Category: Episode by Episode
Doctor Who episode 126: The War Machines – Episode 4 (16/7/1966)
This episode’s title card is black with white text – the inverse of the previous three episodes’. That’s either a deliberate reference to the growing darkness of the serial; the way the Doctor reverses the polarity and switches the War Machines’ power against WOTAN, or more likely just a mistake.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 125: The War Machines – Episode 3 (9/7/1966)
It’s lucky that this episode exists: trying to understand it from the soundtrack or tele-snaps would be hard going, because this is the show’s biggest ‘spectacle’ episode to date. A huge chunk of the running time is devoted to the pitched battle between the army and the War Machines in Covent Garden.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 124: The War Machines – Episode 2 (2/7/1966)
The stakes of the story are clearly articulated in the first scene: ‘Who will live to serve the machines, and who shall be eliminated?’ Everything that follows flows from this mission statement, as individuals with no further use are ruthlessly dispatched – not just the hapless tramp who wanders into WOTAN’s warehouse, or the worker who becomes a test subject for the first of the War Machines, but even Dodo Chaplet.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 123: The War Machines – Episode 1 (25/6/1966)
The new production team of Producer Innes Lloyd and Script Editor Gerry Davis has been in place now for three months. Like most incoming teams, they’ve initially been saddled with seeing through the decisions of the previous incumbents, but with The War Machines, they’re finally putting their own mark on the show, with the closest thing to a relaunch until Spearhead from Space.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 122: The Savages – Episode 4 (18/6/1966)
Having absorbed both the Doctor’s intellect and his conscience, Jano helps Steven and Dodo escape, and they take the spaced-out Doctor to the Savages’ cave. Once he’s recovered, the plot is resolved fairly swiftly, as you might expect when both sides are now being led by the same man. A minor insurrection by Guard Captain Edal and a final bit of trouble from Tor are quickly dealt with, after which the Elders’ vampire machine is smashed up, while Steven is unexpectedly elected as the new overlord of the planet.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 121: The Savages – Episode 3 (11/6/1966)
Having drained the Doctor of his vitality, Jano is now plotting the same fate for Dodo and Steven. Which begs the question – was this what Jano planned all along (if so, it’s not clear from Episodes 1 and 2), or is this his response to their failure to appreciate the Elders’ benevolence? Did he track the TARDIS to his spider’s web, or is he trying to make the best of a bad situation?
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 120: The Savages – Episode 2 (4/6/1966)
Having set up exactly what is happening, how and why last time, this episode goes ahead and shows it happening, and at great length. The scenes of scientist Senta extracting life energy first from Nanina and later the Doctor take up about a quarter of the running time. The telesnaps make the laboratory set seem impressive – with bubbling vats, and a glass extraction chamber – and it’s likely Christopher Barry maximised the vampiric horror of these scenes.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 119: The Savages – Episode 1 (28/5/1966)
The change to umbrella titles rather than individual episode names goes hand-in-hand with a different emphasis: no longer is this just the latest instalment of an adventure in space and time, it announces itself as the first part of a new serial. It’s possibly just coincidence that this feels different from, say, The Steel Sky – but the Doctor already knowing where he is, and the presence of a welcoming committee, mean that the element of exploration and world-building that have previously been the hallmarks of Hartnell ‘space’ stories aren’t really evident here.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 118: The O.K. Corral (21/5/1966)
Rex Tucker’s direction continues to impress. The O.K. Corral begins with a lovely tableau, shot through the bannisters of the Last Chance Saloon, as the Doctor, Bat and Wyatt remove their hats over Charlie’s shrouded corpse. It’s a composition that’s echoed in the subsequent death of Warren: shot through the bars of the jailhouse, complete with expressionistic shadows. Even the climactic gunfight is impressively captured (on film), with the deaths, Billy’s in particular, given horrible weight.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 117: Johnny Ringo (14/5/1966)
One of the problems with The Myth Makers is the clumsy way it pivoted from three episodes of comedy to the massacre of Troy. Donald Cotton seems to have taken a lesson from it, as this episode sees a more gradual fade from character comedy into grim horror.
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