There is something incredibly charming about stories like The Twin Dilemma - like old 1950s B-movies, where the monsters are cheesy, and the plots laughable, certain Doctor Who stories work, and are incredible watchable, because they just possess a charm and vitality which certain SF series, no matter how well-produced, will never possess. The Twin Dilemma possesses this charm, in my opinion, and as an added bonus, the primary performances in are really quite something too. 

Colin Baker's first time on screen as The Doctor has been described as 'misjudged', and at the time it may well have been. After the self-sacrifice of the magnificent Caves of Androzani, you would not need to apologize if you thought to yourself: who is this unbelievably arrogant, obnoxious person calling himself the Doctor, yet exhibiting none of the qualities that have become associated with 'The Doctor'... however, watching it now, it is a masterstroke to play the Doctor this way. It challenges what we know about the character, and places him into a far more alien position. Yes, it also alienates the viewer to a large extent (we sympathize with Peri, and find the Doctor very difficult to 'like' in any way), but by doing that the writers can prepare and plan for the moment when the Doctor re-enters our sympathies, and becomes our friend again - by having it that we dislike him for a time (yet know deep down that he is a 'hero'), the strength of our sympathy for him later will be all the stronger. And then, when we like him again, when he is our true hero again, the hints of the alien, and the strange will remain. There is nothing misjudged about this Doctor - it was simply that after the Fifth Doctor, this mad, bad Sixth Doctor felt utterly different. A Doctor, if he is to work, must be both alien and human. 

And there are constant hints in the characterization in The Twin Dilemma of what we like about the Doctor: his adamant claim to want to escape, his heroic saving of a life, his unceasing desire to save the world. The Doctor we know and love is there, but the characterization is underscored by an impatience to hang around (the scene when the police man gets trapped in the gastropod 'glue' is inspired and hilarious - the Doctor provides *absolutely no help whatsoever* while he struggles to free himself, and eventually just walks off!), a lack of selflessness, and a generally worrying change of character... But this side to the Doctor is not unknown. The Third Doctor could be arrogant, the First Doctor could be impatient, the Fourth Doctor was frequently high-minded... There are flashes of the past in this uncomfortable and unfamiliar incarnation of the Doctor. What a brave, wild thing to do for his first story. Colin Baker, and everyone on the crew, must have thought the writers were nuts. Place a crazed and mad Doctor into a basic, un-radical, but highly romp-ish pulp SF plot (good secondary work from Mestor)... light blue touch-paper... stand back... see what happens... Yes, the story is nothing special: as a story, a plot, a string of events... But as an experiment in character, the story is in inspiration. The plot is simply a side-show, a means to an end: the writers want to show us the nutter who is now the Doctor. 

I am now, more than ever, eagerly awaiting some Sixth Doctor novels. There is, and always has been, a huge amount of potential in the character.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! Oh, whatever.

Oh dearie dearie me. They really made a mess of this story, didn't they? 

What could have been a great addition to the Doctor Who universe (the insane Borad, the kinda-cool-but-not-really-seen Bandrils, the Karfelons in their citadel) was reduced to mush by a lousy script, terrible sets and lousy special effects.

The story in itself is really rather good: The Doctor and Peri return to a planet which the Doctor has visited before, and get mixed up in the local politics. A common enough premise, certainly, but it had promise: The manipulative and secretive Borad, dictator of Karfelon; the rebels in every corner, trying to free their people; the powerless leaders; the sheer political intrigue which comes with such a situation. Add an unexpected almost-companion in the form of H.G. Wells (I'm serious), and you have a recipe for one memorable story.

Then why does it suck so much? I'll explain.

First off, the sets and costumes. Why, why, WHY did they make everything bright and sunny? It's a dark season, no doubts about it... so this story stands out simply for that. Add the fact that nothing shines (admittedly a story point, but hell on the eyes) and you're wanting to scream. The costumes are honestly terrible, which makes Peri, the Doctor, Vina and Herbert (Wells, yeah?) stand out even more. You can tell someone's political affiliation simply by the color of their clothes!!! Shoot me!

Next, script. My god, what an utter dud. What a total let-down. This could have been saved. But nope - it got sent out without proper revision, which shows. All the best lines go to Colin Baker, who performs admirably considering the utter crap he is given, and John Chandler, who simply makes Herbert shine. The single best scene in this story, the one part which I watch over and over again, is in the final episode, with an absolutely sterling scene in the TARDIS which lasts for almost 8 minutes, where Herbert drives the Doctor to the edge of violence. I get the impression that the entire story was just an excuse for this ONE SCENE. God......

