The War Games

The War Chief: If we hold the only space-time travel machine, we can rule our galaxy without fear of opposition.
The Doctor: Yes, but without me and my TARDIS, your ambitions are going to be rather hard to realise, aren't they?
The War Chief: That's right. And without my influence, these aliens will surely kill you.

Jamie and Zoe ally with a Mexican revolutionary, a German officer, a British officer from 1917 and a British sergeant from the 1890s.

Episode one, 19 April 1969
Episode two, 26 April 1969
Episode three, 3 May 1969
Episode four, 10 May 1969
Episode five, 17 May 1969
Episode six, 24 May 1969
Episode seven, 31 May 1969
Episode eight, 7 June 1969
Episode nine, 14 June 1969
Episode ten, 21 June 1969

Written by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks
Directed by David Maloney
Produced by Derrick Sherwin

Patrick Troughton as the Doctor (last regular appearance)
Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon (last regular appearance)
Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot (last regular appearance)

This is exciting.  This is one of the great moments in Doctor Who, a moment that recaptures that sense of mystery--that sense of the sinister--that surrounded the Doctor as a character in "An Unearthly Child", "The Time Meddler" and "The Power of the Daleks".  It builds up on you--at first, you think it's a straight historical adventure.  Then you realise it's more complicated than that--there are aliens involved.  And time travel.  And then you start to suspect that it's going to be even bigger than that--because we're about learn the grand secret of the Doctor's origins.

But all that is unfortunately lost on the modernday viewer, because we already know all about the Doctor's people.  There's no tension about them for us.  In fact, we probably go into it already knowing that this is the story that's notable exactly because it's the first time we ever heard of the Doctor's origins.  Certainly I think most viewers nowadays don't even consider that up until this moment, it hadn't even been definitively established that the Doctor isn't human.

Which means that "The War Games" has a reputation nowadays as a flaccid, bloated, boring story, and that's wholly unfair.  It could stand a bit of trimming, to be sure--I don't think you'd have a hard time reducing it to only six or seven episodes.  But really, the reason most people nowadays find it dragging are because it spends its second half depending for its tension upon a mystery that is no longer any mystery at all, and as a consequence the modern Doctor Who fan basically spends the first nine entire episodes waiting for revelations that don't arrive until part ten, and that don't tell him anything he hasn't already known for forty years.

The TARDIS arrives in the hell on Earth that is No Man's Land, the desolate, lethal wasteland between the Allied and German trenches during the First World War.  They're soon apprehended by British troops, and it's shortly after that that we realise all is not as it seems: the general commanding the British troops has a pair of odd-looking glasses that, when he dons them, allow him to give hypnotic commands to his troops, altering their memories and telling them how they should perceive certain people and events.

The Doctor, of course, quickly realises that the general is either an alien or a time traveller.  He, Jamie and Zoe managed to break a pair of British personnel--a lieutenant named Carstairs and an ambulance driver called Lady Jennifer--of the conditioning that makes them obey the general's hypnotic commands, and together the five of them escape the British base.

Pursued both by British troops and Germans, they pass through a strange mist, and come out on its far side to find a completely changed landscape--the churned mud of concussion of artillery from No Man's Land has been replaced by a beautiful, breezy virgin hillside--and a Roman legion bearing down upon them, led by distinctly unfriendly-looking charioteers.

So the Doctor and his friends turn and charge back into the mist, only this time, when they get to the other side, they find themselves caught between Union and Confederate troops from the American Civil War.

It takes a while for the team to figure out what's going on.  None of these wars are actually real; when they pass through the mist, they're actually moving from one zone of an alien planet to another.  Human soldiers from each of the various wars in Earth's history are being removed from their proper time and space by an alien race, and transported here to re-enact these wars as training so that they can be used as soldiers in the aliens' war of conquest to take over the entire galaxy.

And to kidnap these human soldiers, they're using TARDISes.

(Actually, they're using scaled-down versions of TARDISes called SIDRATs.  No prizes for guessing how they came up with that name.)

Eventually, the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe escape from the war zones and sneak into the aliens' command centre.  There, they find a political power struggle in progress, between the Security Chief and the War Chief.  The Security Chief is responsible for the operation of the command center; the War Chief oversees the abduction of human soldiers and the conduct of the war games.

And there's something else about the War Chief--he's not a member of the same species as the rest of the aliens.  Rather, he comes from a time-travelling race; he's the one who brought time travel technology to the aliens, so that they could implement their plan of building a brainwashed human army.

