backgammon board, not to mention the twins' vivid jumpsuits. (Tacky though they are... Those shoulderpads!) There's even a jumbo Rubik's Cube on the table! (Unsolved, I might add. Some geniuses they are.) The geometric designs throughout their room are a nice touch, appropriate for two genius young mathematicians.
I looove the interior of the safehouse, another thoughtfully-decorated set with a predominantly silver color scheme and pink accents around the doorways, and textured walls that appear to have been carved out of the rock. I can totally understand why some people aren't keen on the sofa covers and the apparent use of tinfoil, but evidently my love for shiny things means that they don't bother me (aside from the weird and cheap-looking black-tape zigzag markings on the front of one of the consoles). Some of this set's especially cool touches are the glass artwork on the coffee table, the drillhead-like sculptures by the door, and the nifty floor-mounted consoles on their flexible-looking stalks.
On Joconda, the sets aren't quite as interesting. Azmael's laboratory is perhaps more spacious than most research labs, or perhaps I should say that the space just isn't well-used; there are a few instrument panels and scientific models dotted around, including a nice rotating mobile of the planets dangling from the ceiling and an interesting terrarium-looking thing on a pedestal, but most of the room is empty. Still, the color scheme is nice, and I adore the map of the Jocondan solar system that dominates one wall. It is, at least, attached to the incubator room, which is of interest for its rows upon rows of gastropod eggs (and a couple of watercooler bottles!). Mestor's throne room is probably my least favorite of the sets; it's a bit less grand than one would expect, lined with a random assortment of worn-looking benches and pedestals, and Mestor's throne appears to have been draped with a charming but uncharacteristic yellow-and-blue-gingham quilt. Well, I shouldn't say 'uncharacteristic'. Maybe slugs love gingham, what do I know.
It's a shame that the script called for two barren locations in the same story, though at least Joconda is a brown-barren compared to Titan III's grey-barren.
And of course quite a lot of the story is set on the TARDIS, which secretly I always enjoy. (One could make the case that it takes the Doctor and Peri rather too long to leave the TARDIS and get involved in the plot, but in some ways, The Twin Dilemma is more of a character piece for the two of them than a drama piece. And yes, I said drama. Stop laughing, you in the back.) In particular, it's really nice to see the wardrobe room reappear, looking much the same as it did in The Androids of Tara, only more disorganized, which feels appropriate.
Between the Jocondans and Mestor, the makeup team really gets to flex their muscles this week. The Jocondans, with their feathery hair and silver horns and slate-blue skin, are a triumph. They look utterly realistic, and the makeup is just different enough between individuals to make them believable as a genuine alien race. I particularly love the way their feathers ruffle in the breeze. Their only downside is their noses, which look as if the make-up team shaped a rough beak out of aluminum foil and glued it to the tip without really bothering to hide the join or the difference in textures. Mestor isn't quite so successful from the neck down — his body looks more like a fun-fur Sasquatch (with ruffles) than a slimy slug, and the total lack of mucus doesn't help — but his mask, especially the cool design of the eyes and nose area, is just fantastic. And if a slug must have hands (and feet?!?), Mestor's webbed ones, with wrinkled palms, are pretty cool.
There are no bad effects this week, but there are definitely some iffy ones, namely the two that look like they were created by overlaying basic Photoshop shapes. The circular green death-by-embolism effect isn't particularly wow-inducing (which is putting it mildly), but Roger Nott's performance totally sells it. Then, when Azmael banishes Mestor's mind, a thick wavy black line unconvincingly vacates his body. (It reminds me of the demon-exorcism effect on Supernatural, if it required way less budget and minimal animation skills.) There's also an odd moment when the Doctor prepares to leave the TARDIS for Titan III, and we hear the doors opening, but they don't actually budge. On the upside, I really like the superimposition of Mestor's face over Azmael's, particularly on the first occasion, when their eyes line up almost perfectly. Other pleasing effects include the gel-like circles on the twins' wrists, the communication fritzing out as the freighter goes into warp drive, the burning wreckage of Hugo's fighter, the anatomical cross-section as Azmael enjoys the revitalizing modulator, the jar of acid (or whatever) exploding in midair as it hits Mestor's defenses, and the icky effect of Mestor's body dissolving, as grey goo squirts out of his crumpling face.
For the first time since Spearhead from Space, our new Doctor comes with a new(ish) title sequence. Basically it's the season 18 to 21 sequence with added colorful lights and a fish-eye-lens logo, but I really like the changes, especially the rainbow kaleidoscope background, the Doctor's face forming out of stars, and the flaring noise as the logo snaps into focus. It's an appropriately multicolored opener for the Colin Baker era.
