630 The Twin Dilemma Part Two

EPISODE: The Twin Dilemma Part Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 630
STORY NUMBER: 138
TRANSMITTED: Friday 23 March 1984
WRITER: Anthony Steven
DIRECTOR: Peter Moffatt
SCRIPT EDITOR: Eric Saward
PRODUCER: John Nathan-Turner
RATINGS: 7.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Twin Dilemma

Lt Lang collapses again. Peri hides his gun's powerpack while the Doctor treats him. In their base Edgeworth puts the twins to work writing mathematical equations for Mestor, the new Master of Jaconda. The Doctor & Peri sight a structure on the asteroid's surface and set out towards it leaving Lang in the Tardis. They walk to the dome but are captured by Edgeworth's alien allies. The Doctor recognises Edgeworth as his old friend & Mentor Azmael, the former Master of Jaconda. Edgeworth leaves with the twins and aliens, one of whom sets the base to self destruct. Lang finds his gun's power pack while hunting for replacement clothes. The Doctor unlocks the base's teleport mechanism and transports Peri back to the Tardis, intending to follow on himself but as she materialises and is held at gunpoint by Lang she sees the structure they were in explode!

As a cliffhanger that's not the best in the world: The Doctor's already mumbled something about adjusting a time something or other in the teleport thing so it's obvious he'll materialise a few seconds later mumble something about a time differential and that will be that. My main thought about the episode was him cheap it looked! Edgeworth's base is just wrapped and coated in silver foil inside. Horrible.

And we have "Lusting after Peri" #2 in this episode: Azmael/Edgeworth!

How was it, of all the clothes in the Tardis Wardrobe, that Lang chose the jacket that Peri had hidden his power pack in? The probability is tiny! It's an awful jacket too, like a reflective version of Joseph's amazing technicolour dreamcoat!

The surface of Titan 3 was filmed at Springwell Quarryin Rickmansworth, previously Omega's World in The Three Doctors, the cave entrance in Earthshock and later to be the Chimeron homeworld in Delta & the Bannermen.

Writer Anthony Steven had previously worked on All Creatures Great & Small and through that knew both producer John Nathan-Turner and director Peter Moffatt. Reputedly scripts were not delivered to schedule and script editor Eric Saward had to hurriedly complete the final drafts when Steven was taken ill.