The Twin Dilemma by: Eric Saward

 

The Twin Dilemma was written by Eric Saward, based on the television story of the same name by Anthony Steven.  It was the 103^rd story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

This is a weird novelization.  The Twin Dilemma is essentially in the fandom the ‘worst’ Doctor Who story according to many of the polls.  It closed the 21^st series which was the last series to be produced without insane production issues and well on the way to the 1989 cancellation (and just a year before the 1985 hiatus).  The budget was running out as it almost always did for the final serial in a given season, The Caves of Androzani immediately before it was hailed as nothing short of brilliant, and Anthony Steven (a television veteran who had never worked on Doctor Who) gave increasingly insane excuses as to why scripting the story was taking so long (he claimed his typewriter literally exploded at one point).  So the chance for a novelization means that there was an opportunity to improve things, especially since it was novelized by script editor Eric Saward.  However, there are a lot of problems, a lot inherent to the original story, and some due to Eric Saward’s writing style and opinions on this particular era find there way into the novelization.  The Twin Dilemma takes so much time to get through the first two episodes of the four part serial it is honestly astonishing that the rest of the plot even makes it to the page.  I can only theorize that Saward had no idea how to improve the stuff after the second episode so he just rushed through it and gave a very weak ending.

 

It’s almost weaker due to certain aspects of the characterization.  Peri especially has the already weak television characterization taken down a notch as the trauma which is dropped immediately after it happens, is only reinforced.  Saward includes several scenes from her perspective, including the scene where she is strangled by the Doctor, and that trauma is lasting.  It is framed as a good thing that she refuses to leave and almost implied the Doctor wouldn’t let her leave even if she asked.  Saward is trying to make the Sixth Doctor an outright villain and upping all of his outbursts and problematic qualities simply because Saward did not like the fact that Colin Baker was cast in the role and he left the show on bad terms, which would have begun at this point (this was published in March 1986).  This distaste permeates the novel as the Doctor’s appearances are also scaled back so his lack of appearances only serve to highlight when he does appear how badly he is written.  The one thing improving The Twin Dilemma outside of not being restricted by poor production values is that the twins themselves are intentionally written as insufferable, to the point that there are whole added sections with their father that how his life is now so much better with the twins being kidnapped, including the first few chapters being devoted to how terrible they make this man’s life.

 

Overall, The Twin Dilemma may improve things slightly from the television story, but it is still telling a story that is fundamentally weak.  There doesn’t actually seem to be any attempt to make the characters any more interesting, and Eric Saward clearly dislikes writing for these characters and this era.  It goes against what he thinks Doctor Who is.  3/10.