The Bottom Line: I don’t have to watch all five
of these episodes in one go like I watched the first five. On the other hand,
I’ve been looking forward to this all day. There’s so many goodies which still
have to be in store with this story that I can’t see that it won’t be at least
as good as the first five episodes. There’s the revelation that the Doctor is a
Time Lord, there’s got to be a meeting between The Doctor and the War Chief,
and then there’s the entry of Philip Madoc into the story, and the way that the
Time Lords get called to come and save the day. Oh and then the final episode
with the Doctor’s trial. My memory of the story is of it essentially being a 9
parter, followed by a one parter, this final episode with the trial, which was
very different to everything that had gone before. Oh, stuff this for a game of
soldiers, I can’t wait to watch it any longer, and I’m not going to.
After
Watching
Patrick Troughton deserved a truly great story
to finish his era, and boy, did he get one. He started with an absolute corker
in “The Power of the Daleks”, and now he’s finished with one too. There is a
line of argument that holds that his first and last were his two greatest
stories, but I’m not sure that I could completely go along with that. After
all, there is always “The Mind Robber” to be considered.
Ok, well I ended my review of the first five
parts with the observation that nobody yet had mentioned the words Time Lord.
That happened at last early on in episode 6, when the extremely uptight
Security Chief casually drops it into the conversation that this is what the
War Chief is. Alert viewers would have been immediately thinking – the Doctor
recognized him, and so there is a chance that the Doctor is one too. Full marks
to anyone who worked that one out the first time round. Now, mid-story of a
multi parter is always something of a padding magnet. In this case, the padding
takes the shape of the relationship between the War Chief and the Security
Chief, played with almost neurotic tension by James Bree. In fact watching the
two of them it’s almost like the sparring between two people who fancy each
other despite themselves, but are both too scared to make the first move in
case the other one laughs. There’s also a little scene between one of the
resistance soldiers – private Moor, and David Garfield, the war lord posing as
the German commander Von Weich. I thought I recognized the actor playing Private
Moor, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. When I checked the credits, it
turned out that this was none other than David Troughton. Nepotism? Oh, come
on, be fair. David Troughton is a terrific actor in his own right, who has a
great track record, and Moor was the kind of role where you would cast a
promising young actor. Oh, and the star of the show was his dad too. At least
he got a few lines to say. Frazer Hines’ brother Ian had to make do with
clinking around in a tin soldier costume and he got to say nowt in “The Mind
Robber”. Wrapping up episode 6, respect
for the cliffhanger ending again. The Doctor, Jamie and Carstairs manage to get
into a SIDRAT, but can’t get away because the War Chief is at the controls
outside. They know they can’t be attacked from outside, so prepare to wait it
out while the Doctor overrides the remote control. Only outside, the War Chief
starts fiddling with the dimension control, and the SIDRAT rapidly begins to
shrink in, threatening to crush them to death. Magic.
Just when you thought it wasn’t going to get
that much better – Philip Madoc turns up! He’s got a lot to live up to by not
appearing until episode 7, when a lot of strong characters have already been
established, but remarkably he manages to do so. His character, the War Lord
(capital letters) manages to be the most frightening thing in the episode,
well, the whole story, by doing nothing more than speaking rather quietly, and
adding the odd pause in the right place. If that wasn’t enough, we also got a
scene between the War Chief and the Doctor. I knew, well, I hoped, that there
was a bit more to the War Chief than a motiveless megalomaniac, and there was a
bit. The War Chief, it seems, has a thing about order. He doesn’t care that
much for the fighting in the war zone, but sees it, and the war lords’ plans,
as a means to an end, a way of bringing order to a chaotic galaxy. Alright,
it’s a little extreme, but at least it makes some sense. It might have been
nice to have been given just a little bit more. For example, in “The Time
Meddler” we learn that the Monk left Gallifrey about 50 years after the Doctor
did. We don’t know anything like this about the War Chief – we don’t even know
if he and the Doctor have ever met each other before. The War Chief suggests that
they have met when he passes the comment that the Doctor has changed his
appearance, but that’s the only hint. As for recognizing the Doctor, well it
wouldn’t be the first time that Time Lords recognize each other having
regenerated since the last time they met. Now, a slight negative note, if I
might. The Doctor escapes and starts coordinating resistance, but is recaptured,
and that proves the cliffhanger ending. It’s fine, but nowhere near up to the
standard of the shows so far.
