May 7: The War Games Episodes Nine & Ten

So the Doctor has turned against his friends, choosing to side with the aliens over the resistance, and the leaders of that resistance are led away to be processed.  But things aren't quite as they seem; it turns out the Doctor was simply trying to prevent everyone from being killed by the neutron bomb that the Security Chief suggested using last episode.  Still, the resistance leaders didn't seem too happy about things, and it was only Jamie that stopped them from tearing him apart with their bare hands.  And then the Doctor has to process his former friends and turn them into slaves again.  Well, so it seems.  When the Doctor "processes" Arturo Villar, Villar proclaims triumphantly that the machine doesn't work on him and begins to attack the Doctor, which leads all of the other "processed" leaders to have to overpower the guards and restrain Villar.  "Can you not pretend like the rest of us, you great loon?" Jamie says exasperatedly.

And this is the episode where the conflict between the War Chief and the Security Chief comes to a head.  It turns out the Security Chief was recording all the conversations between the War Chief and the Doctor and now has evidence of the War Chief's treachery.  The War Chief is stripped of his power and taken away, and only an encounter with the Doctor and his friends saves him.  They're off to capture the War Room, and they succeed in doing so, with the War Chief in tow -- but not before the War Chief guns down the Security Chief.  "It was a personal debt I had to settle," he says.  The Doctor gets the War Chief to end all the fighting in the zones, but there's a problem: the machines used to bring all the soldiers here are breaking down, and they won't be able to return all the soldiers home.  So the Doctor decides he has no alternative: he has to call his own people, the Time Lords, for help, even though that'll mean giving away his location to them.  The War Chief tries to escape, but he's shot dead by the War Lord.  But it's too late anyway as the sound of wind fills the room: "They're coming," the War Lord says.

The War Lord stands trial before the Time Lords. (The War
Games Episode Ten) ©BBC

This episode effectively ends the story we've been experiencing for the past nine episodes: episode nine ends with Lt. Carstairs fading away as he (and presumably all the other soldiers) are returned to their rightful time and place by the Time Lords.  The aliens have been defeated, the war games have been ended, and the humans sent back home.  There's only the Time Lords and the fate of the War Lord to deal with (as well as the Doctor trying to escape from them).  And so if episode nine is about ending The War Games, episode ten is about ending the series as a whole.  Well, not really, but that's sort of how it feels at times: after six years, we finally learn about the Doctor's backstory, about his people and about why he left his home planet all those years ago:

JAMIE: Why did you run away from them in the first place?
DOCTOR: What?  Well, I was bored.
ZOE: What do you mean, you were bored?
DOCTOR: Well, the Time Lords are an immensely civilised race.  We can control our own environment, we can live forever, barring accidents, and we have the secret of space time travel.
JAMIE: Well what's so wrong in all that?
DOCTOR: Well, we hardly ever use our great powers.  We consent simply to observe and to gather knowledge.
ZOE: And that wasn't enough for you?
DOCTOR: No, of course not.  With a whole galaxy to explore?  Millions of planets, eons of time, countless civilisations to meet?
JAMIE: Well, why do they object to you doing all that?
DOCTOR: Well, it is a fact, Jamie, that I do tend to get involved with things.
JAMIE: Aye, you can say that again.  Whenever there's any trouble, he's in it right up to his neck.
ZOE: But you've helped people, Doctor.
DOCTOR: Yes, yes, but that's no excuse in their eyes.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The War Games)

And now it's time for the Doctor to face up to the Time Lords.  Of course, there are attempts to run away from the Time Lords (and note the reusing of footage from Fury from the Deep and The Web of Fear -- with the downside being that you can start to see the web forming on the TARDIS as it's hovering in deep space), but they're futile: now that they know where the Doctor is, he can't escape from them.  It's interesting the way the Time Lords are presented: as godlike beings with seemingly limitless power (although not, it should be pointed out, with the ability to regenerate just yet -- note the way in which not just the War Chief but two hapless technicians are gunned down by the alien guns), who watch over things but don't intervene unless there's a great need to.  And their punishment of the War Lord is quite severe: "A force field has been placed around you, and around your planet, so that your warlike people will remain prisoners forever.  You have been found guilty of all charges, and you and your murderous associates will be dematerialised.  It will be as though you had never existed."  And once they've dealt with the War Lord, it's time to deal with the Doctor.  It's really sad, watching him say goodbye to Jamie and Zoe, as all but their first memory of the Doctor is removed -- which isn't to say that their travels didn't happen, just that they don't remember it.

