Inspirations - The Two Doctors

The Two Doctors has its genesis in an abandoned script for The Five Doctors - namely the initial Robert Holmes commission.
You will recall that Eric Saward notified John Nathan-Turner that the 20th Anniversary celebration piece really ought to be written by someone familiar with the show's history, which meant getting one of the old writers back. JNT had always been resistant to this, referring to them collectively as "boring old farts" who did not fit in with his more dynamic 1980's vision for the programme. He had only employed Terrance Dicks in his first season because his was the only script leftover from his predecessors which was fit to use in the time available. JNT was equally resistant to using old directors for the same reason. Saward had talked JNT round, and had sought out Robert Holmes to write the anniversary story, as he loved his previous work and was keen to collaborate with him.
The story which Holmes began to put together was titled "The Six Doctors", as it would be revealed that the First Doctor (having to be played by another actor due to the death of William Hartnell) was a robot impostor, created by the Cybermen, who were to be the chief villains at Saward's request.
The main plot was to have been that the Cybermen wanted the secret of time travel, and were determined to capture the Doctor to dissect him and uncover what it was in the genetic make-up of Time Lords that allowed them to safely traverse the temporal vortex.
Holmes was being asked to continually update his story as the availability of Doctor and companion actors waxed and waned, until it got to the point when he no longer wished to continue. He withdrew from the project, and Dicks took his place.

However, Saward had enjoyed working with Holmes, and was able to employ him on the next season - the result of which was The Caves of Androzani, widely regarded as one of the best ever stories of the classic era. Holmes was happier with less interference from the producer, and it gave him a chance to reuse concepts from The Power of Kroll, which he had never been happy with, in a more satisfying way. It was only natural that he would be invited back the following year. The only problem was that JNT had a shopping list of story elements which he wanted to see included. Holmes was faced with the same scenario which had led to his anniversary tale being abandoned.
One outcome from The Five Doctors had been Patrick Troughton's desire to appear in the programme once more. After distancing himself from the role for many years, Troughton had now accepted that fans were keen to see him, and so he had begun to make regular convention appearances, through which he got to know JNT quite well. Frazer Hines had only managed a few hours work on The Five Doctors, due to his commitments on Emmerdale Farm, but he had now left the soap. Troughton proposed a return for both the Second Doctor and Jamie to the series.
The series was now regularly including a story each year filmed abroad. JNT wanted to film in the USA, as this was becoming a home from home for him, with frequent visits to US conventions, and he was aware of the big audiences for the show on US PBS channels. The latest companion was an American, to help attract more US viewers. JNT hit upon the city of New Orleans as a possible destination, and started looking into the costs.

JNT also wanted to keep the fans happy with the return of classic monsters, and decided upon the Sontarans for a modern makeover. These had been created by Holmes, although he didn't actually want to use them - preferring to devise his own creatures. Holmes had always preferred a single representative of an alien species for the Doctor to fight against, rather than large armies of them.
The writer now had to come up with a story which included two Doctors and their respective companions, to be set in New Orleans, and to feature the Sontarans - all of which had been imposed upon him. One further imposition was that this was to be three part story - the equivalent of an old six-parter now that episodes were 45 minutes long. Holmes had always hated six-parters, structuring them as a four part story with a two part opening or closing section, to vary characters and locations.
For the main plot, Holmes elected to use the ideas he had formulated for "The Six Doctors" - the search for the Time Lord genetic element so that the villains could travel in time. When it came to the setting, Holmes could only think of jazz music and Creole cooking as being emblematic of the Louisiana city. After initially thinking about jazz-loving aliens, he came up with the Androgums - an anagram of gourmands, from the French word 'gourmet'. This suggested a love of food and drink, and gluttony. The Androgums would be characterised as a food-obsessed race who were keen to sample everything - including human beings, which introduced cannibalistic themes into the story. Holmes was a vegetarian.
It quickly became apparent that the series would not be able to afford a shoot in New Orleans, so JNT was forced to look closer to home. He settled on Spain, and the city of Seville in particular. This totally undermined the whole Androgum aspect of the plot, and neither Holmes nor Saward could see the point of Seville's inclusion. Yes, it had lovely restaurants, but wasn't particularly noted for its cuisine. Holmes was disappointed that the story lost a lot of jokes he had included about the differences between UK and American English.

