Doctor Who_ The Twin Dilemma - Eric Saward [48]
The statement was as bland and as sterile as it sounded.
Peri hoped that she had caught a glimpse of a smile as he uttered it.
If she hadn't, this particular incarnation of the Time Lord would prove to be a very difficult person indeed.
DIVERGENT CONTINUITY
PART ONE: After saying goodnight to his twin sons, Professor Archie Sylvest leaves for a publisher’s party and drinks with Vestal Smith. He is, however, diverted from this activity by the arrival of Reginald Smith, husband of the aforementioned, on Archie’s front doorstop. The scene in the TARDIS wardrobe has been cut. Instead, a newly-garbed Doctor and Peri enter the console room arguing, and the Doctor goes straight into the “Do you know what a Peri is?” dialogue. After Peri fends him off with her mirror, the Doctor falls to the floor and into a sort of autistic trance, rocking gently back and forth without demonstrating any other sign of communication. Outside the twins’ home, a ginger tomcat senses the arrival of Azmael and the subsequent kidnapping. Later, Archie Sylvest returns home, having got very drunk with Reginald Smith and paid him off to keep quiet about Vestal. The scenes with Fabian and Elena have been completely removed. Instead, we take the opposite viewpoint: the adventures of Hugo Lang and his squadron. When the squadron challenges Azmael’s freighter and follows it to Titan Three, Mestor telepathically creates ‘a massive [blue] aurora borealis’ that surrounds the freighter and lashes out at the pursuing ships. Hugo’s fighters are picked off one by one, until finally the Lieutenant himself is attacked and crashes his ship.
PART TWO: The Doctor and Peri actually witness Hugo’s crash-landing. Hugo doesn’t pass out in the TARDIS; instead, the Doctor gives him a quick chop to the neck and renders him unconscious.
The twins are forced to use chalk and a blackboard to do their equations. Although Azmael tells the Doctor the truth straight off the bat, their discussion is actually much shorter than on TV. All that garbage about a temporal transmat and a ten-second offset is gone; the Doctor just converts the revitalising modulator into a matter transporter. Instead of explaining the desperate situation to Peri, the Doctor simply shoves her into the modulator and transports her back to the TARDIS. The cliffhanger has, to all intents and purposes, been cut (yes, the Doctor has to kick the modulator once or twice, but isn’t that just technology for you?).
PART THREE: The ‘death-by-embolism’ scene has been cut.
Azmael is called before Mestor; he is embarrassed and humiliated in front of his courtiers, but we do not see what is actually said.
When the TARDIS arrives on Jaconda, the Doctor and his companions witness the devastation wrought by the gastropods as the Time Lord recites the legend of the giant slugs (they don’t find any sort of mural). They also find a starving child, whom Peri wants to help; the Doctor tells her that the only way to help is to destroy that which has devastated Jaconda. Later, they return to the TARDIS to materialise closer to Azmael’s laboratory. Hugo actually considers deserting the Doctor and Peri and piloting the TARDIS alone, but the Doctor is no fool; when Hugo becomes trapped in gastropod slime, the Doctor doesn’t feel any real inclination towards saving a potential thief. Mestor doesn’t insist that Azmael reveal all to the twins – it’s the Time Lord’s decision
– so that entire discussion has been cut. After explaining the plan, he threatens to kill Romulus and Remus if they don’t assist him (an action seen earlier in the TV episode). They understand his desperation, however, and agree to help. A brief typo calls Drak
‘Drax’. Although quite angry, the Doctor doesn’t try to throttle Azmael. Hugo doesn’t rush in to warn the Doctor (Mestor himself will deliver the news later), and the cliffhanger is therefore cut.
PART FOUR: An unconscious Hugo is brought in by the Jacondans. Even though Noma arrrives to take the Doctor to Mestor, the leader of the gastropods materialises