10 episodes
Aired between 19th April 1969 and 21st June 1969
Written by Terrence Dicks and Malcolm Hulke
Produced by Derrick Sherwin
Directed by David Maloney
Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives on a desolate landscape. As the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe explore, they discover that they've landed in WW1 and only just escape an artillery barrage. As they recover, they come across Lady Jennifer Buckingham, one of the English nurses patrolling the battlefield for wounded.
She takes them on her little ambulance truck back to the British HQ, encountering a squad led by Lieutenant Jeremy Carstairs on the way.
Once at the base, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are taken before Major Barrington, who in turn decides to take them to see General Smythe on account of their mysterious appearance.
As they leave, Carstairs and Lady Buckingham confer with each other, revealing that there are slight gaps in their memory.
Over in a far away chateau, General Smythe is running over the plans for battle and goes into his office to use a futuristic piece of video communication equipment to order five thousand more troops to his front. He is interrupted in the process by one of his own men. Smythe goes ballistic and orders him out. When he exits the room moments later, the man questions Smythe about his behaviour, but Smythe dons small pebble classes and hypnotises the Captain into forgetting what he saw.
When Major Barrington brings the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie in front of the General, he doesn't take long to decide that the Doctor is a spy, Jamie is a defector and Zoe along with him. General Smythe holds them up to a court marshal and makes it clear that their guilt is a foregone conclusion. The Doctor protests that they are not spies, calling forth Lt Carstairs and Lady Buckingham to testify on their behalf. General Smythe shuts down the defence and states that he, Major Barrington and Captain Ransom will retire to consider the verdict. In private he uses the glasses again to hypnotise his fellow judges and make them conclude that the Doctor is guilty. They return to the room and pass sentence. The Doctor is to be shot as a spy, Zoe will spend ten years in prison for the same charge, and Jamie will be sent back to his "regiment" for further court marshal. The trio are split up and imprisoned until the morning.
In the night, Zoe sneaks away from Lady Buckingham and goes to free the Doctor, noticing Smythe use the odd video phone as she goes. She rescues the Dcotor but they are discovered by Captain Ransom before they can make a break for it. The Doctor is led outside as the sun comes up and is tied to a post whilst the firing squad lines up.
Zoe is made to stand and watch. The soldiers ready their guns and aim, but a shot rings out from a nearby German sniper, attacking the firing squad.
The distraction allows Zoe to free the Doctor and they run off.
Jamie meanwhile has found himself in a cell with a redcoat from 1745. The redcoat is confused at how he came to be in this strange place. Jamie convinces him to work together to get out of the cells by staging a fight. Their plan works and they run off, but the redcoat is shot as they run.
Elsewhere in the prison, the Doctor bluffs his way in as an examiner from the War office. Zoe is his assistant. He does a pretty good impression of an up tight inspector and almost convinces the commandant to release Jamie. When they hear that one of the prisoners has been shot escaping, they believe it's Jamie, but their fears are waylaid when he is brought to the commandants office.
Back at the Chateau, General Smythe continues to do anachronistic things like get into a large black box with a sliding door and teleport away. Ransom witnesses this, and is again hypnotised to forget.
Meanwhile, Carstairs and Buckingham talk more openly about the strange mist they went through that proceeded some memory loss. They decide that the prisoners need talking to and probably freeing. As Ransom brings the trio back, they convince him that General Smythe wants to see him, then they free the prisoners once he's left.
Carstairs and Buckingham find it a little hard to believe the groups explanation of things, until Zoe makes them see the video phone in General Smythe's office, behind the painting. The Doctor realises that the monitor is turned on and he deactivates it, but not before General Smythe gets a good look at them on the other end along with a strange technician.
Now that Smythe is aware of exactly who's been snooping around his office, the Doctor tells everyone that they must leave, especially Carstairs and Lady Buckingham. They convince Captain Ransom that Carstairs has heard from the General and has been ordered to transport the prisoners, and they all run off in the ambulance.