Which time-travelling race is he from?  Well, when he catches sight of the Doctor, the two of them instantly recognise each other.  (It's a nice moment, because the implications of that aren't explained for a little while.)

The Security Chief therefore concludes that the Doctor is from "the War Chief's people--the Time Lords!" and that the War Chief is betraying the aliens.  He has two hypotheses: either the War Chief and the Doctor are working for the Time Lords, or else they are both renegade Time Lords intent on subverting the aliens' plan so that they can take over the galaxy themselves.

Again, the revelation over the Doctor's and War Chief's people is very nicely done.  "Time Lords" gets mentioned very infrequently, and when it does, it's only in passing.  It's not until episode nine that they're discussed at length.  Up through episode eight, you learn about the Doctor's background so gradually that you don't realise just how much you've learnt.

There's a theory, by the war, that the War Chief actually constitutes the first appearance of the Master.  It's a theory I'm not unsympathetic to, though there's nothing direct to indicate that--besides the fact that the War Chief matches the Master in temperament and ambition, and even has a Mediterranean complexion and a goatee.

It's in episode nine that matters come to a head.  The Doctor realises that matters are simply beyond him; he cannot return the human abductees to their own time on his own.  He therefore sends a message to the Time Lords (using a mentally-constructed box that was harkened back to in 2011's "The Doctor's Wife") explaining the situation to them.

And it's now, for the first time, that we become aware how terrified the War Chief and the Doctor are of being recaptured by the Time Lords.  The Doctor is desperate to get back to the TARDIS before he arrives, and it's his fear that does such an effective job of conveying their power and their ... amorality.  We then have that power demonstrated, as the humans simply vanish into nothingness as they're returned to their own times, and time itself slows down to prevent the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe from getting back to the TARDIS.

Eventually, of course, the TARDIS team are captured by the Time Lords--or rather, they choose to surrender themselves when it becomes clear they can't escape.  And the Doctor is placed on trial for having violated his people's cardinal law (their prime directive, if you like)--he interfered.  Time Lords only observe history; they do not become involved in it.  Yet the Doctor has become involved time and gain.

The Doctor defends himself by saying that every time he becomes involved, he prevents evil.  But the Time Lords reject that--whether he worked for good or evil, he still interfered.  Eventually, though, they concede that perhaps his working for goodness does mitigate his crime, and they tailor an appropriate sentence for him.

Jamie and Zoe are forcibly returned to their own times, with their memories wiped.  They remember only their first adventures with the Doctor, and completely forget having gone away with him in the TARDIS afterwards.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is sentenced to exile on twentieth-century Earth--shackled to one time, one planet.  Furthermore, he will have his appearance changed, as it has changed before.  The story ends with the Doctor falling into the time vortex, his appearance in flux ...

Renegades from their people: the War Chief and the Doctor

What Lisa thought

Lisa, who didn't have the benefit of knowing fandom's low opinion of episodes one through nine, had a lot of fun with this one--and she didn't pick up until very late on just how important, from a continuity standpoint, the last episode and a half were.  (She even needed me to point out this is the first time we've heard "Time Lord".)

She certainly felt it could stand some tightening, which it definitely could.  The general plot movement of "The War Games" is that we start off in the First World War, where our heroes learn is not as it seems; move to the American Civil War, where they first encounter the Resistance, human soldiers on whom the aliens' conditioning hasn't worked; move to the alien command centre, where we find out what's really going on; go back to the First World War, to meet a new group of resistance fighters; then back to the alien command centre before the Time Lords get introduced.  That whole "back to the First World War to be introduced a redundant group of the Resistance" could easily stand to be culled, cutting two episodes from the story instantly.

But still, "The War Games" is great--all it requires is putting yourself in the shoes of a 1969 viewer, who'd never heard the words "Time Lords" or "Gallifrey" or "regeneration".

The next story in our rewatch is "Spearhead From Space".

"The Krotons"

We've been slaves for a thousand years; do you think you can free us in one day?--Beta

Episode one, 28 December 1968
Episode two, 4 January 1969
Episode three, 11 January 1969
Episode four, 18 January 1969

Written by Robert Holmes
Directed by David Maloney
Script editor: Terrance Dicks
Produced by Peter Bryant

Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon
Wendy Padbury as Zoe Herriot

A thousand years ago, the Krotons' spaceship landed in the midst of the humanoid Gorns' settlement.  The Gorns were a primitive people, and apparently stereotypically so; without understanding what was going on, they immediately attacked the spaceship.  The Krotons retaliated by making a dark rain fall, which turned the land surrounding the Gorns' settlement into a wasteland where nothing would grow.

