DOCTOR WHO: Two of a kind - Matt Smith and Patrick Troughton - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

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DOCTOR WHO: Two of a kind - Matt Smith and Patrick Troughton

Christopher Morley explores the idea of Doctors Two and Eleven crossing timelines and joining forces for a very special multi-Doctor adventure.


We may be spoilt for choice for multi-Doctor adventures - The Three Doctors, Five, Two & Day offer us the chance to see what it's like for him to meet himself in a mind-boggling array of permutations. Time has ironically, though, robbed us of perhaps the most tantalising. Think of all the men the Doctor has been and two jump out at you as perhaps the most likely to have genuinely enjoyed each others company. Bridging the gap between the 'classic' & 'new' series, then, why has the possibility of the Second & Eleventh Doctors sharing the spotlight as yet not been embraced?

A meeting of personalities/bow ties could prove fascinating - and while they have met all too briefly in the Shadow Of Death episode of the Destiny Of The Doctor audio series, more could surely be done. The Second may indeed have declared his later self's tie 'rather fetching', but there are any number of other reasons why they should meet for a little longer. That said, step into the TARDIS and get ready to cross timelines........


We could of course make cases for meetings in the build up to or aftermath of confrontations with shared enemies - The Ice Warriors/Cold War, The Web Of Fear/The Snowmen being cases in point, and the thought of the pair tackling the likes of the Ice Warriors & Great Intelligence together, with their shared knowledge of a common enemy, is indeed exciting. There's a certain personality overlap, too, both presenting a front of affability, even outright buffoonery, to hide their intellect - witness the Second rigging the Cyber-Tombs on Telos or sending an Ice Warrior fleet to a close encounter with the Sun, or Eleven's back & forth with those sexy fish vampires in The Vampires Of Venice.

Potentially we could then see them getting on like a house on fire, bow ties and odd hat choices the order of the day depending on whereabouts in each of their timeline we were - stovepipe hat, Tam O'Shanter or none for Two & fez or no fez for Eleven, and would the older man take a more liberal view of the recorder than his Third incarnation? That is to say nothing of the fallout if they found each other faintly ridiculous, disbelieving that they could become, in Two, or have been such men, in Eleven's case.


Consider also the idea of their companions meeting, and maybe even being forced into a bit of Doctor-swapping. Amy Pond might rather relish an encounter with Jamie McCrimmon at least partly thanks to their shared Caledonian heritage, and its a good line of pondering to imagine how she might interact with the junior of the two Doctors and indeed Jamie with the senior. Would they embrace the similarities between the two, or see the unfamiliar incarnation as attempting to step on the toes of their more familiar usual travel buddy? It could go any number of ways.

Add Clara Oswald into the mix, and going by her consolation of young Merry in The Rings Of Akhaten, she could have been an ideal friend for the recently orphaned Evil Of The Daleks - era Victoria Waterfield, cajoling her into joining the loveable moptop & the piper aboard the TARDIS. And that's without throwing in a meeting of minds between Zoe Heriot & Clara's earlier Oswin Oswald incarnation, whether they'd find like minds in each other or see it as an intellectual cat-fight.

But of course what really might get people salivating is the idea of whichever Doctor is chosen as the lead face off against an enemy tackled by the secondary presence. The Silence offer themselves as arguably the most interesting, having been around as long as humanity and by implication the Doctor himself. It's entirely possible that they could have been lurking unseen in the period between The Power Of The Daleks & The War Games, and indeed beforehand, suddenly revealing their presence to Two, whether alone or with Polly, Ben, Jamie, Victoria or Zoe.


Put Eleven in the lead, though, and you have the argument-clincher for shared adventure. Think back to The War Games. Two is on trial by his fellow Time Lords for repeated violation of the non-intervention policy pursued by the rest of Gallifrey. It's not looking good, until his future self enters proceedings. Eleven has two choices. Does he attempt to rescue his younger self and thus at least delay a regeneration, or allow it to happen? The scene would then be set for Two to become a Celestial Intervention Agent, with Eleven's help, in a sort of inversion of his Players/World Game fate, or future reunions in his new Third body.

Would the dandier Doctor somehow resent the Eleventh for not doing more to help him avoid his fate, or accept it as an inevitability? The initial impression would probably be something along the lines of them having only the Silurians in common (think Doctor Who & The Silurians & The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood). But it would add a certain edge to things, would it not?



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