By Roy Mathur, on 2025-03-23, at 02:06:00 to 03:01:06 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
While 2025 UK commiserates randomly between bone-chilling cold, grey, wet and, paradoxically, merciless migraine-inducing sun, we ride the Tardis back to nice hot 80s Spain. (Sod's law, of course, since I wrote that, Blighty's weather has improved).
Notable Cast: Sixth Doctor: Colin Baker, Second Doctor: Patrick Troughton, Peri Brown: Nicola Bryant, Jamie McCrimmon: Frazer Hines, Chessene: Jacqueline Pearce (The Reptile, Blake's 7)
Director: Peter Moffatt (State of Decay, The Visitation, Mawdryn Undead, The Five Doctors, The Twin Dilemma)
Writer: Robert Holmes (19 Doctor Who scripts)
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: BBC Television Centre, Shepherd's Bush, Primarily La Finca La Caprichosa house, Rio Guadiamar, road in Gerana, Seville, Spain in 1984
Broadcast: Story 140, season 22, serial 4, following The Mark of the Rani (pod 569), 3 x c. 45 min, 16 Feb--2 Mar 1985
Media: Target novelization by Robert Holmes 1985, VHS 1993, DVD 2003 (with Jim'll Fix It's A Fix with Sontarans), (2010 without Jim'll Fix It's A Fix with Sontarans), Blu-ray 2022, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
UK no. 1: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) by Dead or Alive. Stock, Aitkin, and Waterman's first coke-fuelled (according to The Guardian) monster hit was a high energy, dancey, poppy earworm song by the androgynous Pete Burns. As I can't so this subject justice in a few lines, all I'll say is it was brilliant and I remember it well.
Thatcher continues to tussle with the miners, Guardian headline: Hopes fade on TUC pits initiative.
The BBC reported, Falklands' row civil servant resigns: "Ministry of Defence assistant secretary Clive Ponting...resigned...acquitted of breaching...Official Secrets Act...charged with leaking...documents about the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano in the 1982 Falklands War". The affair led to the government introducing a highly restrictive amendment to the act in 1989.
The second Doctor and Jamie arrive on a space station. He tells the head, Dastari, the Time Lords want and end to time travel research. Chessene, Dastari's uplifted Androgum protege, and her unmodified clansman, Shockeye, conspire with the Sontarans by drugging the crew's food. The Doctor is captured, while Jamie barely escapes into the interior mechanism of the space station after a knife fight with Shockeye.
Meanwhile on a distant planet, the sixth Doctor unsuccessfully fishes for delicious gumblejack with a bored Peri. They return to the Tardis, about to embark for the Great Lakes of Pandatorea, when he suffers a time travel malaise. He dreams of a previous incarnation executed and decides to consult Dastari. They find the station deserted and stinking from "the smell of death". After many perils, and an attack by a crazed Jamie, the Doctor telepathically tracks his old self to Spain.
In Spain Chessene, Shockeye, Dastari, and the Sontarans, impatient for time travel technology, have taken over an old lady's mansion. Dastari prepares to dissect the second Doctor "gene by gene" to discover the secret of time travel. Peri causes a distraction, while the sixth Doctor and Jamie sneak in through the ice house with the help of Oscar and Anita they met earlier.
Chessene instructs Dastari to create her a consort by converting the second Doctor into an Androgum using Shockeye's genetic material. Chessene disposes of the Sontarans with a poison gas bomb. Feeling betrayed, Shockeye arises, revives the Doctor. They visit a restaurant to sample Earth food where Shockeye murders the Oscar over the bill. The second Doctor's transformation degrades and everyone is captured by Chessene and Dastari.
At the mansion, the sixth Doctor escapes by ambushing Shockeye with Oscar's moth-killing chemicals and gives him his "just desserts". Seeing Chessene attracted to blood, a repulsed Dastari realises that she is a savage and swaps sides. Chessene kills him and tries to kill them all, until disarmed by Jamie's thrown knife. She tries to escape in the time machine sabotaged by the Doctor and dies, reverting to her coarser Androgum form with hirsute eyebrows and carbuncles.
It's great to see Patrick Troughton again. We last saw him in The Five Doctors (522).