Acting...... a mixed bag here... As I've said, Baker and Chandler give amazing performances, and Bryant is nicely grumpy in this one... much of the supporting cast is wooden, forgettable or both... but my utter loathing is aimed at Vina, (Jeananne Cassidy) who delivers each and every SINGLE LINE like someone in High School who got roped in because nobody else could remember the lines. Yuck. Shoot me now.

Much of the remainder is marred by simple lack of detail... but still, this story borders on forgettable.

But watch it anyway. Just to see Colin Baker look like he's about to punch out John Chandler. Classic!

Although Season Seven is generally regarded as being a strong one, fans seem to be only talking about ‘Spearhead From Space’, ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ and ‘Inferno’ when they sing the season’s praises. ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ must be one of the most underrated Doctor Who stories of the Pertwee era. This is a shame, because much as I like the two previous stories, ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ is one of my favourite Jon Pertwee Doctor Who stories. 

The first reason that I like ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ so much is its gritty, adult feel. Since ‘Spearhead From Space’ the series has felt somehow more grown up, and ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ continues this trend but manages to take it a step further. In terms of production, it looks much better than ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’, partly because it avoids the use of monsters that are obviously men in rubber suits, but mainly because of the tight direction by Michael Ferguson. Although the previous story is sufficiently good that it carries suspension of disbelief beyond the rubbery Silurian costumes, the tactic used here, of keeping the aliens disguised in space suits, is startlingly effective. The three aliens are very sinister, due to a combination of their blank, impassive faceplates, eerie incidental music (something from which this Season as a whole benefits greatly), and some superb camera work as typified by the alien astronaut advancing towards the UNIT sentry out of the sunlight in episode four. But of course, we also do get to see an alien unmasked. The alien space captain doesn’t really count; he wears his own costume complete with mask, and is seen only through a screen, the picture deliberately obscured. Then, in episode six, we get what remains one of my favourite scenes from the entire season. Liz enters the chamber housing the three captive aliens, and is cut off from the exit. One of the aliens unclips its helmet and removes it to reveal a distorted, alien face, which is utterly inhuman. This sounds straightforward enough written down like that, but the genius of the scene is in the camera work. To pulsing, eerie music, the camera image of Liz starts to pulsate, then flicks between Liz and the alien, giving us a brief, shocking glimpse of the alien’s misshapen lumpy features. It is a genuinely creepy moment and all because of the way it is shot. This is the real strength of this story, and is filled with inspired direction that makes a decent story into a forgotten classic. The model work is also generally very good. Even the CSO used in the alien spaceship looks OK.

Direction aside, the story itself stands up well, despite the complex writing and rewriting process it underwent at the hands of about three different writers. This is no bog-standard alien invasion as we are initially led to believe in the early episodes. These are not invaders collaborating with a human traitor to launch a secret invasion like that of the Cybermen in ‘The Invasion’. This is something much more complex. The plot twists and turns impressively, keeping the viewer guessing, until finally it is revealed that the three aliens are ambassadors, invited to Earth by the woefully misguided General Carrington so that he can use them to convince Earth that an invasion is underway, hopefully prompting the united nations to destroy the alien spacecraft in orbit. His motivation? The accidental death of a friend and fellow astronaut years previously at the hands of one of the aliens, who didn’t realize that its touch would kill. Carrington is a character that evokes a great deal of sympathy; he is not evil per se, just psychologically scarred a past encounter with another species and genuinely believing that what he is doing is his “moral duty”. The Discontinuity Guide describes the ending as one of the series’ finest, as the Doctor allows Carrington to keep his dignity; it is a valid observation. The Doctor’s expression is full of sympathy and pathos as he tells Carrington that he understands his motives. 