And then it's time for the Doctor to face judgment.  He is to be exiled to 20th-century Earth in a new body.  Troughton, it must be said, doesn't go out with dignity, as he gurns his way onto a screen before being sent spiraling toward his fate, yelling "No no no no no no no no no no no no no!" as he does so.  And that's the end of Troughton's time as the Doctor; his exile to Earth has begun.⁵⁰

The Doctor is readied for his exile.  (The War
Games Episode Ten) ©BBC

So The War Games is an epic tale that hangs together remarkably well.  The length might have been a worry (particularly as it was more or less decided on after the two initial stories planned for the end of season 6 fell through⁵¹ -- Terrance Dicks has commented that they basically gave him and Malcolm Hulke a week to write the thing, which is an exaggeration but not by much), but Dicks and Hulke give us a story that rarely feels like it's just spinning its wheels.  The slow pullout, from the World War I setting in episode one to additional time zones to the control center for the whole affair, is a real benefit -- and there's something wonderful about seeing soldiers from different time periods interacting with each other.  It's never boring and it's frequently very clever indeed.  Fan opinion has tended to suggest that The War Games is a whole lot of time-wasting before we get to the Time Lords.  This is nonsense: it's a triumph from start to finish, and one of the best stories of the season.

Season 6 itself has been one of the more uneven seasons the show has had.   Of course, given the behind-the-scenes problems that have plagued this season, that's perhaps not surprising.  But what is noticeable is how producer Peter Bryant has chosen to try some new things.  Only three of the stories -- The Invasion, The Krotons, and The Seeds of Death -- can really be considered "monster" stories in the way almost all of season 5 was.  There's instead a return to more human-based drama, such as we had in, say, season 3.  Of course, the lack of forays back into Earth's past means that we get a fair amount of "space" drama instead, but this isn't a huge issue.  The main problem with season 6 is that, because of the production problems, stories are being stretched out more and more (and now recall the fact that The Dominators was shortened from six episodes to five, and therefore ponder just how awful those two episodes must have been).  They get away with it, just, but the knock-on effect is that we get fewer chances to explore new times and environments.  Still, the interplay among Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, and Wendy Padbury is still wonderfully strong, and they make the proceedings thoroughly enjoyable, so that even in something like The Dominators they're still worth watching.  It will be sad to see them go.

So let's take a moment to reflect on Patrick Troughton's time as the Doctor.  In many respects he had the hardest time of any actor coming to play the Doctor, as he had to replace the lead actor in a very popular television show.  The fact that he not only did so with ease but also made the part his own is a testament to his talent: if audiences hadn't bought the idea that this scruffy little man was the same character as William Hartnell had been playing for three years, then the show would have ended then and there.  Patrick Troughton was a distinguished character actor both before and after his time on Doctor Who, and these three seasons are really just a continuation of that legacy.  He took on someone else's part and he did it in such a way as to make the audience willing to believe that not only was changing the lead actor an acceptable part of Doctor Who, but that the new man would be just as compelling to watch in his own distinctive way.  If Troughton had tried to play the part as William Hartnell had, the changeover probably wouldn't have worked.  By making the role distinct, yet still recognizably the same character, Patrick Troughton ensured that the show would continue.  And then, as if that weren't enough, he had to go and be so good in the role, fighting Daleks and Cybermen and Yeti and War Lords with such courage and charm and joy that you can't help but be both entertained and drawn into the stories.  Patrick Troughton is the Doctor.  He will be missed.

But we've come to the end of not just Patrick Troughton's time as the Doctor, but also of the black and white era.  There was a feeling in the BBC that, with Troughton leaving, maybe it was time to end the series as well, and Derrick Sherwin (who was producer by this point -- it's a bit complicated, the changeover between him and Peter Bryant, and in many ways it can be considered as the same producership) has said that they only renewed it because they couldn't come up with anything better to replace it.  But this isn't exactly true; they did come up with something to replace it, it just happens to be the case that it's also called Doctor Who and is ostensibly the same show as they had in the '60s.  But the format will be different: restricted to one time and place, with a new lead actor, shorter seasons (one of the reasons Troughton left the show was because of the crippling demands of a show that made 44 episodes a year -- from now on they'll drop to around 25-26 episodes a season until 1986), and, most noticeably, in color.  In some respects the Doctor Who of the '70s is a vastly different beast from the '60s version.  The next five years will see an increasing reliance on the action-adventure aspect of the show, and even when we move on to Tom Baker and beyond, that sense of exploration and discovery that characterizes so many of the black-and-white episodes will largely be lost.  Of course, what we get instead will be just as entertaining, but in a different way.  Doctor Who is leaving the '60s, and it won't be the same again.








⁵⁰ It should be noted that there's no regeneration sequence between Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. That said, I have a distinct memory of the beginning of Spearhead from Space, with Pertwee falling out of the TARDIS and into the weeds, being tacked onto the end of the version of The War Games shown on PBS. Perhaps Lionheart (who distributed the series in the US at that time) felt the changeover should be more obvious. Assuming, of course, that this actually happened; I haven't been able to confirm it yet.
⁵¹ These were a 6-parter called "The Impersonators" by Malcolm Hulke, and an untitled 4-parter by Derrick Sherwin which would conclude the second Doctor's tenure.  Nothing is known about them beyond that they both apparently hit insurmountable problems.  So, classic season 6 then.