Shortly after they've gone, Smythe reappears and scolds Captain Ransom for his gullibility. He orders the Captain to send an artillery strike against the ambulance, but Ransom is appalled at his willingness to shell women. Smythe puts on his glasses and hypnotises him once again.
As the ambulance drives on, it comes under barrage fire. The Doctor tells them to race into a nearby fog bank which makes Carstairs and Lady Buckingham afraid. He takes the wheel and steers them on until they come to a valley. They stop the car and explore their new location, only to find a Roman chariot and infantry rushing towards them.
The group pile back into their ambulance but find that it has stalled, leaving Carstairs to furiously turn the crank handle as the Romans charge ever closer. He starts the truck and they drive off quickly back to 1917.
As they drive, the Doctor begins to piece things together, anticipating that they've gone through some kind of temporal rift and that there's probably loads of different zones around the area. He suggests they drive back to the British HQ to search Smythe's office for a map of the areas.
As they arrive back, Ransom challenges Carstairs about him helping the prisoners, but Carstairs turns the tables, tying him up and leaving him on the floor.
The Doctor goes into Smythe's office and finds a small safe, blowing it open with gunpowder from a Mills Bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb detonates as another British Officer is making inquiries with Carstairs, forcing the group to take him prisoner and tie him up too.
The Doctor does indeed find a zone map inside the safe and notices that there's a central zone unmarked.
He decides that's where they will find out what's going on. The group head off leaving Ransom and the other officer tied up on the floor. They take the ambulance and head out but stop inside the German lines when it runs out of petrol. The group are invariably captured and taken by German soldiers to their HQ.
The Doctor and Co. are brought before Lieutenant Lucke who begins assuming they are British spies. the Doctor tries telling him the truth about the time zones and their other worldly origin, and even uses the sonic screwdriver to undo the screws in his pistol grip as a demonstration of their advanced technology.
Lt Lucke is awestruck but is forced to attention when Captain Von Weich turns up. He takes Lucke into the back room and asks what's going on. Lucke explains the incredible truth, and Von Weich puts on a monocle, hypnotising the officer, just like Smythe did with Ransom.
Once Captain Von Weich is happy with Luckes obedience, he heads off to a similar office where he finds a similar video control behind a painting of the Kaiser and informs his superiors that the fugitives have been captured.
Back with Lt Lucke, he is now adamant that they are spies and the group are forced to show him the sonic screwdriver trick again, this time stealing the gun and holding him prisoner until they can escape.
Over at the central zone, General Smythe welcomes the arrival of a strangely futuristic man called the War Chief. He is concerned that the prisoners were reportedly time travelers. He orders Smythe and Von Weich to double their efforts in capturing them.
Meanwhile, the group reach the American Civil War zone. They're soon hounded by both Confederate and Union troops and are forced to take cover in a nearby barn, leaving Carstairs to fend them off. As they hide in the barn, one of the strange teleport machines arrives and Confederate soldiers begin pouring out of it, heading out of the barn and into the countryside. Zoe is astounded, commenting that the machine must be just like the TARDIS - bigger on the inside. She and the Doctor decide to investigate it despite Jamie's calls for them to wait. As they enter, the door closes and they dematerialise, leaving Jamie and Lady Buckingham alone.
The Doctor and Zoe discover that they are indeed inside a larger structure,
Inside compartmentalised in various rooms, they see German soldiers from WWI, and a roman legion, all hypnotised. They land and the soldiers get up and leave, but the Doctor tells Zoe to stay as they want to see where the machine is based. In due course it takes them to the central control area that consists of a futuristic set of corridors running off to various rooms.
The Doctor and Zoe take a pair of the odd 3D glasses each and use them to blend in with others they see walking around the base.
One of the security guards in the complex sees them and herds them into a lecture hall where they witness an alien scientist explain the fine art of mental conditioning.
Back in 1862, Jamie and Lady Buckingham begin fighting off Confederate soldiers who storm the barn. They are captured and presented to the Confederate leader - Von Weich! The alien General orders them tied up and reports to his superior officer - the War Chief.