The fact that I completed my entire first viewing of The Twin Dilemma without making a single note about Peter Moffatt's direction is perhaps indicative of how creative it is. On the whole, it's just kind of static, with few interesting angles or clever techniques to show off his artistry. Moffatt does frame some nice shots (Peri hovering behind the Doctor as he declares himself to be "Regenerate, yet... unregenerate!", and the pan around the Doctor to show him holding a flask of acid), but the picture also briefly loses focus on several occasions. No great highs, no great lows, it's just average.
My one childhood memory of The Twin Dilemma — which may or may not be entirely accurate with regards to the timing — is that shortly after we had moved to North Carolina in December 1987, my parents called me downstairs because Doctor Who was on. To my great surprise, it was The Twin Dilemma, a story I'd never seen before. I'd almost definitely seen Caves of Androzani by that point, and I recall having read the story titles for Colin's first season (probably from one of the Peter Haining books) before I'd watched it, so I don't remember being surprised by the appearance of a new Doctor, like I was with McCoy. But this might explain why I was so shocked when McCoy turned up, if I first saw The Twin Dilemma in early 1988, because our new PBS station started airing season 24 in March 1988. I must not have even seen the Trial by that point. So that's only two or three months, max, enjoying Colin Baker as the incumbent Doctor.
I also have a sudden and viscerally immersive memory of finding the Twin Dilemma novelization, protected inside a plastic sleeve, in my favorite Raleigh-area comics shop, Foundations Edge. I can almost smell the shop just thinking about it. I've always loved the cover of that one, with its bright green artwork depicting Mestor and his eggs, though I wish it had included Colin Baker.
Minor points:
Doctor: (admiring his reflection) "Ah! A noble brow!"
He proudly shows Peri the mirror; she rolls her eyes at him.
Azmael: "Oh, come now, do you think I look as though you're going to do you harm?"
Azmael: "What is this place?"
Romulus and Remus: "We do not know."
Doctor: "A peri is a good and beautiful fairy in Persian mythology. The interesting thing is, before it became good, it was evil."
Doctor: "He was going to kill me, Peri!"
Peri: "I guess he was. Poor guy."
Doctor: "Peri!"
Peri: "Well, he didn't know what he was doing! I mean, think what he must've suffered to act like that!"
Doctor: "Kindly refrain from addressing me as Doc, Perpugilliam."
Doctor: "Pilgrims need a place in which to meditate. We were searching for a cave when we happened to stumble into your service duct."
Azmael: "And your companion?"
Doctor: "My disciple."
Azmael: "A pretty one."
Doctor: "A most devout young person."
Noma: "It is what the Lord Mestor would have wished."
Doctor: "Now look, Sergeant –"
Peri: "Lootenant!"
Doctor and Hugo: "Leftenant."
Remus: "Why do you like to play the man of mystery?"
Romulus: "It's a role you play very badly."
Remus: "You're so blatantly transparent!"
Azmael: "Continue to provoke me and the matter that contains your genius will finish up as so much animal fodder!"
Doctor: "Azmael showed me once." (pointing) "This passage –" (reconsiders, points the other way) "– leads to the center of the palace."
Noma: "Why don't you kill her?"
Mestor: "I find her pleasing. Pleasing!"
Remus: "We can't work like this."
Romulus: "There are too many interruptions."
Noma: "You will do exactly as you are told."
Romulus: "Then we won't do our best."
Doctor: "In my time, I have been threatened by experts. I don't rate you very highly at all."
Peri: (re: Hugo) "Look after him, will you?"
Romulus and Remus: "Yes. Good luck."
While Hugo ventures into the TARDIS to confront the Jocondans, the twins have a seat outside to wait.
Doctor: "I don't like you."
Hugo: "No, I've nothing to go back to Earth for. I've no-one there."
Doctor: "That I can believe."
Despite the drubbing that it regularly receives from fandom, I think there's actually a lot to recommend The Twin Dilemma. Its monster is a particular highlight, his evil plot is interesting and imaginative, it's bright and colorful and energetic, and a lot of time is lavished on the characterization of, and relationship between, the regulars. Sure, it has its downsides, but in my opinion, none of them are completely irredeemable. The dialogue is of a lower quality than usual, but the more talented actors in the cast are typically able to make it sound just fine; and anyway, it's hardly uncommon for Doctor Who stories to include lines that sound terribly stilted when they're badly delivered. Meanwhile, the story takes some laudably bold risks with the Doctor, though sometimes it pushes the envelope a little too far. In most cases I think the risk was worth it, though I can understand why others might disagree. For me, the only major drawback is its unapologetic portrayal of Peri as a spiteful grumpy sourpuss — or, as my mother would have said, a jerk-face rat-face weasel-face — which does her no favors, and for some viewers probably frittered away every ounce of goodwill she'd gained from her first two stories. But if you find Peri's attitude more relatable than off-putting, and you can handle your Doctor Who with a little cheese, then you'll find plenty to enjoy in this oh-so-memorable tale.