As with most writers who had story elements imposed on them, Holmes elected to concentrate his writing on his own characters - the scientist Dastari who is the one who will try to find the Doctor's symbiotic nucleus, and Chessene, an Androgum who has been genetically enhanced by Dastari to make her a ruthless adversary. The Sontarans were pushed further down in the story mix.
Additional characters were introduced in the form of "resting" actor Oscar and his lady friend Anita.
Production assistant Gary Downie - JNT's partner - struggled to find a suitable hacienda for the main location. The house he finally found was in the process of being sold to a member of the Getty dynasty, which added some complications. He was helped in his location searches by the wife of the British Consul, and she gets a cameo in the programme as the lady who throws a rose down to Dastari. More problems arose as filming got underway. The stream where we first see the Doctor and Peri fishing had dried up since the location recce. A number of wigs failed to arrive (including Jacqueline Pearce's, who was playing Chessene). This led to the filming schedule having to be adapted, with the cast able to spend more time at the hotel pool while they waited for the wigs to arrive.

ETA - the Basque Separatist Movement - was active at this time, so the explosives needed for the destruction of the Sontaran spaceship were hard to source locally, and had to be brought in from further afield. Disaster then struck when JNT was informed that the film sequences of Oscar and Anita had been damaged and were unusable. He had to pay extra to recall the actors back to Spain to reshoot their material. Later, back in London, he was furious to discover that the damage was hardly visible, and so he had incurred extra costs for nothing. He decided that the programme would no longer use film for location work, sticking to video only as this could be viewed back immediately.
The heat caused additional problems. The Sontaran actors could only work for short periods, preferably in the early mornings or in the evenings when it was a little cooler. John Stratton's Androgum make up kept falling off due profuse sweating. During the main shoot within the city of Seville itself, Patrick Troughton's colourful handkerchief went missing at the fountain location.

The Doctor is initially alerted to the fact that his abducted previous incarnation is being held in the vicinity of Seville due to the distinctive peel of the cathedral bells he hear when he makes a psychic link. The most famous building in the city, it hardly features in the finished programme. Trips abroad in Doctor Who invariably involve a run around which showcases all the main tourist sites. At the time of its completion, the Cathedral of St. Maria de la Sede was the largest in the world. It started life as a mosque, begun in the 12th Century, but was converted to a Christian place of worship after the expulsion of the Moors, from 1248. Christopher Columbus is buried here. The bell peel which the Doctor recognises comes from the bell tower - the Giralda - which was converted from a minaret. The belfry was added in the 16th Century.
The story opens in monochrome, as a nod to the era of the Second Doctor and Jamie. The TARDIS console for these scenes is the one only recently replaced at the end of Season 19. Troughton's original console no longer existed, and it was thought too expensive to recreate it just for a short sequence. It is stated that Victoria is travelling with the Doctor and Jamie at this time, but has been dropped off somewhere to study graphology. This is the study of handwriting, as used in law enforcement to try to judge the personality of a writer, and their psychological state when they wrote something. The first recorded instance of handwriting analysis goes back to 1575, but it wasn't until the late 19th Century that interest really grew in it. It is generally considered a pseudo-science, and many studies have shown that graphologists have a low success rate.
We will discuss this story's place in the Second Doctor's timeline when we get round to doing a "What's Wrong With..." piece on it.
Next time: a story featuring, and inspired by, Herbert George Wells - though the great man will be spinning in his grave. Paul Darrow gets revenge on Colin Baker, after the latter had guest starred in his series...