Welcome to Phantom Who, a new feature designed to go along with the Earth Station Who podcast, which I co-host. There I am known as “Dave” because “Phantom Troublemaker” takes up too much room on the stationary. Every other week there will be a new podcast discussing all things Doctor Who, with a central discussion about a particular story.
For the
first year we are covering regeneration stories. Starting with An
Unearthly Child and
wrapping up the current regenerations with The
Eleventh Hour, we’ll be
covering the first and last stories of each of the first eleven
Doctors.
Last
time on Phantom Who…
The
second Doctor, along with Ben and Polly, thwarted the Daleks’
integration into and eventual takeover of a colony on the planet
Vulcan. From there, the evil fascist pepperpots were planning to
propagate their species and launch a takeover of the entire galaxy.
Since
then, the Doctor has had many adventures and gained new companions in
the form of Jamie McCrimmon – a Scot from the 18th
century – and Zoe Heriot – an astrophysicist from a space station
in the 21st
century.
Side note: I’ll go ahead and make it clear that this is going to be a lousy recap. The War Games is a ten-episode story and I felt every single one of those episodes. I really think it could’ve been shrunk down to five, but a couple of other stories from Troughton’s final days as the Doctor got cut and they had to expand this one to ten episodes basically at the last minute. And it shows. The story isn’t bad by any means, as a matter of fact it is a great concept. Part of the problem I had, though, was due to my misperception of the story going in. I was under the impression that it involved warrior races from all over the galaxy – Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, etc. – and was extremely disappointed when it turned out that the participants were all humans. That’s my own fault, though, and I have no idea where I got that idea. I think maybe I heard in passing that the above aliens appeared and assumed they were more active than simply being images in the final ten minutes (which is what ended up being the case). Also, I am not a huge fan of Doctor Who stories that are more historically oriented. So if my recap is somewhat truncated or I sound less than enthusiastic, don’t let that keep you from watching The War Games if you’re interested.
Also, I seriously considered putting some pictures in these, but man. I just don't have the time. I'm going to have a hard enough time maintaining the blog over the next three or so months. I have to train somebody at work and I'm honestly not sure how I'm going to fit writing in. I will do the best I can, but I already know I am going to have to back-burner at least three really big projects that I was excited about until probably August. I don't know how the heck I'm going to get my Dragon*Con stuff done.
When the
TARDIS materializes it is suggested that the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe
are expecting to be on Earth. And things certainly do look Earth-y.
The trio go wandering away from the TARDIS (because that’s what
they do) and encounter a World War I-era ambulance being driven by a
woman named Lady Jennifer. Well, I suppose she was a Lady named
Jennifer. Anyway, they hitch a ride to wherever she’s headed, but
are waylaid by German troops on the way.
They are
rescued by some British soldiers led by a Lieutenant named Carstairs.
He takes them back to the British encampment where a Major finds the
Doctor and his friends just a bit suspicious. Meanwhile, Lady
Jennifer and Lieutenant Carstairs realize they can’t remember a
whole heck of a lot about this war and their parts in it.
The
Major runs to tell his General what’s going on. We meet General
Smythe and his sideburns and as soon as he hears about the Doctor and
his friends he gets all shifty and suspicious and its obvious there’s
something going on. General Smythe tells the Major to bring the
visitors to him. After the Major leaves, Smythe moves a painting on
his wall and reveals some sort of screen and equipment that are
clearly not standard issue for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.
The
Major comes back into the General’s room a few minutes later and is
confused to find him gone. When the General does return, he lays into
the Major for just walking into his office without knocking or
anything. I agreed with him. Then the General puts on some crazy
Mister Magoo-looking glasses and tells the Major that he saw nothing
and everything is totally fine, just go about your business and bring
me those strangers. The Major – who has clearly been hypnotized –
complies.
An
overzealous Sergeant-Major brings the Doctor, Jamie, Zoe, Lady
Jennifer, and Lieutenant Carstairs before the General. There’s a
bit of business here where the Sergeant-Major is calling out marching
instructions to the TARDIS crew and Jamie is bumbling about trying to
keep up. Jamie gets a lot of funny little moments like that
throughout The War Games.
