Doctor Who Rewind - The War Games

It really is the end of an era. It's lasted eight months, has encompassed 253 episodes, including 97 reconstructions (missing episodes loving restored using recovered audio and Tele-snaps), has introduced signature monsters and aliens, historical farces and dramas, and, has given me two very different versions of the rouge Time Lord we've all come to love, The Doctor.

With the final story of the second Doctor, the epic War Games, the black and white era of the programme closes, just six months after this story airs, a new Doctor, in an entirely different situation, would crash down to earth in glorious technicolor.

To give you a blow by blow account of the War Games would take far to long, so I'm going to give you a flavour of the story.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find themselves on an Earth like planet, seemingly in the middle of No Mans Land during the War. They soon discover that all is not what it seems however. Soldiers fighting the war appear to have lost their long term memory, and when they question any aspect of the official story, they are mind controlled by the ruthless General Smythe (played by Noel Coleman) who is, in turn, in contact with the mysterious HQ.

The Doctor finds out that there are a number of time zones, in which are running a number of simulated wars from history - Roman, Greek, Crimean War, First World War, Peninsular War, American Civil War, Mexican Civil War, English Civil War, Thirty-Years War, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War.

Each of these zones is controlled via technology and a high ranking officer who is in contact with a central HQ zone. Eventually, the Doctor and co, make it to the central HQ zone, in a time space craft which is bigger on the inside than the out, mmmm sounds familiar? It even makes a noise not to dissimilar to that of the TARDIS!!

Once at HQ the Doctor discovers that troops of displaced soldiers from many of Earths historical wars are under going some kind of mind control to make them believe they are fighting in a real war. The Doctor discovers that one of the men in control, the War Lord (played by Edward Brayshaw) is in fact one of his own race, a Time Lord, who knows who he is.

There are so many wonderful performances in this story by some really great British actors. The cast is huge, and it's an ambitious script which twists and turns, never leaving you feeling bored or fatigued, but wanting to forge ahead and watch it all in one sitting.

The set up, in the first episode, which misleads you to thinking we are on Earth, is really well executed. And the first cliff hanger, when the Doctor, is seemingly executed, really does bed the episode down in the time and place of war time Earth.

When the TARDIS like SIDRATs turn up depositing more troops etc we know that something is up. And when the wonderfully mysterious War Lord turns up it's pretty obvious where he comes from.

Despite some really great characters, turns and performances, and being supported very admirably by both Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines (Zoe and Jamie), this story belongs to Patrick Troughton. His performance is the central driving force behind the entire story, and despite being captured and recaptured he never gives up in his quest to free the soldiers and return them to their own time. Even at the expense of his own demise, as we see at the finale, when he is left with no choice but to call in his own people to help with the mess the War Chief and War Lord have made.

So for the first time we learn of the Doctors own kind, that he ran away from his home world, and that Time Lords love to make speeches. The Doctors anger at being put on trial for interfering in the affairs of countless societies is really powerful as he defends his choice to take action instead of remaining impartial and on the side lines where his people say he must remain. We even get a curtain call of his best bits as he shows the Time Lords that he really did make a difference by fighting the likes of the Daleks, the Cybermen and the Ice Warriors.

We feel his frustration as he desperately tries to pick his next incarnation from a line up of photo misfits displayed on a screen, too fat, too small etc, and when the Time Lords run out of patience with him they make the decision for him, banishing him to the one place he feels more familiar with, (after his own planet of course), Earth in the 20th century. 1970 to be precise.

The scene where Troughton, Padbury, and Hines bid each other farewell genuinely has a somber feel, as it really was goodbye for all three actors, who were ending their time on Doctor Who together. When Jamie shakes the Doctors hand and tells him, "I'll never forget you" it's with a heavy heart. From watching the many interviews and extras supplied with the Doctor Who DVDs, I gather Troughton and Hines were inseparable and shared a similar sense of humour.

When I first started watching Troughton's Doctor I really wasn't sure I was going to like him, but somewhere in the middle of his run, I really grew to like his very lived in, scruffy, Chaplin esque friend to the end nature. And as companions go, Jamie, is going to take some beating - he might have been easy going but was always ready to fight for the cause at a moments notice. The two of them, Troughton and Hines, made a great team together.

I've found watching the black and white era of Who completely fascinating, like stepping back through time itself, and into another existence way before my own. It's been so good to see the programmes origins, and to see how many iconic figures made there debut. B & W really lends itself to that early pioneering atmosphere of Who. Adding a creepy cinematic quality to many of the early stories, which look as good or if not better, than when they originally went out, thanks to the restoration process.

So, with the 1960s all nicely wrapped up, and with baby Nic Treadwell firmly on Earth (I was born between the gap of The War Games and Spearhead From Space), it's time for Doctor Who to do what it does best, to reinvent itself.

Next time on Doctor Who Rewind, the new Doctor encounters some rather scary shop window accessories.