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The Wrong Doctors takes one of the strangest continuity problems in Doctor Who, throws two Colin Bakers, two Mels, several dinosaurs, a murderous Victorian gang and some 1980s venture capitalists into Pease Pottage, and somehow emerges with a story that is considerably less confusing than it has any right to be.
The basic premise is wonderfully silly. Mel’s television debut is, chronologically speaking, completely backwards. The Doctor meets her during *The Trial of a Time Lord* when she is already his future companion, despite the fact that, from his perspective, they’ve never met. So The Wrong Doctors finally asks the obvious question: how on Earth did that first meeting actually happen?
The answer is: badly.
One version of the Sixth Doctor has just left Evelyn and is heading towards Pease Pottage to meet Mel for the first time. Meanwhile, a slightly younger, freshly post-Trial Doctor arrives to return another Mel to her own timeline. Cue two Doctors, two Mels and a village which has apparently developed a serious dinosaur problem.
And then everything gets worse. In the best possible way.
Matt Fitton’s script is essentially a celebration of continuity nonsense. Rather than treating Mel’s bizarre introduction as an awkward hole to be quietly filled, it embraces the absurdity and makes the temporal confusion the entire point.
The real delight is hearing Colin Baker play both versions of the Doctor. The younger incarnation is brash, arrogant and quick to leap to conclusions, while the older Big Finish Doctor is noticeably more mellow and emotionally intelligent. It’s effectively a conversation between the television Sixth Doctor and the Doctor Big Finish has spent years developing.
And Colin absolutely nails it. You can hear the distinction immediately, particularly when the two Doctors start arguing. It’s one of those performances where you remember just how much Baker has grown into the role. Big Finish took the Doctor who had been unfairly saddled with an abrasive personality on television and allowed him to become something far richer, then put that older version in a room with his younger self and let them bicker. Wonderful.
Bonnie Langford is equally good. The two Mels are differentiated without making either feel like a completely different character, and the story gives Mel something she desperately needed: an actual beginning.
Then Fitton proceeds to fill Pease Pottage with dinosaurs, a World War One-era Women’s Institute figure, a gang of violent Victorian-looking youths and a pair of alien businessmen attempting to monetise time itself. Because apparently temporal capitalism was the only thing missing from the story.
Thematically, the story has some surprisingly thoughtful material beneath its comedy. Identity, destiny and the idea of becoming the person you already know you will be are central to the plot. The older Doctor is effectively meeting the person he used to be, while Mel is confronted by versions of herself separated by experience. The story asks whether our future is something predetermined or something we become through the choices we make. It also quietly celebrates the Sixth Doctor’s evolution. That makes the chaos worthwhile.
If there’s a weakness, it’s that the plot occasionally becomes so enamoured with its own cleverness that the actual villains and conspiracy feel secondary. The alien entrepreneurs are entertaining, but they’re largely there to facilitate the temporal shenanigans rather than provide a particularly compelling threat.
But honestly, that’s fine. This is a story about two Doctors and two Mels meeting in the wrong order. The plot is allowed to be ridiculous.
Final Thoughts
A wonderfully chaotic, funny and surprisingly affectionate piece of continuity surgery. The multiple Doctors and Mels are handled brilliantly, Colin Baker gives one of his best Big Finish showcases, and Bonnie Langford gets the proper introduction her character never received on television. It occasionally gets buried beneath its own temporal cleverness, but when it’s working, The Wrong Doctors is an absolute joy.
4 out of 5 time-travelling village meetings where the first thing you see is a dinosaur and the second thing you see is yourself