General Smythe immediately decides that our trio of travelers are up
to no good.
He forcibly re-enlists Jamie in the Army, claiming he is a deserter from the Highland Brigades; he sentences Zoe to prison and sentences the Doctor to be executed at dawn. Even the General’s people think this is a bit harsh, so he pulls out his hypno-specs and convinces them when the Doctor isn’t looking.
He forcibly re-enlists Jamie in the Army, claiming he is a deserter from the Highland Brigades; he sentences Zoe to prison and sentences the Doctor to be executed at dawn. Even the General’s people think this is a bit harsh, so he pulls out his hypno-specs and convinces them when the Doctor isn’t looking.
Lady
Jennifer offers to keep an eye on Zoe since she’s a female and
probably shouldn’t be stuck in a cell. It turns out Lady Jennifer
is a much better ambulance driver than she is a guard, because she
promptly nods off and Zoe escapes. Since we need to move the plot
along, she heads straight for General Smythe’s quarters and finds
the futuristic equipment. Zoe feels this is the sort of thing the
Doctor should know about, so she just sort of trots over to his cell
and lets him out. Surprisingly (for Doctor
Who), the Armed Forces were
smart enough to be keeping an eye on their prisoners and show up just
as Zoe and the Doctor are about to leave to find Jamie.
The
Doctor is taken straight out in front of the firing squad and tied to
a post. A shot rings out and the Time Lord winces, expecting a
bullet; but none comes.
It turns
out the shot was fired by an attacking soldier. The firing squad
stops what they’re doing to take care of that problem and the
Doctor and Zoe make their escape.
Over the
course of the next three hours the Doctor finds out that there are
soldiers from many different Earth wars on this planet that most
definitely is not Earth. There’s a part where the Doctor and
company are attempting to make their way back to the TARDIS in the
ambulance and the silliest-looking Romans you’ve ever seen crest a
hill to attack. There are soldiers from the American Civil War,
German soldiers, Mexican soldiers, French soldiers, and more. The
Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie endure an almost comical cycle of being
captured and escaping from the various factions while trying to
figure out what is happening on this strange planet that is divided
up into many separate War Zones.
The
German soldiers are being led by Captain von Weich, who has a monocle
that does the same thing as General Smythe’s hypno-specs. Captain
von Weich is also in charge of the Union troops in the American Civil
War Zone. It turns out that von Weich and Smythe are working for a
man called the War Chief. The War Chief is directing the action from
a futuristic, centrally located bunker. He was hired by a mysterious,
unseen (so far) man called the War Lord to coordinate the War Games
and provide technology to facilitate them. The War Chief has
fantastic facial hair and the second I saw him I thought he was
probably a Time Lord.
Actually,
a lot of people in this story have some pretty memorable facial hair.
General Smythe has those sideburns, the Sergeant-Major has quite a
mustache, the War Chief has the most ridiculous sideburn/mustache
combo I’ve ever seen, and the War Lord… well, we’ll get to him.
Anyway,
Smythe meets with the War Chief in the Central Zone and tells him
about these time travelers that are running all over the place and
confusing everybody by being extremely easy to capture but difficult
to keep captive. The War Chief is not happy about this. He issues an
order to all of the Zones that the Doctor and his associates must be
captured. Which was kind of happening a lot anyway.
Speaking
of which, the time travelers in question have entered the Civil War
Zone and in a staggering turn of events managed to avoid
being captured. While they are hiding out in a barn, a strange
machine materializes and disgorges a couple dozen Civil War-era
soldiers. The second I heard the machine I thought it was probably a
TARDIS. The Doctor thinks the same thing, so he gets up and runs
inside. Zoe shouts after him that it’s stupid to go running into
some strange craft and then runs in right after him. Jamie is about
to follow when the machine dematerializes, taking the Doctor and Zoe
with it and leaving us with a near-upskirt as Jamie skids to a halt.
The
Doctor and Zoe find soldiers from many different eras inside the
machine. It ends up materializing in a sort of hangar bay in the
Central Zone and the pair disembark to find out what’s going on.