The Krotons remained in the Gorn settlement after this brief war as their overlords and protectors, though the Gorns never saw them--they always remain in their spaceship.  In fact, using knowledge the Krotons gave them, the Gorns built a learning centre around the spaceship, with computerised learning machines on which all Gorns are educated.  Periodically, when a Gorn scores highly enough on the learning machines, they're called to be a "companion of the Krotons", meaning that they get to enter the Krotons' spaceship--and are never seen again.

The Gorns have become much more advanced under the Krotons' tutelage, but there are gaps in their knowledge--the Krotons forbid the Gorns, for instance, from studying anything to do with chemistry.  And no Gorn ever ventures into the wastelands, for according to the Krotons, anyone who visits them will die.

The TARDIS arrives, causing a great flurry of consternation amongst the Gorns.  Almost straight away, the Doctor makes two discoveries that completely shake the foundation of Gorn society: first, that the wasteland isn't poisoned at all.  Maybe it was once, but it has recovered a long time ago.  And second, those who are selected as companions of the Krotons--the best and brightest of the Gorns--are secretly murdered.

The story therefore depicts a moment in Gorn history, the moment when the Gorns, in shock over learning their entire culture is based on a lie, take up arms and throw off their technologically advanced Kroton overlords.

And of course, predictably, that's exactly what happens.  The plotline isn't the interesting part of "The Krotons".  The interesting party, besides Zoe's costume (a very nice miniskirt and go-go boots combination), is the people for whom this story marks their first involvement in Doctor Who.

This is the first Doctor Who written by Robert Holmes, who's generally seen as the greatest script writer the programme has ever had.  He's produced a fairly standard, unmemorable effort for his first attempt, but it does have a few interesting ideas.  The Krotons, for instance, turn out to be a sort of cross between living organisms and machinery; they don't die, but rather "cease to function", in just the same way their ship does.  And they've been killing the cleverest Gorns because their spaceship runs by extracting mental energy; the Gorns' death is just a side effect.

The other significant first-timer here is Philip Madoc, playing the Gorn villain, Eelek.  This is his first appearance in the television series, but not in the Doctor Who franchise--he had previously played the black marketeer in Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, the 1965 big-screen adaptation of The Dalek Invasion of Earth.  Both then and as Eelek, he plays exactly the sort of role he'll become such a virtuoso of during the next decade.

He's ruthless, ambitious, consummately self-serving and thoroughly amoral, interested only in accumulating power to himself.  Even when he's being friendly, he exudes menace--there are precious few smiles more chilling than his--but, whenever his aims are frustrated, he can burst on a moment's notice into a thoroughly intimidating fury.  For me, only Jon Simm rivals him as the best villainous actor the programme's ever had--yes, that means he even surpasses Roger Delgado.

Here as Eelek, he demonstrates all those qualities that make him so great.   He's the assistant to Selris, the Gorns' headman.  When the Gorns learn the truth about the Krotons, he uses it as an opportunity to make a bid for power, overthrowing Selris, by positioning himself as rabidly anti-Kroton, ready to lead a crusade against them.  But when the Krotons offer to leave the Gorn planet if only Eelek will turn the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie over to them, he agrees unhesitatingly, happily abandoning the very allies who are the ones who showed the Gorns the truth in the first place.

What Lisa thought

 She liked three of the four parts, essentially--she felt part two really dragged.  Part two, incidentally, is the only episode that doesn't feature Philip Madoc.

The Mind Robber

Zoe: Doctor, we're not actually in flight, are we?
Doctor: No, why?
Zoe: Well then, presumably we've landed, so why isn't the scanner showing anything?
Doctor: Well, because, well, we're nowhere.  It's as simple as that.

Zoe clings to the TARDIS console as it floats through nothingness.

Episode 1, 14 September 1968
Episode 2, 21 September 1968
Episode 3, 28 September 1968
Episode 4, 5 October 1968
Episode 5, 12 October 1968

Written by Peter Ling
Directed by David Maloney
Script editor: Derrick Sherwin
Produced by Peter Bryant

Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
Frazer Hines and Hamish Wilson as Jamie McCrimmon
Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot

During its hurried departure from Dulcis, the TARDIS blows a fluid link, forcing the Doctor to activate the emergency unit to escape.  This transports the TARDIS into a void beyond time and space--they've left the universe as we know it entirely.  The Doctor withdraws into the TARDIS's innards to make the repairs necessary to get them up and running again

But something strange is going on.  Both Jamie and Zoe are lured outside into the void when they see images of their homes on the scanner--the Scottish Highlands for Jamie, and a futuristic conurbation called "the City" for Zoe.  But outside they find only a white, featureless nowhere, where they soon fall into a strange, hypnotic trance.

