Not a good start to the troubled reign of the 6th Doctor...

From the sublime to the ridiculous. The Caves Of Androzani – one of the finest examples of Doctor Who – was always going to stand tall when compared to the following story. But when that story's The Twin Dilemma, it's like comparing the BFG with Ronnie Corbett.

The Twin Dilemma has – um – not exactly been welcomed by open arms with the fans of Doctor Who. It's frequently languishing at the bottom of Most Popular Story polls and has been subjected to the sort of scorn that a simpleton yokel would have got in the stocks back in the days of yore. So feel free to hurl a rotten tomato at the following. The lousy script. The tacky production. The weak direction. The monsters. The twins. It's a complete and utter disaster, but the problem is it shouldn't be, since it's the first story for the brand new Doctor.

Step forward Doctor Number Six, an incarnation which has had a similarly troubled reputation. Try and sum up the 6th Doctor, and at least three of the following words will crop up: Loud. Arrogant. Outfit. Pompous. Tasteless. Rude. Outfit. Crass. Outfit. Annoying. Outfit. Outfit. Outfit.

Oh, god, that outfit. It's like the costume of Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat as imagined by a lunatic, and every time I'm reviewing these stories, I start to look like a poor Ray Charles tribute act because I need to protect my eyes from the radioactive glare emanating from the TV.

The personality, appearance and demeanour of the 6th Doctor, nevertheless, make perfect sense on paper. Each Doctor has always been the polar opposite of his predecessor. So after the sensitive and unassuming Mr Nice Guy 5th Doctor, it's a shrewd move to make the next incarnation a loud, boorish oaf who's anything but likeable. The original concept was aparently to make the 6th Doctor a bit like Mr Darcy from 'Pride And Prejudice' – the audience would go from initially disliking the character to ultimately singing his praises. And also in Doctor Who, some of the past Doctors have been unlikeable at times. The First Doctor started out as a curmudgeonly old git who wasn't averse to barking at his companions and leaving hapless cavemen for dead. The 3rd Doctor went through a phase of patronising and bellowing at mere Earth mortals. And even the 4th Doctor could be distant, cold and aloof when the fancy took him. So the idea of making Doctor Number Six unlikeable wasn't anything new.

The problem however was that this being the 1980's, the concept was taken just that bit too far, and with zero subtlety. Even when the aforementioned Doctors behaved badly, they still had their own brand of charm and likeability to fall back on. In The Twin Dilemma, there is no such safety net. In a way, it's a brave move to make the main man such a complete arse – a man who openly insults people (even his predecessor) and who even attempts to strangle his own companion. The problem is, the concept's just too overdone, and you can imagine kids watching open-mouthed in horror as the titular hero threw poor Peri to the ground like a sack of spuds.

Mind you, she never thanked The Doctor for saving her life, so maybe it's no wonder that he's stomping around like a bear with a sore head.

The manic behaviour and personality of The Doctor would tend to hang around the mid-80's like a gaudy cloud. Although season 22 stories would see the new Doctor start to settle down, there was always that abrasive sarcasm waiting in the wings. It was only by season 23 that he would actually become more accessible to viewers, but by then, it was a bit too late.

Mind you, you could argue that maybe an anti-hero Doctor was a refreshing change of pace. Take Avon in Blake's 7 – he's a classic example of an unlikeable, sarcastic anti-hero, who nevertheless proved to be more popular with viewers than boy scout Blake. In films, you had characters like Han Solo, Vito Corleone – even Ellen Ripley, none of whom were your average whiter-than-white central figure – but still iconic characters, nonetheless. So with that in mind, the anti-hero 6th Doctor was a logical step. It's just too bad that his character wasn't that well served by some of the scripts. More often than not, the scripts would just portray the 6th Doctor as a pointlessly shouty and annoying poltroon. From time to time, there would be the odd nugget of greatness such as his sadness over the possible wholesale destruction in The Two Doctors or his comforting of Peri over the DJ's death in Revelation Of The Daleks. But more often than not, on paper, the 6th Doctor is something of a caricature – thanks to some sloppy scripting and script-editing.

"Baker's never really managed to nab a top spot in the polls to find the most popular Doctor, which is a shame. It's a bit like blaming a newsreader for delivering a bit of bad news on the telly."

At least we do get a fine performance from Colin Baker, one of Who's greatest fans and ambassadors. Unfortunately, Baker's never really managed to nab a top spot in the polls to find the most popular Doctor, which is a shame. It's a bit like blaming a newsreader for delivering a bit of bad news on the telly. Baker's simply doing what the scripts are requiring him to do – and he does this very well. In The Twin Dilemma alone, he's very very good at portraying that initial borderline-psychotic madness. The aforementioned scene in which he starts on at Peri is well acted and worryingly convincing, the way in which he starts from forgetful absent-mindedness through bitchiness ("You don't even know what a Piri is, do you – Peri??") through to out-and-out looney tunes. And when he's starting to show that all-important compassion in the later parts of the story, he's just as good (the scene in which he lays Edgeworth/Azmael to rest). Although he's got a tricky character to work with and a dodgy first script to battle through, Colin Baker makes an immediate first impression, and manages to anchor the next two years with some strong performances.

