The Twin Dilemma (pt 4)
Good grief. Three weeks after part one had aired, anyone still watching finally got some payoffs and a much tighter-feeling episode that really is engaging. Just too little, too late. But the story now feels like it's got something to do. Shame that it took three parts of painful and uneven mishaps
The Doctor is largely on form again, save for a couple of brief moments (or perhaps he was upset that Hugo wasn't wanting to travel with him and Peri and that's the only way he felt he could respond at that moment.) Eric Saward's presence is definitely solidified in this episode and one can tell the improvements.
An early scene with the Doctor, Peri, and others discussing Noma and asking if he has fowlpest (bird flu!!) never fails to induce laughter.
Some lines, like "it'll be wonderous to see", "unfounded charges are best made by children", "a mental stroll in a park of psychic tranquility"m and so on, really sweeten the pot. Why weren't the preceding three episodes anything near as lively as part four just became?!
Lo and behind, the baddie states "Find the Time Lord's TARDIS" instead of "find the TARDIS", added by contextual depth in thatit was Azmael who shared his knowledge and likely cannibalized his craft for the sake of helping Mestor (under duress?). The episode, despite being a lot stronger, sadly can't answer every bit of minutiae remaining.
Placing a smaller planet into Jaconda's orbit won't send it crashing out and barreling toward the sun's gravity. Honestly, Mestor's soft-boiled plan is just dumb on so many levels. Maybe not from Mestor's POV as he was handed technology and means to rule, but then why not use those instead of causing an explosion that will take eggs thousands of years to land and hopefully not all of those destinations will be barren... or not populated by anyone wanting to eat an omelet or would otherwise discover what the creature was and kill it before their planet turned into Jaconda?!
Drak's death is pretty sad/tragic, actually.
There are some decent action scenes in this, low-key and low-budget or not.
Also, how can Mestor use his mind to open the TARDIS door?
I never noticed how shiny and refractive Hugo's belt buckle was until the light hit it and rainbow refractrionss appeared. Um, Doc, Studio 54 as we all had known it had closed something like four and a half years earlier...
Six's bravado at Mestor is nothing less than awesome. Shame Crozier didn't have the mindwarpy brain thing as organically as Mestor's innate ability was, or else he could have transferred Kiv into Peri differently. But an idea can be used a thousand ways.
Ha! Now ask how Mestor could have ruled Traken, or Marinus for that matter. Not that I'm counting, it's the effectiveness and application of the idea more than a tiny rubber stamp. And this story doesn't do much with it, but it's also part four.
Once Mestor is killed, the Jacondans' reactions are terrific.
More dark and dry wit when the Doctor finds Peri in the corridor. This time, it almost works thanks to the tonal quality of the episode having skyrocketed.
Now noticing the tone overall of this episode, I'm knocking a point off of each of the preceding three episodes because, if I rewatch those any time soon, it'll hit harder compared to how strong pt 4 is by comparison!
Wish Hugo had stayed on. The Doctor's brusque comment may be due to his only way he can think of reacting at the time as he'd rather keep Hugo on but doesn't know how. (A good story makes thinking into these motivational bits and pieces easier, I must say...)
In the final scene, the banter between Six and Peri is as apologetic as it is also close to fourth wall breaking as anything could get.
Plus, the story ends with one of the few times Six was known to smile (beyond the opening credits).
Even if "Androzani" didn't set the litmus test for tonal quality (much less a standard stumbled on by accident), Six's premiere has more issues than it should have had, felt rushed, yet lax and even directionless, and overall bizarre until part four. There ARE some neat ideas in this, as well as piquant dialogue in amongst the mucky, but other scenes and ideas either fall flat or sink, and the Doctor should have recovered by part two. Even without the layered events comprising his mental breakdown and temporary insanity-based strangling early on, the otherwise brave attempt to do something new with regeneration honestly does go too far - especially for a family show, something JNT generally was cognizant of (even by season 26) - this story was too experimental and placed at the worst possible time as being a season-ender to give a taste of the new personality, combined with making him controversial. It's no wonder season 22 brought in the old fan favorite monsters, something seasons 4 and 12 would also do en masse.
Ep 4 rating: 7.5, it's a real upward qualitative trend, but not enough to save the story.
Story overall: 5.375.
