50: The War Games Parts 1 - 5

Before Watching

Well, this is going to provide us with some true watershed moments, I’m quite sure of that. First Terrace Dicks scripted story – he co-wrote it with The Faceless Ones’ Malcolm Hulke. The two of them had some great things in store over the next couple of years after this. Last Troughton story (sob). Last story for Jamie and Zoe. Last story in black and white. Last story in which we embarked upon it knowing virtually nothing about the Doctor’s race and his people. Last story before the Doctor’s exile to Earth.

I did say in my review of “The Space Pirates” that I’m sure that the story is going to live up to its generally very high reputation amongst the fans who have actually watched it. Partly this is based on 45 year old memories of watching it first time round. Partly it’s based on the Target novelization, and partly it’s based on what I’ve been told.  It has Philip Madoc and Bernard Horsfall among its guest cast as well, and both of those always seem to raise the quality of the stories in which they appear. I only approach this story with a slight trepidation about the length of it. We’ve already seen “The Invasion” get away with 8 episodes without a huge dip in quality in the middle this season, and so this one smacks of tempting fate. If we compare it with an even longer story, “The Daleks’ Master Plan”, that story had some episodes which were considerably weaker than others, and it could be even argued that it’s not one 12 part story, but a 5 parter, followed by a 6 parter, with a pantomime in the break. Well, coming back to “The War Games”, the only way to find out how successfully the story is carried out is to watch it. So for the last time in black and white, let’s do just that. As has become traditional with these epic length stories, I shall split my review into two installments.

After Watching

You know, I’m tempted to start off in neutral tones, and leave you wondering for a while just how much I liked or loathed the story. But I can’t. Remembering that I’m only talking about the first five episodes, I still thought that this was absolutely great. The World War I milieu for the setting of the first episode was a really good choice. Even now I’m sure that it’s instantly recognizable to all but the youngest viewers, and remember that the First World War was still in living memory when the story was first broadcast 46 years ago.  It’s important to remember that the original audience wouldn’t have had any more idea about what was actually going on in episode one than the Doctor has. For me the first few episodes are beautifully paced, as there are little hints that all is not what it seems to be, before the massive clue of the SIDRAT and the video screen in General Smythe’s room.

It is possible to see some rather biting satire on the way that the commanding officers acted during the First World War. Smythe’s eagerness to condemn the Doctor to the firing squad on the flimsiest of evidence – in fact pretty much no evidence at all, is a bitter echo on the travesty of a court martial many men in the British Army received. General Smythe’s excuse is that he really is inhuman, a member of the race of the war lords. Field Marshal Douglas Haig’s excuses for refusing to grant clemency in so many cases, thus condemning so many men to a firing squad are far more difficult to accept. On a lighter note, we’re also reminded how so many officers in the British Army during World War I were not really soldiers at all, just men with the right educational or social background who were doing their duty, through the way Captain Ransom is distracted into a discussion of paperwork by Zoe while the Doctor is searching General Smythe’s room.

For a multi parter the pacing of the first five episodes seems really well worked out to. In episode one you get time to get used to the World War I setting, and just the clue that Smythe is more than he seems with the whole hypno glasses thing. Then in episode 2 you see the first SIDRAT and learn that something very strange is going on, and the cliffhanger reveals even more as the Doctor drives an ambulance through some fog, and meets the Roman Army charging him head on. If it’s your first ever exposure to the story, then this will be the first time that you see that the World War I war zone is just one of several.

Then the third episode takes us into the war lords’ control room for the first time, and introduces the War Chief. I have to give full marks to the late Edward Brayshaw who plays the War Chief, here. Like most people who were kids in the mid to late 70s I remember him as Mr. Meaker in the comedy series “Rentaghost”. Here, despite being encumbered by a late entrant to the ‘most ridiculous eyebrows in Doctor Who’ stakes, and a medallion so large he would have been laughed out of a late 70s disco for wearing it, he gives a terrific and sustained performance. We’re only on episode 3! This upping the ante with each episode is most appealing. Even knowing the story I find it’s working effectively on me. It would have seemed even more amazing in the 60s, first time round.

In episode 4 the Doctor and Zoe travel inside a SIDRAT to HQ, and posing as students they attend a lecture on the processing machines. At the end, the War Chief enters, and he and the Doctor clearly recognize each other. BUT – and this was a stroke of genius on Hulke and Dicks’ part – having made this fact perfectly clear, they then make sure that the two don’t actually meet or speak to each other. Then in episode 5 we get to see a lot more of the hub, while the Doctor evades capture, and rescues Zoe, while Jamie gets pally with the resistance back in the war zones, and they hi jack a SIDRAT and come into the hub. It’s all go, I tell you.

I mentioned cliffhangers in the previous paragraph, and I think I want to make a special mention of the cliffhangers in the first half of this story. They’re really a rather good set, it must be said. Episode 1 ends with the Doctor seemingly being executed by firing squad. Episode two has the roman army bearing down on the ambulance with the Doctor and friends, while they try in vain to get the engine started. Episode three ends with the Doctor and Zoe’s SIDRAT dematerializing, leaving Jamie to face the confederate soldiers who are firing indiscriminately into the barn where he waits. Episode 4 has Zoe facing the newly reconditioned Lieutenant Carstairs who is holding a gun to her head, about to pull the trigger. Then episode 5 shows Jamie and his resistance friends walking out of a SIDRAT into an ambush which apparently leaves them dead on the floor.

Classic Doctor Who stories (other than Mission to the Unknown) were never written or made to be watched in one sitting. Despite this, though, I do tend to think that the acid test of a classic Doctor who story is if you watch two episodes consecutively, and then you still want to watch the next straightaway. I wouldn’t attempt to watch all 10 episodes of “The War Games” in 1 sitting – partly because I don’t think it would be fair to the story if I did. Once fatigue sets in I can’t be sure of giving any story a fair hearing. But I did watch the first five episodes consecutively, and let me tell you that they slipped down like butter, one after another. And nobody has even said the words “Time Lord” yet.

What Have We Learned?

Remember those thick bottle lensed glasses that you always thought looked slightly sinister? Now you know why.