Everybody there is walking around in these zany, Willy Wonka-looking
glasses, so the pair grab a couple and go to this weird seminar where
a scientist is explaining the process for mind-wiping the soldiers
and getting them deployed into the field.
Zoe and
the Doctor are watching, somewhat appalled, when Lieutenant Staircase
or Carstain or whatever his silly name is gets wheeled in. He was
last seen helping the TARDIS crew escape from one of their many
captors, and must have gotten busted in the process. Scientist
explains that a small percentage of the soldiers have shown a certain
amount of resistance to the brainwashing procedure and have formed
rebel groups that are opposing… um, whatever is going on.
Side
note: I have no idea who the heck the audience was that was sitting
there listening to Scientist’s lecture. It’s just this bunch of
people. Like, tourists or something. I just went with it because I
was so pleased nobody was getting captured again.
As
Scientist goes on to explain that there is a new process that will
wipe even the dirtiest minds clean and that they’re going to use it
on Lieutenant Starchase now. The Lieutenant caches sight of the
Doctor and Zoe, and the Doctor motions for him to be cool. It’s
hard to be cool when somebody is sticking your head into a device
designed to erase portions of your brain, but Carstairs does a pretty
good job. I kept waiting for the Doctor to do something clever and
keep Carstain from getting mind wiped, but he didn’t. So the
Lieutenant’s face goes all blank and then he stands up and starts
ranting about Zoe and the Doctor being German spies. Oops.
The
Doctor does what he does best and talks his way out of the situation,
but then the War Chief walks into the room and gives the Doctor the
ol’ hairy eyeball. Clearly there is some recognition on both parts.
The War Chief sounds an alarm and the Doctor and Zoe take off.
Back in
the Civil War Zone, Jamie and Lady Jennifer have been busy getting
captured by and escaping from various military factions. Their latest
escape was from a group of Union soldiers led by a very familiar
commanding officer – von Weich! They were assisted by a Civil
War-era rebel (against the tyranny of the War Games, not the tyranny
of the North) who I do not wish to call “the Black Guy” even
though he was quite literally the only black guy in the whole story.
So I’ll call him Private Clyde.
Private
Clyde is cool and actually does a very passable American accent,
though it is not Southern. Actually, there was only one Southern
accent amongst all the Civil War soldiers. I was dreading hearing
one, but the guy that used it was actually very good.
So
Private Clyde and his crew want to execute von Weich because they
know he’s with the people that have stolen them from their
timelines. But Jamie doesn’t want that to happen, which is good of
Jamie but very stupid because it gives von Weich time to get to one
of the comm units that is hidden in the barn and sound an alarm.
Somehow
the Doctor and Zoe were separated and Zoe got waylaid by newly
evil-fied Lieutenant Carstairs. From there she is taken to a groovy
interrogation chamber where the Security Chief puts on the silliest
hat ever and asks her questions.
Security
Chief – “Where do you come from?”
Zoe –
“Oh, please – take that off.”
Security
Chief – “Where do you
come from?”
Zoe –
“No.. really… it’s just too silly, I can’t stand it.”
Security
Chief – “I come from…”
Zoe –
“Argh! I come from the 21st
century and I’m traveling with a Scottish piper and a Time Lord in
a TARDIS and sometimes I like to put cheese on donuts when nobody’s
looking and please just take
that silly hat off!”
While
this is going on the Doctor happens across Carstairs getting
mind-wiped. Again. I’m a little concerned about these guys and how
casually the bad guys seem to be mind-wiping them all the time. It
can’t be healthy. Anyway, the Doctor does his talky thing and he
and Carstairs end up overpowering Scientist and forcing him into the
mind-wiping chair. Then they go and find Zoe in the groovy
interrogation room.
Meanwhile
the War Chief and the Security Chief are having a little spat in the
big map room. If I didn’t mention it, there’s a big room with
this really cool-looking map/table thing showing all of the different
War Zones. The War Chief is the guy that supplied the operation with
the time-travel machines that are kidnapping the soldiers and
ferrying them around. The Security Chief doesn’t trust the War
Chief because he is a different species from the rest of the people
in the operation and betrayed his own people.