Good grief. Three weeks after part one had aired, anyone still watching finally got some payoffs and a much tighter-feeling episode that really is engaging. Just too little, too late. But the story now feels like it's got something to do. Shame that it took three parts of painful and uneven mishaps
The Doctor is largely on form again, save for a couple of brief moments (or perhaps he was upset that Hugo wasn't wanting to travel with him and Peri and that's the only way he felt he could respond at that moment.) Eric Saward's presence is definitely solidified in this episode and one can tell the improvements.
An early scene with the Doctor, Peri, and others discussing Noma and asking if he has fowlpest (bird flu!!) never fails to induce laughter.
Some lines, like "it'll be wonderous to see", "unfounded charges are best made by children", "a mental stroll in a park of psychic tranquility"m and so on, really sweeten the pot. Why weren't the preceding three episodes anything near as lively as part four just became?!
Lo and behind, the baddie states "Find the Time Lord's TARDIS" instead of "find the TARDIS", added by contextual depth in thatit was Azmael who shared his knowledge and likely cannibalized his craft for the sake of helping Mestor (under duress?). The episode, despite being a lot stronger, sadly can't answer every bit of minutiae remaining.
Placing a smaller planet into Jaconda's orbit won't send it crashing out and barreling toward the sun's gravity. Honestly, Mestor's soft-boiled plan is just dumb on so many levels. Maybe not from Mestor's POV as he was handed technology and means to rule, but then why not use those instead of causing an explosion that will take eggs thousands of years to land and hopefully not all of those destinations will be barren... or not populated by anyone wanting to eat an omelet or would otherwise discover what the creature was and kill it before their planet turned into Jaconda?!
Drak's death is pretty sad/tragic, actually.
There are some decent action scenes in this, low-key and low-budget or not.
Also, how can Mestor use his mind to open the TARDIS door?
I never noticed how shiny and refractive Hugo's belt buckle was until the light hit it and rainbow refractrionss appeared. Um, Doc, Studio 54 as we all had known it had closed something like four and a half years earlier...
Six's bravado at Mestor is nothing less than awesome. Shame Crozier didn't have the mindwarpy brain thing as organically as Mestor's innate ability was, or else he could have transferred Kiv into Peri differently. But an idea can be used a thousand ways.
Ha! Now ask how Mestor could have ruled Traken, or Marinus for that matter. Not that I'm counting, it's the effectiveness and application of the idea more than a tiny rubber stamp. And this story doesn't do much with it, but it's also part four.
Once Mestor is killed, the Jacondans' reactions are terrific.
More dark and dry wit when the Doctor finds Peri in the corridor. This time, it almost works thanks to the tonal quality of the episode having skyrocketed.
Now noticing the tone overall of this episode, I'm knocking a point off of each of the preceding three episodes because, if I rewatch those any time soon, it'll hit harder compared to how strong pt 4 is by comparison!
Wish Hugo had stayed on. The Doctor's brusque comment may be due to his only way he can think of reacting at the time as he'd rather keep Hugo on but doesn't know how. (A good story makes thinking into these motivational bits and pieces easier, I must say...)
In the final scene, the banter between Six and Peri is as apologetic as it is also close to fourth wall breaking as anything could get.
Plus, the story ends with one of the few times Six was known to smile (beyond the opening credits).
Even if "Androzani" didn't set the litmus test for tonal quality (much less a standard stumbled on by accident), Six's premiere has more issues than it should have had, felt rushed, yet lax and even directionless, and overall bizarre until part four. There ARE some neat ideas in this, as well as piquant dialogue in amongst the mucky, but other scenes and ideas either fall flat or sink, and the Doctor should have recovered by part two. Even without the layered events comprising his mental breakdown and temporary insanity-based strangling early on, the otherwise brave attempt to do something new with regeneration honestly does go too far - especially for a family show, something JNT generally was cognizant of (even by season 26) - this story was too experimental and placed at the worst possible time as being a season-ender to give a taste of the new personality, combined with making him controversial. It's no wonder season 22 brought in the old fan favorite monsters, something seasons 4 and 12 would also do en masse.
Ep 4 rating: 7.5, it's a real upward qualitative trend, but not enough to save the story.
Story overall: 5.375.
I think that, outside of the story being a bit too convoluted, its biggest problem is Light's motivations were a bit too silly, surely he had to know about the concept of Evolution long before coming to Earth. Still I think overall the story ends up being interesting and entertaining. I definitely recommend the Workprint Cut to anyone who has access to it, I think it really helped the serial although I don't remember the televised version much at this point (I last watched it 12 years ago, based off of my ancient posts in this very thread 
).
