The Two Doctors
Mar. 2nd, 2009 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dbskylerHad my very first snow day ever today -- building shut down, no going into work, all a very weird concept for someone like me who's originally from a place where it doesn't snow. And while I did have to still participate in some conference calls, and then did go out to enjoy the snow for a bit, I found myself with time this afternoon and decided to do what I've been led to believe is a typical "snow day" activity -- make some popcorn and put in the DVD. Well, of course the DVD was going to be "Doctor Who." But which? I perused my library and decided to grab an episode I hadn't seen in ages -- "The Two Doctors." Here is my review/reaction post.
This is the episode that made me fall in love with Jamie as a companion, and in my viewing today I still see why. He interacts very well with both Two and Six, and he has a wonderful mix of bravery, determination, talking-back-to-the-Doctorness and Jacobite naivety (describing Sontarans as "knights," for example). "I seem to recall I was always rather fond of Jamie," says Six, and we can see why. Even better, we can see that fondness continuing to come through very strongly in how Six acts with him. Wonderful character interactions throughout.
Speaking of character interactions, Six and Two are also two people who go together very well (even if they don't get on together very well). Six's anger at Two for getting him into the mess -- and Two's complete disdain for inconveniencing Six -- was very well played, and a perfect continuation of the "the Doctor meets himself and doesn't get along with himself" joke already established in "The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors." What was best here, though, was the fact that this was not a special-Time-Lord-intervention moment, but just a run-of-the-mill random encounter: "When you travel around as much as I do, you're bound to run into yourself at some point." (I'll try not to quote too much of the dialogue, but the episode has a lot of great dialogue.)
For me, the best moment was when Six said that the turning-into-an-Androgum operation done on Two would eventually reach him. First of all, it was a very nice reminder that these two very different characters are in fact the same person, and what is done to the earlier one has consequences for the later one. Second of all, it was a new type of jeopardy for the Doctor, and a very chilling one -- suddenly to be not yourself anymore, and not even because of anything done directly to you, but rather because of something done to your earlier incarnation. And I couldn't help but think of Three, Four and Five, wherever they were in their relative timestreams, all turning into Androgums as well.
Finally, the episode is just fun. The plot is interesting, the guest villains are engaging, the Seville location shooting is a treat, Peri is less annoying than usual and mixed in with all the monsters and danger is a nice amount of humor: "Small though it is, the human brain can be quite effective when used properly!" (Sorry, just had to get in that one last quote.) And who couldn't love an episode that adds the whole symbiotic-nuclei-briode-nebulizer stuff to canon?
This is the episode that made me fall in love with Jamie as a companion, and in my viewing today I still see why. He interacts very well with both Two and Six, and he has a wonderful mix of bravery, determination, talking-back-to-the-Doctorness and Jacobite naivety (describing Sontarans as "knights," for example). "I seem to recall I was always rather fond of Jamie," says Six, and we can see why. Even better, we can see that fondness continuing to come through very strongly in how Six acts with him. Wonderful character interactions throughout.
Speaking of character interactions, Six and Two are also two people who go together very well (even if they don't get on together very well). Six's anger at Two for getting him into the mess -- and Two's complete disdain for inconveniencing Six -- was very well played, and a perfect continuation of the "the Doctor meets himself and doesn't get along with himself" joke already established in "The Three Doctors" and "The Five Doctors." What was best here, though, was the fact that this was not a special-Time-Lord-intervention moment, but just a run-of-the-mill random encounter: "When you travel around as much as I do, you're bound to run into yourself at some point." (I'll try not to quote too much of the dialogue, but the episode has a lot of great dialogue.)
For me, the best moment was when Six said that the turning-into-an-Androgum operation done on Two would eventually reach him. First of all, it was a very nice reminder that these two very different characters are in fact the same person, and what is done to the earlier one has consequences for the later one. Second of all, it was a new type of jeopardy for the Doctor, and a very chilling one -- suddenly to be not yourself anymore, and not even because of anything done directly to you, but rather because of something done to your earlier incarnation. And I couldn't help but think of Three, Four and Five, wherever they were in their relative timestreams, all turning into Androgums as well.
Finally, the episode is just fun. The plot is interesting, the guest villains are engaging, the Seville location shooting is a treat, Peri is less annoying than usual and mixed in with all the monsters and danger is a nice amount of humor: "Small though it is, the human brain can be quite effective when used properly!" (Sorry, just had to get in that one last quote.) And who couldn't love an episode that adds the whole symbiotic-nuclei-briode-nebulizer stuff to canon?