As they settle down as prisoners, Jamie and Lady Buckingham are freed by a lone Union soldier who has sneaked into the barn. He tells them his name is Harper, and he's a member of the resistance, a group of soldiers who long ago realised that they were not on Earth and began to fight back against the aliens. Harper motions for them to escape, but they are all caught on the way. Von Weich's gloating is short lived however as the rest of the resistance group turn up and defeat the Confederates, taking Von Weich prisoner instead.
The alien Chief Scientist begins his lecture by trying to recondition a captured Lt Carstairs. He uses his new mind control device and performs the procedure. As soon as Carstairs recovers, he immediately calls out the Doctor and Zoe as spies in the crowd.
Luckily, the Chief Scientist makes the assumption that the process failed and he's delusional. The Doctor gets out of his seat and approaches the Chief Scientist. Bluffing his way along, the Doctor gets the scientist to admit that he didn't remove the previous mental commands and thus no wonder the experiment failed.
He uses the conversation as an opportunity to get a good look at the machine and how it works, realising that it can also de-programme all the humans. Satisfied, the Doctor returns to his seat as the War Chief walks in. The War Chief obviously recognises the Doctor, and vice-versa.
He yells for the guards to stop the Doctor and Zoe, but they are too quick and rush out of the doors. As the chase ensues, the Doctor and Zoe get split up, and Zoe comes across a reconditioned Carstairs who pulls his revolver on her, claiming she's a German spy. Lucky for her, the Chief Scientist finds them both and assumes Carstairs is still delusional. He makes Carstairs drop his weapon and orders the guards to take Zoe to the Security Chief for questioning.
At the interrogation room, the Security Chief uses a mind probe on Zoe and tries to force the truth out of her.
She reveals that she is from the 21st century despite his insistence that she's lying. The War Chief calls in to see what they've learned, but the Security Chief is short with him, telling him only what he needs to know.
Elsewhere in the base, the Doctor makes his way back to the Chief Scientist and bluffs that the War Chief pointed out Zoe, he was just trying to grab her. The scientist is suspicious but accepts the story. He soon convinces the scientist to de-programme Carstairs, and when he does, the two of them tie the scientist up, putting him under the influence of his own machine.
Back in the American Civil War, the resistance begin squabbling amongst themselves as to the reality of the situation. Von Weich uses his cunning to try and send a message to the control centre, but is caught in the act and forced to send an emergency alarm,
Back in the base, the War Chief and the Security Chief pick up on this alarm and leave Zoe to investigate. Once they've left, the Doctor and Carstairs free Zoe and take a look at the security files, discovering a list of resistance fighters that Zoe memorises. Using this information, the Doctor comes up with a plan to unite the resistance fighters and bring down the aliens. They make their way out of the interrogation room and overhear the Security Chief ordering a squad of guards down to the American Civil War Zone.
The Guards do as ordered and take a machine down, and emerge with their guns blazing, killing Harper in the firefight. Thanks to the leadership of Sgt Russel, commander of the resistance, they overpower the guards. Russell decides that the best course of action is to use the travel machine and take the fight to the aliens, a prospect that Jamie supports because he can go and find the Doctor and Zoe. Lady Buckingham wants to go too, but Russell tells her she's needed more at the resistance HQ tending to the wounded. Russell leaves a contingent of men in the barn to watch over Von Weich, and he takes Jamie and two others into the capsule.
In the control centre, the War Chief begins blaming the Security Chief for their failures, especially when they are informed of Zoe's escape and the overpowering of the Chief Scientist.
As he leaves the room, the Security Chief speculates that the fugitives have knowledge of time travel and theorises that they must be of the same race as the War Chief (it's clear he is a different species to the rest of the aliens).