Dastarin reminds me of Dr. Elias Huer in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but gone mad and bad. Let's talk themes. Dastarin's patrician elitism gone wrong when his protege Chessene seduces him, echoes the arrogance of the Roman colonial system of civilising barbarians (Romanization) and Arminius, a German, ex-Roman Legion officer's destruction of Roman legions in 9 CE. The other theme is that hoary old science fiction one of uplift. Whether it's Frankenstein cobbling together superman from corpses or the chimp and later simpleton in Lawnmower Man, it never ends well. Less seriously, it reminded my somewhat of My Fair Lady.
Immediately I see Jacqueline Pearce, it is obvious she is playing the role exactly like she played Servalan in Blake's 7. She is grandiose, flamboyant, and treacherous. Telling Dastari to make her an Androgum consort smacks of Bride of Frankenstein in reverse.
Comic relief is provided by the revoltingly glutinous for human flesh, Shockeye, played with charismatic gusto by character actor John Stratton. His species, Androgum, is an anagram of gourmand; something I'd never have cottoned onto had I not read it in Wiki. Shockeye's speech is Robert Holmes' vegetarian proselytizing on the cruelty and hypocrisy of humans' treatment of animals.
...there cannot be a creature on the planet that humans do not kill and eat. Many beasts are bred especially for table. They are force-fed to improve the flesh, and penned in small, confined quarters to fatten more rapidly. It's fascinating.There is also some comedy from a wimpy moth collecting hobbyist, part-time actor and restaurateur played by James Saxon, but it is Shockeye, albeit in a minor role, who steals every scene he is in. I'm sure also, that Holmes' script, full of Shockeye's lip-smacking musings on food, must have been influenced by Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, set in Spain and featuring sumptuous imagery of food.
Poor Jamie, after a knife fight with Shockeye who wants to eat him, he hides out inside the workings of the space station and reverts to savagery. (Much later in the story he is also strapped to a table and painfully tenderised by Shockeye). Yet another example of why gallivanting around the multiverse with a lunatic Time Lord might not be such a good idea. Jamie never comments on how Shockeye is basically a sci-fi version of a fellow Highlander. Primitive vs advanced but savage is very obviously another theme, but not fully explored. Perhaps a theme too far?
Poor Peri doesn't have much to do other than complain and run away. In a scene reminiscent of The Benny Hill Show, she is later chased down by Shockeye, who stands astride her. It's all the more disconcerting because he's lacivious not for sex, but to sate his appetite for exotic meat.
Group Marshal Stike is uncommonly tall and slim for a Sontaran. A later partially melted Stike blows himself up and all that is left is a single comedic prop of an eviscerated Sontaran leg.
This is about the abuse of animals, not so thinly disguised within the story of the catastrophic fallout of Dastari's irresponsible scientific research and imperious overreaching Time Lord meddling. Featuring two Doctors, two companions, Sontarans, Servalan---er---Chessene, and filmed in sunny Spain. Though it is not, it feels like a Doctor Who Special.
Chaos, that I assume is common to any and every showbiz production ever, included a lost guest wigs wardrobe disaster, a scratched film fiasco, a few scenes cocked up due to Shockeye's wobbling rubbery prop knife, his unaccounted for motivational changes when he is suddenly again Chessene's ally, a later Jim'll Fix It DVD retraction and the usual Eric Saward complaints.
Referring to Howe, walker, and Stammer's Handbook: The Unoffocial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who, let's hear from Patrick Troughton this time.
The Two Doctors is a beauty. The Sontarans I'd never met on screen before, and they're splendid. Colin Baker is super too. And Seville was fantastic. It was very hot, but we had a lovely swimming pool we could fall into. I read the script and dressed accordingly---no way would I have that fur coat!---Marston, R., 1984, Doctor Who Magazine 102
Since 2014, I have covered every single classic Doctor Who story. Arguably, some I have discussed rather fleetingly as this began as a casual revisit. Nonetheless, I shall continue to do so until we finish later this year, though I have been saying that for years.
I'm telling you this because mine seems to be one of the few podcasts doing this relatively consistently for so long. Actually, I don't know anyone else who has been mad enough to tackle the whole series from 1963--1989 in chronological order. Even madder, who would do the whole shebang solo?!
Obviously, I'm building up to something and that is I need help. My podcast is solely financed from my own pocket, not to mention the zillions of hours I have poured into this foolish venture, except for one generous donation of GBP 12 a few years ago; thank you, that person, I have not forgotten. I know people are listening and I know not all those listeners can donate, but even if only a fraction of you do, that would greatly ease my burden and let me know you appreciate my efforts. If you are unable to offer monetary support, a nice rating, comment, or correspondence would be greatly appreciated.