Reputations are a strange thing.

 

It was only a couple of years ago, having succumbed to the arrival of our forties, that Sophisticated Idiots finally got round to watching Citizen Kane. We approached it with a chonky slice of trepidation, saddled by the pressure that it’s widely considered the best film of all time.

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We duly loved it. And wholeheartedly concur that it’s the best film of all time.

 

The reputation is thoroughly deserved.

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The Twin Dilemma’s reputation also precedes it, for somewhat different reasons.

 

You don’t have to be much of a Who fan to know that Colin Baker’s debut story is notoriously dreadful. Widely considered the weakest entry in the entire classic series, its heinous crimes including an angry Doctor trying to throttle the beloved Peri and the twins of the title being the most hated characters in sci-fi until a certain Jar Jar Binks unfurled his floppy tongue.

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The sadist in us therefore visited this one early in our Doctor Who journey.

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And duly loathed it. And wholeheartedly concur that it is indeed absolutely dreadful.

 

The reputation is thoroughly deserved.

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​​Teenage twins. Doing Maths. With production design by Haribo. And a giant slug baddie.

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Sometimes Doctor Who can mash such madcap ideas together into something that avoids becoming an embarrassing mess. Delta and the Bannermen just about manages it. So does Terror of the Vervoids, sort of.

 

But unfortunately, there are just too many failings chipping away at The Twin Dilemma for it to have a chance of standing up.

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Let’s get the obvious out of the way.

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The twins’ performance involves more wood than the Trojans' horse-building workshop, and in hindsight the casting agent perhaps should have worked harder than just asking around the cast and crew for anyone who knew identical kids.

 

Yet a serial’s disaster can’t possibly be blamed on a couple of novice actors trying their best, so what else is going on here?

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For starters there are So. Many. Primary. Colours.

 

The Doctor’s outfit is hideous enough, thanks to Rupert the Bear stealing Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, without the rest of the production being caked in Unikitty’s rainbow puke.

 

With every aspect of the production – from supporting characters’ costumes to computer desk buttons – the art department have presented the Powers That Be with the option of a pastel shade or neon, and the luminescent has won out every time. Christ, we miss the black and white era.

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Collie B is probably unfairly lampooned for his costume, considering it wasn’t his choice and Davison’s garb was similarly ghastly. The mistake here is that the producers dialled it up to 11.

 

The coat alone could have been forgivable – a sartorial flair of eccentricity in keeping with the character – but adding the waistcoat, trousers, shirt AND the cravat is wanton abuse.​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’d love to say the costume was the only problem with this first taste of the Sixth Doctor.

But Baker’s performance chimes with the garishness of the serial.

 

Every line is delivered with the mania of a wannabe thesp stuck in a parochial am dram. Each syllable enunciated dramatically: think a bigot giving directions to a foreigner. Or a sarcastic adult scolding a child.

 

The director’s acting notes read simply: Earnest and Shrill. Which we’re pretty sure is the title of a daytime detective drama on Channel 5. It would be better than this drivel.

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We see what they’re trying to do with the Doctor’s character. In some ways it’s a neat call-back, as Hartnell of the first two stories was also a Grade A crap-vole.

 

But the First Doctor generally softened in those episodes, influenced by the humanity of Ian and Barbara (note his chagrin at almost braining a stricken caveman or their being captured by the Daleks being entirely his fault).

 

But here, the suits have again gone for excess and misjudged wildly. Over how many series were they planning to take the edge off the Sixth Doctor’s character? How much patience did they expect the audience to have?

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However, controversy alert… In the humble opinion of this discerning critic, The Twin Dilemma is not the weakest ever Doctor Who story. Not that this comment should provide false hope; nor any hiding place for every single person involved in this fiasco.

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With one exception.

 

Peri has little to do except be harangued throughout but Nicola Bryant delivers a performance of real grit. You can tell she doesn’t quite know what’s hit her (thankfully not literally, although we wouldn’t be surprised if the producers went there) and through her the viewers have a kindred spirit, in solidarity with her WTF demeanour.

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When she wails at Curly Colin, “I never saw anyone who loved himself so much with less reason,” you can hear the audience cheer.

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Of course, the biggest culprits in this omnishambles are the producers. The shift in tone from Caves of Androzani to this is head-spinning.

 

It's as dramatic as the contrast between On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever – Bond cradling his dead wife in one scene, in the next enjoying a Looney Tunes punch-up in a mudbath.

 

But at least that jarring incongruity was separated by two years. The BBC’s dear viewers were subjected to the Twin Dilemma just SIX DAYS after Caves.

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​It feels like an entirely different show. Gone is all the tension and the world-building, replaced by a neon pantomime.

 

It’s painfully clear that all the collective effort went into Davison’s swansong, and then someone remembered they still had another story left in the season. A post-regeneration story no less.

 

Still nursing their hangovers after Peter’s Farewell Party, they had a whip-round to buy some sparkly costumes and got it over with as quickly as possible.

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All this said, here comes a confession. This serial is undoubtedly captivating, in a ‘so terrible I can’t-take-my-eyes-off-it’ kind of way.

 

You never know what’s going to happen next. One moment our hero of the past two decades is cowering beneath a clothes rail. The next he’s arguing with a giant slug with Emperor Palpatine electricity boppers.

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It’s brazenly bonkers and that sadist in us wanted to see which depths were going to be plumbed next.

 

In our book, this is a better position for a Doctor Who story than being plain dull. That’s not to say Baker II’s era won’t soon sink to that level but at this stage we have no choice but to keep the faith, with our fingers firmly crossed. After all, as the great man himself points out, he is the Doctor, whether we like it or not.

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It’s certainly a bold move to double-down by directly challenging the rapidly dwindling audience into tolerating this unpleasant take on the character.

 

It’s bolder still to do it as the final shot of the season, provocatively letting the sour taste fester among the fans for a few months until we meet again in an interminably terrible Cyberman story.

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