Alone in the control room, the War Chief recognises the incoming travel machine and orders a detachment of guards to be there waiting for them. As the machine arrives, the guards prepare to shoot and open fire as soon as the resistance exit the machine, much to the Doctor, Zoe and Carstairs' horror. It turns out though that they're only stunned. The War Chief orders them taken to the Chief Scientist for reprogramming. When the Security Chief checks them over however, he sees that Jamie was never conditioned in the first place and so orders him taken to the interrogation room instead.
The Doctor, Zoe and Carstairs again overpower the Chief Scientist and revive the resistance fighters. The Doctor tells Sgt Russell his plan to unite the rebels and sends Zoe with them as she has memorised the leaders. The Doctor and Carstairs move off and rescue Jamie by using a hole in the wall and they all try to escape back to one of the travel machines. Russell and Zoe depart with the resistance soliders, leaving Jamie, Carstairs and the Doctor onboard the station so they can try and grab the reconditioning machine.
Once Zoe and Russell reach the ACW zone, they discover that Von Weich has managed to get out his monacle and hypnotise his guard. Russell is forced to fight the guard and is nearly killed by Von Weich, but the guard comes around and shoots the Alien General dead.
When the War Chief finds out that the Security Chief removed Jamie from the rest, the squabbling between them escalates. The War Chief scolds his subordinate and says that instead of racing around the base looking for them, they should be sending guards to the travel machines as that's where they will be trying to get to.
Sure enough, the Doctor and co grab the reconditioning device and make it back to the travel machines. As they begin to take off, the process is stopped from outside. The War Chief orders them to come out and begins messing with the dimensions of the internal chamber, threatening to crush the Doctor to death unless he surrenders.
Given the options, the Doctor is forced to come out waving a white handkerchief, but uses it as a ruse to throw a smoke bomb onto the floor and lock the external controls so the War Chief can't mess with their craft. He then races back inside and the machine dematerialises.
Back in Central Control, the War Lord arrives and is most displeased at the current situation.
The Security Chief seizes his opportunity to make the War Cheif look bad and explains his theory that the War Chief has brought along one of his own kind to mess up the plans. The War Lord doesn't agree however and dismisses the accusation. He orders guards to the 1917 zone in a SIDRAT to await their arrival.
The Doctor fits independent control chips to the machine and pilots it out to the Roman zone in order to walk to the 1917 zone undetected. After they travel for a while, they once again happen upon the angry Romans who charge them. They race across the time barrier into the 1917 zone where they are spotted by a Tommie who radios their location in.
General Smythe receives the information and orders a nearby machine gun to mow them down. Russell and Zoe turn up, taking out the machine gun, but not before the rest of the soldiers can capture the Doctor, Jamie and Carstairs, taking them once again to the Chateau.
Smythe is seething with vengeance and orders the Doctor's immediate execution, and gives instructions that Jamie and Carstairs will be forced to serve on the most severe part of the front line. The Doctor is taken outside kicking and screaming, leaving Smythe to smugly report their capture into Control. When he does so however, the War Chief is furious as Smythe hasn't recovered the reconditioning machine that the Doctor stole.
Smythe races to the window to stop the execution but it turns out that a large band of the resistance does it for him. The rebels storm the Chateau and Smythe retreats to his office. He contacts the War Chief and explains the situation and the War Chief orders him to disable the SIDRAT controls. He is however shot by Russell before he can achieve this.
In Central Contorl, the Security Chief gets angry and proposes that they send the futuristic guards into the zone to kill the rebels. The War Chief disagrees, saying it will ruin everything. The War Lord offers a compromise and orders all the WWI armies to attack the Chateau in force. His orders are carried out and a large force of British, French, German and Austro-Hungarian troops attack the Chateau. The situation is critical until the Doctor figures out how to manipulate the control board in the room to create a temporal zone all the way around the building, effectively sealing them off.