The Twin Dilemma, appropriately, is pretty much two stories in one. The first and more interesting one is that of the newly regenerated Doctor trying to find his place in the world again. At the heart of The Twin Dilemma, there is a great idea, and in the context of season 21, it ties up all the loose ends of its story arc. The Doctor's latest traumatic regeneration has given birth to a man who's lost his moral compass. Highly apt, when you think that in his latest run of stories, more often than not, he'd run into more amoral wrong-doers than he'd ever done before. This reached its pinnacle of fiendishness in The Caves Of Androzani, during which The Doctor encountered bastard after bastard. And then during the regeneration, the last thing he sees is a laughing close-up of his old adversary, The Master, imploring him to die and going "Heh heh heh" on a loop. So no wonder all that violence and evil in the universe rubbed off on The Doctor's latest incarnation. There's a line in Journey's End about how the Metacrisis Doctor was born in battle, full of blood and rage, and this led him to adopt a more violent approach to defeating his enemies, committing genocide against the Daleks. So with that in mind, the 6th Doctor's a similar sort of deal.

And it's fascinating to see the new Doctor try and find out who he is. Even though he tries to strangle Peri, he's clearly aghast at his actions, to the point where he decides to live his life as a hermit. Good thing then that he becomes enmeshed in the main plot of a rescue mission to thwart the machinations of a cross-eyed slug called Mestor. Along the way, he meets an old Time Lord called Azmael, who these days is going by the name of Professor Edgeworth. Having teamed up with Azmael and a clichéd space lieutenant called Hugo Lang to rescue twin child prodigies Romulus and Remus, the new Doctor slowly starts to find his compassionate streak, even to the point where he openly worries about a captured Peri at the end of part three. In the end, he does save the day, but just not in the way that the 5th Doctor might have done. There's lots of manic shouting, ranting and moaning, and as I've said it's a brave but flawed attempt to make The Doctor a character that the audience can't really relate to at first.

"Peter Moffatt's snoozy direction contains little in the way of inspiration, all wonky production values and dull camera angles"

It doesn't help that the other main plot strand – the rescue of the twins from the clutches of Mestor – is so weak. It's hackneyed B-movie dross, pure and simple. The story's groaning at the seams with clichés: clichéd characters, lines and scenarios. The characters are largely dreadful – the twins themselves are an intergalactic John And Edward, except with predictably bad pudding bowl haircuts rather than super-gelled quiffs. The idea of an alien being kidnapping two prodigious brats for equations that will cause an explosion to spread his race's eggs throughout the galaxy is nothing new – Mestor himself is impossible to take seriously, with his barely audible baritone gurgling and immobility. Meanwhile, Hugo could have been plucked from some trashy Flash Gordon knock-off, and manages to end up in rainbow-coloured bacofoil in an attempt to contend with Peri's blouse (made from her granny's curtains apparently) and That Outfit.

Worse still, the production's terrible. Peter Moffatt's snoozy direction contains little in the way of inspiration, all wonky production values and dull camera angles. The location filming is in – oh, look, another quarry. Now Caves Of Androzani may have "boasted" another quarry-style setting, but compare Graeme Harper's imaginative and stylish direction with the power-nap filming of Moffatt. That's the problem – when the previous story boasts such great direction, any deficiencies in the next story are magnified a hundredfold.

In Moffatt's favour, some of his casting choices aren't bad. Kevin McNally may be better known recently for Pirates Of The Caribbean and the psychotic Robert Osborne in the second Spooks episode (you know, the guy that tortured poor Lisa Faulkner with a chip fryer), but his performance as the gung-ho Hugo is pretty good. Same goes for Maurice Denham as Azmael. Dennis Chinnery, Seymour Green and Edwin Richfield probably wondered how on earth they had such a drop in  fortunes, but they make the most of their limited roles as Sylvest, The Chamberlain and Mestor respectively. The less said about the Conrad twins and Helen Blatch as Fabian the better.

The 21st season and the era of the 6th Doctor desperately needed a good story to make an impact. The Twin Dilemma does make an impact, but it's the wrong sort of lasting impression. The plot and script are both boring and clichéd in equal measures. The direction's flat and uninteresting. And most worryingly of all – despite a perfectly decent performance from Colin Baker – the concept of the 6th Doctor is badly botched. He may be The Doctor whether you like it or not. The burning question is, how many viewers actually did like it?

John Bensalhia limbered up for this mammoth task with a full four-series review of Blake's 7, and writes professionally and recreationally all over the web. Check out his portfolio of work at Wordprofectors.

Check out John's previous Doctor Who review, The Caves Of Androzani

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