The Two Doctors
The final classic multi-Doctor story. Between these three plus Time Crash and The Day of the Doctor, it seems pretty clear to me that multi-Doctor stories work best when the Doctors are actually
interacting with each other. Regardless of how nonsense the actual plot may be (and only DotD has a plot that I would consider to be not nonsensical, despite its slow parts) the sight of two or more Doctors bouncing off each other usually makes it worth it. The longer the Doctors are kept apart, the more the story suffers for it. The Three Doctors falls in the former camp; The Five Doctors in the latter; and The Two Doctors somewhere in the middle, but mostly leaning toward the latter.
As is usually the case with these things, the plot is weird and bad. A scientist is helping an androgum (who are basically an entire race
of this) become a god for reasons. They've formed an alliance with Sontarans -- whose costumes have degraded to the worst condition I've ever seen them in; they look like actual shit in suits -- to develop a time machine for reasons. They're based in Seville, Spain for reasons. And they've kidnapped the Second Doctor to turn him into an androgum for reasons. It's possible I just didn't pay close enough attention, but of all the many factors at play in this story, I don't think there was ever a compelling reason for why these things were happening in relation to each other.
And none of that would really matter if, as the title suggests, this was a story about two Doctors -- in this case Patrick Troughton's Second and Colin Baker's Sixth -- going through some weird shit together. Troughton and Jamie do get about 20 or so minutes of exploring a space station together in the first episode, and that's kinda cool, but after that they're separated and the Second Doctor spends most of the rest of the story tied up (and briefly transformed into an androgum himself) while the Sixth Doctor and Peri team up with Jamie and a couple nobodies to find him and unravel the androgum plot.
But why write it this way?! Unless Troughton was seriously ill and just couldn't participate much at all, I don't know why anyone would concot a story called The Two Doctors that then kept the two Doctors away from each other until the last half of the last episode. It's a total waste of a premise and a waste of Troughton's Doctor (though to his credit, Troughton is as charming and delightful in the role as ever, despite the very limited amount of material given to work with). On the upside, it is fun to see Jamie again and he at least is given a larger role. Hell, he's more of a companion to the Sixth Doctor then Peri is here.
This was my first Sixth Doctor serial. Plenty has been written about the way the Sixth Doctor was written, directed, even dressed, so I'm not going to retread any of that ground. I will say that Colin does a fine job playing the character he was given, it's just that character is so unappealing to watch as a protagonist. And honestly, watching him in action, I often felt bad for Colin that he was stuck with this version of the Doctor. An ill-conceived character from top to bottom, but not for lack of effort on his part at least.
In the end, I'd rank this a little higher than The Five Doctors, if only because I thought that story was an even bigger waste of its potential and even more sloppily put together. But still, what a shame that this final multi-Doctor story -- and Patrick Troughton's last outing as the Doctor period -- is wasted by a plot that, for some reason, seems intent on keeping its two Doctors apart for as long as possible.