This act however allows the aliens to send a SIDRAT of futuristic guards directly into Smythe's office. They rush into the place and capture the Doctor and the reconditioning machine before racing out again. Once back at the Control, the Security Chief takes the Doctor immediately to the interrogation room where he uses the mind probe to try and uncover the conspiracy he believes the War Chief is involved in by getting an admission that the Doctor is a Time Lord, just like the War Chief. The Doctor reveals nothing, but the War Chief enters and says that he is indeed a Time :Lord. He uses his superior rank to force the Security Chief to release the Doctor and hand him over.
Once alone with the Doctor, the War Chief tries to reason with him, explaining that he knows the Doctor stole a TARDIS and fled from the other Time Lords. The War Chief fled too, and teamed up with these aliens to build a grand army to conquer the galaxy and force peace upon the races.
The Doctor questions why they use humans but the War Chief laughs, saying that they are the most savage species in the galaxy. He offers the Doctor the chance to join him and help bring peace to the galaxy, but the Doctor refuses, denouncing their actions and scorning him for providing the aliens with Time Lord technology, least of which being the ability to use SIDRATs. The War Lord enters and is suspicious of the War Chief, but he too offers the Doctor the chance to work with them.
Back at the Chateau, the rebels are attacked again by the guards and lose some of the men. They position a machine gun in Smyhes office to counter the threat.
This is only a stop gap though. Sgt Russel has no option but to go through with the plan to unite each faction. He leaves to find the rest.
During the night, some of the rebels are overpowered and Zoe wakes up to find the Chateau under the control of the Mexican rebel leader: Arturo Villar. He says he's come to meet with Russell but when she explains he's not here, Villar intends to leave, not seeing the benefit of listening to a woman. It takes Jamie's presence to get him to stay, even though it's Zoe doing all of the reasoned arguing. It's not long before Russell returns, bringing with him a Russian commander: Ivan Petrov. Together, they come up with a plan to assault all the zone communication arrays one at a time and destroy all but the one in the American Civil War Zone.
As the arrays are attacked, the Security Chief sends guard detachments out to sort them out, depleting the force held to defend the base.
The rebels all gather at the barn, waiting for the next SIDRAT to arrive so they can hijack it.
The War Chief spots the rebels tactic and tells the War Lord. The Security Chief tries to dig his way out of his incompetence by suggesting the use of a neutron bomb on that zone, but the War Chief explains that it will ruin the experiment and they will have to abandon the planet. The War Lord decides to use the Doctor as bait and forces the Doctor to convince the rebels that he's escaped and sent a SIDRAT down for them to take. Jamie, Zoe and the rebels fall for the trick and are quickly surrounded when they get to Central Control. The prisoners are taken away, but the War Chief orders the Doctor to remain behind.
Once alone, the Doctor manages to pry the truth out of the War Chief that the SIDRAT's have only a limited lifespan before they stop working, so the Doctor and more specifically his TARDIS has become a fundamental part of the War Chief's plan to take over the armies and conquer the galaxy.
When they rejoin the War Lord, the Doctor acts like he's going along with the plan, and offers to improve the existing mind control devices the aliens used. The War Lord, although suspicious, agrees and orders the Security Chief to take him to them.
The Security Chief is however even more suspicious and instead takes the Doctor to the prison cells where he shuts him in and leaves him to the mercies of a furious Sgt Russell and Villar.
When the Security Chief returns, the War Chief questions him on where the Doctor is. He rushes off to save him, pulling him out of the cells as the soldiers are giving him a good old beating. He takes the Doctor to the right section and orders him to begin reconditioning the prisoners. The Doctor however fixes the device so the victims remain unchanged and starts to "process" them. Jamie catches on well enough, and passes the message onto the others, but Villar is too furious and immediately attacks the Doctor once he's let off the table. Luckily, the prisoners are able to overpower the guards present and they calm Villar down enough to explain. The Doctor apologises for the double cross and explains that he had to do it or they would have dropped a neutron bomb into the zone.