Now, I’ll be honest, of all the episodes so
far, I thought that episode 8 was the most padded. Which is not to say that I
didn’t enjoy it, but it smacked at times of having the action held up so that
we don’t reach the climax too soon. So, what have we got? The Doctor is taken
in for interrogation. The War Chief takes this over so that he can explain the
plot to all of us at home, and try to recruit the Doctor for his own nefarious
purposes. The war lords’ plan has been to sort out the wheat from the chaff
amongst the various Earth armies to build a super army from the survivors. The
rationale behind it being that human beings have an unparalleled ability at and
appetite for killing their own kind. Hmm, yeah well, I’m not sure that this
would cut a lot of ice against the Daleks for instance. And while we’re on the
subject, a roman legion with spears and swords, versus a small platoon of
tommies with machine guns, and my money’s on the machine guns, I’m sorry. It
maybe doesn’t do to well to over analyse this particular aspect of the story. It does though throw the Time Lords’ edict
against interfering into some perspective. It is aimed at preventing amoral
chancers like the War Chief aiding psychopathic nutjobs like the War Lord.
By the start of episode 9 I’m starting to think
that there’s a lot of legwork going to be needed to end off the story AND have
time for the Doctor’s trial. Early doors the Doctor and the War Chief had a
little discussion about TARDIS and SIDRATs. It runs out that the war Chief is
only after the Doctor for his TARDIS, the minx. Now, when I’ve read synopses of
the story I’m sure I’ve seen it stated clearly that the War Chief has
cannibalized his own TARDIS to construct the SIDRATs, the time machines that
the war lords have been using to bring soldiers from Earth’s history, but this
is not stated clearly in the show itself. What is stated clearly is that the
SIDRATs are remote controlled AND have remarkable directional stability. This
allows the Doctor to info dump all over the War Chief that these two features
hugely reduce a time machine’s lifespan. This is an important plot point. When
it transpires that only 2 SIDRATs have any juice left in them the Doctor
realizes that he cannot get all the soldiers back to their own time. Now, I can
only think he’s thinking that he can’t control the TARDIS well enough, for the
inside is huge, and he could probably fit an army in there. So this is what
finally decides him to call in the Time Lords. I loved the gimmick of
constructing a little white box from cards, and this presumably is the kind of
Time Lord box that Matt Smith found in “The Doctor’s Wife”. The ending of the
episode was terrific too, since it looked as if the Doctor was in as much
danger from the Time Lords as the rest of them were, and also hinted at their
awesome powers with the way that they slowed time as the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe
were trying to reach the TARDIS.
In any list of the greatest and most important
individual episode of classic Doctor Who, the last episode of “The War Games”
would have to be a serious contender for top slot. Boiled down to its
essentials, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe try to escape in the TARDIS. All their
attempts fail, and the TARDIS is brought in by the Time Lords. Presumably this
is Gallifrey, but it is neither stated that this is Gallifrey (the name won’t
be coined until The Time Warrior)nor that it is the Time Lords’ home planet. In
fact it looks a lot like the war lords’ HQ, especially the TARDIS garage where
they first arrive. The War Lord stands awaiting trial, and when this begins he
refuses to answer questions. The Time Lord’s eyes begin to glow and he starts
to scream, and then starts to talk. Even so he still retains his arrogance.
There is an abortive attempt by the War Lord’s guards to rescue him, but the
Time Lords are too powerful. They put a forcefield permanently around the War
Lords’s home planet, and then wipe the War Lord and his guards out of
existence, as if they had never lived at all.
Jamie and Zoe get a touching leaving scene – “Now Zoe, you and I both know
that all Time is relative”. That’s a very good line at exactly the right time.
Finally the Doctor is condemned, although he is treated with a lot more
leniency than he was in the court martial in the first episode. He is exiled to
Earth indefinitely, with a new face, and no knowledge of how to work the
TARDIS. Epic.
A lot has been written and spoken about the
three Time Lords who try the Doctor. The tallest one is played by Bernard
Horsfall. He went on to play Chancellor Goth in my favourite Doctor Who story,
“The Deadly Assassin”. Therefore it is certainly not impossible that it may
actually be future Chancellor Goth. These Time Lords seem far more mysterious
and powerful than they will ever seem again. There may be an explanation for
this which we can work out from future stories. In the Pertween era, several
times references are made to the Celestial Intervention Agency (CIA), who are
the Time Lord Agency that the Doctor blames for sending him off on errands
during his exile. The CIA are sometimes alluded to as an entity which acts
outside of normal Time Lord government, ethics and procedure. So it’s not
impossible that these Time Lords are acting for the CIA, and therefore would
seem far more mysterious and powerful than the ordinary levels of Time Lord
society that we get to see in later stories. It’s not impossible.
What
Have We Learned?
When
they want to use them, the Time Lords have remarkable powers and can really
kick bottom.
Unless
they get themselves into silly accidents the Time Lords can live forever. (The
12th regeneration law has yet to be expressed)
In
some circumstances the Time Lords can impose a specific appearance on one of
their number.
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