The advantage of this plot is that it allows for a good deal of misdirection as we are kept guessing as to who the villains are. Carrington is clearly not a full-blown villain from the start, as he orders his Sergeant not to kill the UNIT troops in the warehouse. This adds to the intrigue as both the viewers and the Brigadier are given cause to wonder why the Sergeant doesn’t shoot Lethbridge-Stewart in episode one. With Quinlan and Taltalian thrown into the mix, the plot becomes even more convoluted as co-conspirators start to crawl out of the woodwork. We finally get a real villain in the form of Reegan, although he is clearly not the mastermind behind the kidnapping of the aliens. Reegan is a refreshing villain; he’s genuinely nasty and murderous, but he’s not a typical Doctor Who megalomaniac, he just wants to use the aliens to rob banks. This in itself makes for a pleasant change, but Reegan works even better because he is genuinely charismatic villain. William Dysart imbues his character with a certain charm, but this is not the smarmy, oily charm of Tobias Vaughan. Dysart’s performance is quietly understated, yet convincingly intimidating when the situation calls for it. Reegan is one of the series best, and most overlooked, psychopaths. His final scene, as he sits quietly with an air of resigned amusement having been captured at gunpoint by the Brigadier, sums up the character; Reegan is man who takes advantage of existing situations and just before he is lead away, he suggests to the Brigadier and the Doctor that they use the aliens to break into Space Control and defeat Carrington, thus probably saving the world. He cheekily tells them not to forget that this was his suggestion as he is led away. 

The rest of the guest put in decent performances, especially John Abineri as Carrrington, Cyril Shaps (who seems born to play nervous and twitchy scientists) as Lennox, and Ronald Allen (previously Rago in the ‘The Dominators’) as Cornish. The latter is an interesting character, because despite the usual initial friction between the Doctor and another scientist who is also an authority figure, they quickly build up a mutual respect and show considerable rapport throughout the remainder of the story. I also feel compelled to point out that Cornish is occasionally a very sinister character, which seems to be unintentional; I get the impression that this is how Ronald Allen acts! The regulars do very well out of the script. The Doctor is crucial to the story’s resolution, and gets a key role throughout as he takes a trip into space via more conventional means than usual. Pertwee is still on very fine form, and the Doctor remains a commanding figure. He also gets a classic Third Doctor rant as he snaps at Cornish in episode one. His friendship with the Brigadier is initially still rather strained by the events of ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’, but regains its strength during this story, which shows them working together rather well as a team. Liz gets her best outing to date, separated from the Doctor and kidnapped by Reegan, she stands up to thugs and deals with a stressful situation admirably well. Her defiant attitude with Reegan shows her refusal to be cowed, even by a murderous psychopath and is a reminder of just how strong a character she is. 

There is one problem with ‘The Ambassadors of Death’, and it annoys me every time I watch it. How does Lennox die? Putting an isotope in his cell wouldn’t kill him like that. It would cause massive chromosomal damage that would probably result in cancer eventually, and it might cause radiation sickness that could kill him in a matter of days. It’s a minor plot hole, and the rest of the story works so well that I can forgive it, but it is irritating. In summary, ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ is an overlooked classic; it even convinces me that Britain had a space program in the 1970s and that we landed astronauts on Mars!

‘The Moonbase’ is notable for being the first of several Troughton “base under siege” stories, but is the second such story to feature in the series as a whole. The reason for it being the second such story is that it is largely a retread of ‘The Tenth Planet’. Despite this however, it is a rather different beast from Hartnell’s swan song. In my opinion, it simply isn’t as good as its predecessor, since despite being only four episodes long, it somehow manages to feel padded. This is due largely to episode two. The first episode of ‘The Moonbase’ establishes the story’s setting well and has a suitably chilling feel to it due to the unexplained disappearances of the moonbase personnel, helped by the eerie incidental score. The problem is, at the end of episode one, we see a Cyberman, and although it looks somewhat different from the Cybermen in ‘The Tenth Planet’, Polly is on hand to tell the viewer what it is in case they didn’t recognise it. After this however, we get approximately twenty minutes of pure padding, as the Doctor tries to find the source of the mystery illness that is striking down the moonbase staff, during which time he mostly clowns around irritating everybody by stealing their boots. The occasional cameo by the Cyberman reminds us of the creatures’ presence, but since we already know that they are lurking, any potential tension is diffused and the viewer (or at least, this viewer) merely wants the plot to advance. This eventually happens just before the end of episode two, as the Doctor identifies the sugar as the source of Cybermen’s virus, and then a Cyberman emerges from its hiding place under a sheet. This cliffhanger is actually fairly daft, especially as the Cyberman gets out of bed in a way that suggests that it badly needs its first cup of tea of the day. The first half of the story would have been far more effective in my opinion had the presence of the Cybermen been maintained a secret up until this point. From the start of episode three onwards however, things improve somewhat. A sense of claustrophobia is created by the fact that the human occupants of the base are well and truly trapped, with rampaging Cybermen outside and their mind-controlled servants within. The importance of the gravitron to Earth is well conveyed, and tension is maintained throughout the latter half of the story as the Cybermen relentlessly attack in one way or another. Even after the first three Cybermen in the base are destroyed, more appear outside in even larger numbers, and continuously terrorize the humans in the base, whether by cutting off their communications or taking remote control of the gravitron via Evans and using it to plunge the rescue ship into the sun, or by drilling a hole in the dome and thus letting the air out. The direction and incidental score are both crucial to maintaining this tense atmosphere, and do so most effectively, especially the dramatic Cyberman theme reused from ‘The Tenth Planet’. In particular, the bizarre appearance of those base personnel who have succumbed to the Cybermen’s neurotrope X is highly effective and rather disturbing. The moon surface sets and model work (except for the rather feeble Cybermen space ships) are also impressive and recreate the surface of the moon more than adequately. The utilitarian sets used for the actual moonbase are rather drab, but intentionally so. 