The War Chief returns to confront the Security Chief, but has the tables turned when it turns out the War Chief's conversations with the Doctor have been recorded. The Security Chief places the War Chief under arrest and sends him to the cells under armed guard. When they arrive at the cells, the guards are taken care of and the War Chief is released. The rebels take their guns and rush the main control room. The War Chief takes the opportunity to shoot the Security Chief dead. The rebels perceive it as a victory and propose to use the SIDRAT's to take all the soldiers home. The War Chief however explains that the SIDRAT's have stopped functioning faster than they thought. This means that a large portion of the soldiers in the zones will be trapped on the alien planet forever.
The Doctor stops the war games by sending a broadcast to all the zones irrespective, and theorises that there's only one way to safely deliver everyone home, but it will mean the end of the Doctor's friendship with Zoe and Jamie. The War Chief understands that he's referring to summoning the Time Lords and he begs the Doctor not to do it. Jamie doesn't seem to understand seeing as they are the Doctor's own people so surely it will be a good thing. The Doctor looks torn and says he hasn't time to explain but he has no choice other than to summon them. He sits on the ground and places strange white squares on the floor. Using mental prowess, the Doctor concentrates his thoughts and the box assembles itself.
He says it's a telepathic message to fill the Time Lords in on what's happening. He goes to send it but notices that the War Chief has done a runner to one of the SIDRAT's. The rebels and the TARDIS crew all rush down to the SIDRAT bay to stop him.
The War Chief does indeed reach the SIDRAT bay, but is blocked by two guards and the War Lord.
He tries to bluff his way out of it but the War Lord sees through it and orders his guards to shoot his former ally dead. They open fire killing him, shortly before Villar and the rebels rush into the bay, shooting it out until the War Lord is the only enemy left. He is taken prisoner and the Doctor sends the message to the Time Lords.
With the act complete, he tries to leg it into the SIDRAT and travel back to the 1917 zone so he, Jamie and Zoe can escape in the TARDIS before the Time Lords arrive, but Villar wants to kill the Doctor. Sgt Russell stops him and the Doctor, Jamie, Zoe and Carstairs rush into the SIDRAT.
Back on the planet, the TARDIS crew leave Carstairs as he goes off to look for Lady Buckingham, and the Doctor anxiously spurs them on to the TARDIS. As they get in sight of the machine, time slows down and they have to fight their way through a force field to enter the time machine.
The Doctor only just manages to get it to pull away, and they dematerialise. They think it's all over, but when the TARDIS lands on water, it suddenly begins to sink and leak water inside. The Doctor panics and explains that the Time Lords are shutting down the TARDIS defences. A booming voice rings out demanding that the Doctor takes the TARDIS to their homeworld, a request that the Doctor cannot find a way around.
Once they have landed, the trio are taken by one of the Time Lords to a chamber where they see three Time Lord judges putting the War Lord on trial for warmongering and crimes against the human race.
The Doctor is ordered to come forwards and state if the record he sent was true. The Doctor confirms it.
The trial is interrupted however when a SIDRAT appears and a handful of guards burst in, freeing the War Lord. They rush out of the chamber and take the Doctor prisoner, trying to force him to pilot the TARDIS for them. They manage to escape and as they flee, the Time Lords place a force field around the War Lord and his cronies. They say that a similar force field will be permanently placed around their planet to stop any of their race from warmongering or indeed interacting with other races again. "It will be like you have never existed" the Time Lord judge says.
Zoe and Jamie are temporarily placed under a similar force field and the Doctor is led back into the chamber where he must stand trial for breaking the laws of time via interference and stealing a TARDIS. The Doctor says he's proud of it, and insists that he cannot stand by and watch whilst evil is loosed upon the world. Some evils must be fought. He gives examples of his most deadly opponents: Quarks, Yeti, Ice Warriors, Cybermen and Daleks.
The judges ponder this and order him confined until they reach a verdict.
Later that night, a Time Lord arrives and dispels the barrier on Zoe and Jamie. He tells them he's going to return them to their own time zone, but relents and lets them see the Doctor one last time. The Doctor is looking utterly defeated and only agrees to make a run for it again after Jamie's insistance that they've got out of tighter spots and the fact that Zoe has discovered the Time Lord didn't reactivate the barrier. The rush back to the TARDIS but they are met there by the Time Lord Judges.