The Doctor realises what's happened when he returns to the TARDIS control room and finds the doors wide open.  He's able to sense that some sort of malevolent presence has entered the TARDIS through the open doors, and he engages in a telepathic battle with it.  Through this battle, he's able to free Jamie and Zoe of the influence that's controlling them, but in the process, the TARDIS flies apart, and Jamie and Zoe are left clinging to the control console as it floats through black emptiness.

(Zoe in her sparkly catsuit, clinging to the console, is possibly the single greatest frame in all of Doctor Who.)

Eventually, the TARDIS team wake up to find themselves in a dark, spooky forest.  They're in some sort of strange Land of Fiction, where riddles and wordplay take on physical reality.  For instance, the Doctor and Jamie find Zoe trapped behind a painting of a door, but they can't open it because it's not a real door.  When is a door not a door?  When it's ajar, of course--as soon as the Doctor figures out the answer to that riddle, the door transforms into a giant jar, with Zoe trapped inside it, and the Doctor and Jamie are able to rescue her by removing the lid.

There's a neat little trick where the Doctor finds a cardboard standee of Jamie, with a blank face.  Next to it are several different facial elements--for instance, three pairs of eyes, three noses, three mouths.  The Doctor has to reconstruct Jamie's face onto the standee.  Of course, he gets it wrong, and Jamie comes to life with the wrong face, allowing Frazer Hines to have a week off while Hamish Wilson takes his place.

The TARDIS team also encounter several figures from literature and mythology: Gulliver (played by Bernard Horsfall, in the first of several appearances on the programme), Medusa, Rapunzel and the Karkus, a superhero from a comic strip popular in Zoe's native time, the far future known as "the year 2000".  But any of these characters who attempt to obstruct our heroes--like Medusa or the Karkus--remain real only so long as the TARDIS team think of them as real.  For instance, Zoe is able to defeat the Karkus by convincing himself that he's just a work of fiction; this then allows her to overcome his super-strength and defeat him in a wrestling match.

Eventually the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe reach a castle on a mountaintop, and at its centre they find the Master of the Land of Fiction, an old man hooked up to a massive computer.  He is a writer of boys' fiction from 1920s England who fell asleep at his desk one day and was kidnapped to serve as the brain for this massive computer.  The computer is what generates the Land of Fiction, but it needs an imaginative human to serve as its creative impetus.

Now, though, the Master is growing old, and he needs to be replaced--by the Doctor.  The Doctor, of course, refuses, so the Master traps Jamie and Zoe inside a giant book, turning them into fictional characters.  The Master himself won't release them, so they can only escape if the Doctor agrees to take the Master's place; this will allow the Doctor himself to free them, as his first act of office.

The Doctor still refuses, but the Master is able to use Jamie and Zoe--who, as works of fiction, are now under his control--to entrap him and hook him up directly to the central computer.  With both the Doctor and the Master now in control of the Land of Fiction, a write-off ensues, with the two of them summoning up various literary characters to battle each other, though the Doctor is hampered in that he cannot write about himself, or he will turn himself into a work of fiction.

The Doctor is able to free Jamie and Zoe, who then sneak into the control centre and override the central computer.  This sends the white robots that serve the Master haywire, and they destroy the computer and therefore the Land of Fiction.  The TARDIS team are able to free the Master--who, disconnected from the computer, has no memory of anything since his kidnap in the 1920s--and the four of them depart in the TARDIS.

What Lisa thought

She really liked this one--a whole lot.  She thought it was a fun romp, and she really liked the post-modern air to a story in which the regular characters are explicitly attempting to preserve their reality in the face of attempts to turn them into works of fiction.  She also felt like she was getting a peek into British schoolyard culture (at least, of the 1960s), as with the schoolchildren who kept asking the Doctor riddles. ("What can you make of a sword?" "Why did the chicken cross the road?" "Where was Moses when the lights went out?" "Adam and Eve and Pinch-me went down to the river.")  She gives "The Mind Robber" a wholehearted seal of approval.

Me?  I like the sparkly catsuit.

The next story in our rewatch will be "The Krotons".