"Well, look at me. I'm old, lacking in vigour, my mind's in turmoil. I no longer know if I'm coming, have gone, or even been. I'm falling to pieces. I no longer even have any clothes sense... Self-pity is all I have left."
Episode 136: The Twin Dilemma.
Companions: 6th Doctor and Peri.
Air Date: 22nd to 30th March 1984.
A race of giant gastropods has taken over the planet Jaconda. Their leader, Mestor, now intends to cause an enormous explosion in order to spread his people's eggs throughout the galaxy, and he kidnaps juvenile twin geniuses from Earth to work out the necessary mathematical equations. Space fighters led by Lieutenant Hugo Lang are dispatched to get the twins back, but they come under attack and Lang is the sole survivor when his ship crashes on the asteroid Titan 3. The Doctor and Peri become involved and help Jaconda's elderly former ruler Professor Edgeworth, who is really a Time Lord named Azmael, to defeat Mestor and free the planet's bird-like indigenous people from the gastropods' reign of terror.
Colin Baker takes over as the Doctor in this story and his performance tends to split fans. The gaudy costume and rather nasty approach does not sit well with many but I think they are missing out. Colin may not have been one of the better classic Doctors but he plays the character in a far more interesting way. The post regeneration weirdness is a standard thing now, and it is just a case that in this story he is more unstable than usual.
The problem with The Twin Dilemma is that Colin's acting is the best thing in it. The story falls flat, has nothing really to deal with the twins, and has far too many plot holes to count. It is four episodes of nothing special. In fact, the story may have been better if rather than creating yet another race of giant slug things, they just used the tractators again and saved themselves the design issues. They would also have been a far better option considering the plot than the villainous Mestor.
If it wasn't that this being a post regeneration story I might well suggest you skip it.
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