The Judges insist that Zoe and Jamie will be taken back to their own time zones. Zoe fights the inevitable, insisting that there's got to be a way, but the Doctor shakes his head and then both of their hands.
He tells Jamie he won't forget him and he watches as they enter the SIDRAT, giving them a final wave goodbye.
The Time Lords send the SIDRAT off and explain that they will remember only their first adventure with the Doctor, but nothing more. They lead him back into the chamber and watch as Jamie returns to the highlands and fights redcoats following the massacre at Culloden, and Zoe returns to the wheel in space.
The Time Lords then pass sentence. They agree with him that sometimes evil must be fought and Earth seems a focal point for these crises. Therefore the Doctor will be sent to Earth - in exile. There he will have his knowledge of piloting the TARDIS taken from his mind and he will be left until the Time Lords decide otherwise.
The Doctor is furious about that, and says he's too infamous to be stuck on the Earth. The Time Lords say that it's not going to be a problem because the other part of the punishment is a forced regeneration. The Doctor will however be allowed to choose his new face. They show a selection of options, but there's something wrong with them all such as too fat, too thin, too young, too old etc. The Time Lords shrug and say they will decide for him then and he is slowly transported to a dark void where he begins to undergo his change...
Trivia
- One of the reasons why Doctor Who was such a success back in 1963 was because there was simply nothing like it on British TV at the time. The sights, the sounds, everything about it was just out of left field. By 1969, Star Trek was coming to England, and in colour. A host of other shows backed it up too. For many, the end of Troughton meant the end of Doctor Who. This was the environment that led Derrick Sherwin to suggesting a more Earth based show (and the ability to make the thing cheaper).
- In order to pull the thing off, Sherwin had to come up with an excuse, but time was short and every script submitted seemed to be eating more and more time from the production team. Following another failed script, Sherwin approached Terrence Dicks and told him to combine a six part slot and a four part slot and use it to tell the story of the transition. Terrence agreed and brought in his old mentor Malcolm Hulke to help him write it and the rest is history.
- The main location used for the War Games was a rubbish dump in Brighton. It had very recently been the same location where "Oh What a Lovely War" was filmed, so had ready made trenches and barbed wire all over the place...and rats!
- The private who holds Von Weich prisoner is actually David Troughton, Patricks son. He will be back in a few more Doctor Who's down the years, most notably The Curse of Pelladon.
- Talking of cast connections, Lady Buckingham was played by Jane Sherwin. Three guesses who she was the wife of.
- For those of you who are counting, this story marks the first time the Doctor kisses someone. It's Zoe and it's on the forehead.
What worked
- The alien Generals putting on glasses to hypnotise people
- General Smythe is really intimidating, a great bad guy...fantastic actor
- If General Smythe is good, Von Weich is epic. His voice is so intimidating, and his accents are pretty darn good
- The location work and historical scenes are really full of top class costumes and props.
- Loved the fact that the heroes have to go through the German interrogation after all the palaver with the British interrogation
- It didn't necessarily "work", but the assault on the rebels by the guards in the SIDRAT is hilarious!
- The entire sub-plot with the War Chief and the Security Chief is for the most part, great
What didn't work
- Why on Earth would a German sniper randomly start shooting at a British firing squad?
- The music just doesn't fit any part of it. Terrible score.
- The Security Chief sounds a little bit too much like a Dalek
- The futuristic set design was so sparse it made no sense that the guards couldn't see the Doctor and fiends when they were hiding
- Magnetic fuzzy felt shapes for door controls. I know there's a limited budget, but this isn't playschool people
- The obviously wooden guns of the gimp guards are a bit crap
- The gimp guards themselves are too for that matter
- The capture, escape, capture, escape does get slightly boring by episode 9.
- The Doctor chuckles along to himself when he see's that Jamie is killing redcoats.
