The Two Doctors - Production

Production

• Working titles for this story included The Kraglon Inheritance and The Androgum Inheritance.
• Robert Holmes, a vegetarian, wrote the serial as an allegory about meat-eating, hunting and butchering. "Androgum" is an anagram of "gourmand".
• Elements from Robert Holmes's aborted project The Six Doctors were carried over to this story (as the production subtitles for the DVD release reveal).
• Holmes's original brief from producer John Nathan-Turner was to write a serial taking place in New Orleans, involving the Sontarans, the Second Doctor and Jamie, but the setting had to be changed to Spain instead when the expected funding for location filming in the United States fell through. Holmes was particularly disappointed that much of the humour involving the differences between Britain and America was lost in the rewrite. The only hint we get of this humour is in Episode 1, when the Sixth Doctor looks at Peri and says that Columbus "has a lot to answer for".
• According to the DVD commentary track, location filming was plagued by numerous small problems, including high heat that caused make-up to melt, a three-day delay to replace Troughton and Pearce's wigs (which had somehow got lost in shipping), Carmen Gómez' refusal to wear a costume designed for her, and a local stunt man (the truck driver) who refused to perform his stunt as it had been choreographed. Pearce also says that she was a last-minute replacement for another, unspecified actress who had to drop out of the production. A filmed scene with Oscar and Anita in the olive grove was discovered to have been ruined by a scratch on the negative, so Saxon and Gómez, who had already returned to England, had to be quickly brought back to Spain at considerable expense.
• During the transmission of the story, the news that the series would be put on hiatus for a year was announced. Much controversy still surrounds this period and action, with disputes over whether or not the series was facing cancellation outright at this stage, and the roles of various BBC officials such as BBC One controller Michael Grade and Head of Drama Serials Jonathan Powell.
• This was the latest of a number of stories which included location filming outside the United Kingdom, starting with City of Death. Discounting the 1996 TV movie which was produced entirely in Canada, and the 2007 episode "Daleks in Manhattan" which included some second unit footage shot in New York City, another regular series episode wouldn't be substantially filmed outside the UK until "The Fires of Pompeii" which was broadcast in 2008.