The Cybermen have been extensively redesigned since ‘The Tenth Planet’ and both lose and gain from this. 

They are far less human, and no longer have fleshy hands or cloth-covered faces, resulting in a more robotic appearance. This removes some of the grotesque body horror impact of the creatures and unfortunately makes them seem more like actual robots and less like surgically altered humans. On the other hand, their faces are more blank and impassive than previously, which makes them seem more intimidating, and the script and direction combined with this succeed in making them scarier than before. The scene in which a Cyberman chases Benoit across the moon’s surface is particularly gripping, but other scenes of note are the remorseless march of numerous Cybermen towards the moonbase and their casual tearing apart of the radio antennae which is made more sinister than might be expected by the sudden and chilling musical sting that accompanies it. Their new voices are more monotonous and less macabre than their singsong lilt from ‘The Tenth Planet’, and are far more menacing. The less human appearance of these Cybermen is partly compensated for by the fact that we actually see them altering humans for the first time, by using the neurotrope X to make them susceptible to mind control. The zombie-like state to which Evans and the others are reduced is the first time we actually see a hint of the process of cyber-conversion and the resulting dehumanization that inspired Kit Peddlar when he created them. Unfortunately, their lack of emotions, a supposedly distinctive feature of the Cybermen, is rather undermined by some atrocious scripting in episode three as one of the Cybermen takes the piss out of the humans (“only stupid earth brains like yours would have been fooled”) and also employs sarcasm (“clever, clever, clever”). This lapse is confined to one scene, but is incredibly irritating. 

The regulars do not benefit especially well from ‘The Moonbase’. The Doctor spends most of the time prevaricating, although he does identify the source of the neurotrope X, and also comes up with the means to defeat the Cybermen at the end. Nevertheless, the story is plotted in such a way that he really doesn’t seem to do much. On the other hand, Troughton gets the oft-quoted lines “There are some corners of the universe that have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought”. As in ‘The Power of the Daleks’, the Doctor could probably leave in the TARDIS if he wanted to, but refuses, preferring to stay and root out evil. Compare this to his attitude in ‘100,000 BC’ and ‘The Mutants’, and it reminds us how much he’s changed since the series began. As for the companions, ‘The Moonbase’ suffers from the same problem as ‘The Underwater Menace’ in that Jamie is surplus to the requirements of the script. The solution to this problem here is slightly better than in the previous story in that he spends two episodes in bed rather than just acting as a silent shadow to Ben. His need to recover from his head injury at least provides initial justification for the TARDIS crew to remain on the Moon, and his (slightly embarrassing) “phantom piper” scenes at least play a role in revealing the story’s protagonists to the viewer. Polly at least gets to shine briefly by coming up with the means to defeat the first wave of Cybermen, although the fact that none of the solvents mentioned would attack any type of plastic likely to be included in the construction of the Cybermen never ceases to annoy the lab-worker in me (in the unlikely event that the Cybermen’s chest units are made primarily of polystyrene, some of the solvents might have an effect, but certainly not that quickly). 

The supporting characters are fairly forgettable. The attempt to show a multi-national moonbase crew is admirable if rather inadequate, but none of them get much characterisation; only Hobson is even remotely memorable. On the whole, ‘The Moonbase’ more-or-less succeeds as a claustrophobic thriller, but is ultimately flawed. Nevertheless, it establishes the Cybermen as recurring monsters and for that at least is notable.