Overall Feelings
What a problem of epic proportions Malcolm Hulke and Terrence Dicks had. They were told to write this ten part monster in a week and have it interesting and exciting as well as wrap up an entire generation of the show. Lesser men would have folded, Terrence and Malcolm pulled it out of the bag, knocked it out of the park, and other cliche'd similes.
The best (and probably only) way to watch this story is by doing the old "forget everything beyond 1969" trick. Your ten year old self is sat down with their family, getting ready for the new Doctor who story. If it had been a WWI tale in itself, that would have been good enough, but from the get go, we have some great tension with the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe being accused of spying, and the fact that there's a clearly evil bad guy doing abnormal things.
Through each part there's a great sense of progression, with new elements being added all the time to make you sit back and say "what the hell is going on?" Now that's a potential downside, true, but certainly in my case, it really drew me into the world and made me curious. Similarly, the capture, escape, capture routine could well have got tedious early on and made this story drag on forever. I felt though that it did the exact opposite, heightening the tension, especially because you knew exactly what was going to happen when Captain Von Weich turned up and put on his monocle. In this respect, the fact that the story runs over ten parts plays to its strengths. There's no way the story could have been as richly developed if this was even a six part story.
The historical sets were fantastic, the costumes pretty much spot on as you would expect from the BBC historical dept. Things only start getting a bit iffy when we get to the control centre and then we get some sixties-tastic vortex wall art to keep us happy. Although the quality of those futuristic sets take a nose dive, the acting and the story really doesn't. I praised the Dominators for showing good character development by having the bad guys disagree. This story practically makes them look two dimensional! And lets not forget Phil Maddox as the War Lord. He could have played it like a pantomime villain (like the War Chief and Security Chief do), but he went the other way. He really takes the role and makes it his own. Looks great, sounds great, acts great.
Then we get to the big event...the arrival of the Time Lords. It's worth noting that nothing like this had really been seen before. The show quickly established from Marco Polo onwards that the Doctor cannot loose. He doesn't always know everything even at that point, but it's safe to assume that by the end of the story he knows exactly what to do, evil is vanquished and it's all alright. The only times it's deviated from that up to now is the Dalek epic (The Daleks' Master Plan) and The Massacre. Even then though, it's been the Doctor that's got the TARDIS crew out of trouble at significant cost. Here it's like a worst case scenario. I mean, the Time Lords are presented pretty much like gods. They seem capable of doing anything and are likely on a par with Chronos (see The Time Monster). The chase is stalling for time, but in its own way, it builds the tension nicely until we're screaming at the TV along with Jamie and Zoe for the Doctor to do something and get them out of it.
But there's no happy ending to be had here. The scene where Zoe and Jamie say goodbye is utterly heartbreaking if you've watched them in sequence, and the bit where Zoe says "I thought I'd forgotten something important but it must be nothing" just twists the knife. I mean, what a truly fantastic way of pointing out how much of an influence the Doctor has been to people's lives.
Patrick Troughton's acting (as well as Bernard Horsefalls for that matter) kicks up to the next level. It's just a truly emotive scene until he starts gurning, and the Time Lords could have gone over the top but they took a leaf out of Phil Maddox's book.
All in all, a fantastic story that's a million times better than the first regeneration, and there's not really been a story like it since to shake up the understanding of the Doctor Who universe. Very well done.
Rating
9.75 out of 10
The only reason why this isn't an 11 out of 10 is because there's probably one capture / escape too much. That and the gimp style guards and their inability to spot people hiding in plain sight.
Rewatchability Factor
6 out of 10
It's a decent story and very unorthodox, but at ten episodes long, it is one story that you have to really want to watch before embarking upon it. I will say that most will skip to episodes 9 and ten which is a mistake.
Watch this if you liked
- They Live
Consulting the Matrix
Do you think Jamie and / or Zoe should have left the TARDIS or carried on with Jon Pertwee?
No comments:
Post a Comment