Their
disagreement is interrupted by the alarm that von Weich set off in
the barn, so the Security Chief dispatches a machine full of troops
to investigate. When the machine materializes in the barn there is a
big fight between the Central Zone security guards and the rebel
soldiers. The rebels win, but Private Clyde dies. The rebels see an
opportunity to find the ones responsible for their situation, so they
and Jamie pile into the machine and it dematerializes, leaving Lady
Jennifer behind.
When the
machine rematerializes back in the Central Zone landing bay, there
are guards waiting. As the rebels exit the craft they are gunned
down, including Jamie. I totally thought he was dead because neither
he nor Zoe is in the next story. I had forgotten about him being in
The Five Doctors.
A whole
bunch of nonsense happens after that and I can’t even begin to try
and explain it to you. It turns out Jamie and the rest of the rebels
were only stunned. He gets interrogated by the Chief Scientist at one
point and this makes the Chief Scientist think the War Chief is going
to turn on everybody and summon the Time Lords. The Doctor escapes
and helps people escape and gets recaptured and save Zoe and helps
her escape and saves Carstairs and some guy kills von Weich.
Seriously – it’s a mess. So much unnecessary stuff happens that I
would have to go back and watch the middle five episodes of The
War Games three or four
more times just to put it together and I don’t want to watch this
thing even one
more time. What’s important is that we finally get to the scene
that is the background of the DVD menu.
The
Doctor, Carstairs, and the guy that killed von Weich are in some room
that is closing in like an old Batman
’66 trap. Eventually they have to surrender and are captured, but
the Doctor escapes almost instantly this time. It’s really starting
to get a little silly. Okay – we actually left silly behind a long
time ago.
As a
matter of fact, things are getting so out of hand that the War Lord
decides he needs to show up in the Central Zone to take control and
holy shit, you guys the War
Lord is Steve Fucking Jobs:
The Doctor is so screwed now.
He, Zoe,
and Carstairs have made their way back to the British encampment and
the soldiers there are so sick of the routine of capturing and
escaping they decide, just to shake things up, to kill General Smythe
rather than take the Doctor prisoner. So the Doctor is holed up in
the British HQ with the rebels now and the War Lord sends all of the
brainwashed troops to kill the meddling Time Lord. This time there is
no chance of escape, so the Doctor reconfigures the local Time Zone
control unit to create a safe zone around the British HQ. Only it
isn’t all that safe because a bunch of Security Guards from the
Central Zone show up and capture the Doctor(!).
The
Security Chief tries to interrogate the Doctor like he did Zoe, but
the Time Lord has been around and seen (and worn) his share of silly
hats and the interrogation hat has no effect. Since the Security
Chief can’t make any headway with the Doctor, the War Lord assigns
the War Chief the job and finally we get the confrontation between
the two Time Lords.
For the
first time ever it is explained that the Doctor is a renegade Time
Lord who stole his TARDIS, and it turns out the War Chief is, as
well. He is supplying the War Lord and his people with
limited-capability TARDISes so they can create the perfect army to
take over the galaxy and enforce peace. He does the Darth Vader bit
(eleven years before Vader did it) and tells the Doctor that together
they can overthrow the War Lord and rule the galaxy together. He even
says “Galactic Empire”. Before the Doctor can reply, the War Lord
shows up and tells the Doctor he had better join their effort or
else. Apparently he didn’t overhear the War Chief’s planned
mutiny even though he was about three feet away when it was being
spoken of.
Zoe,
Jamie, and Carstairs decide to organize all the rebel groups for an
assault on the Central Zone. To do this, they decide they need a
crazy Mexican stereotype, so they contact Arturo Villa, who is like
Pancho Villa but with a Japanese first name. For some reason. Villa
shows up with his troops and demands to meet with the leader of that
rebel cell. Zoe is the brains of the operation at this point, but a
savage like Villa isn’t going to accept some silly woman as a
leader. This leads to my favorite scene in the whole story. Jamie
comes out all dressed up like some kind of revolutionary and has a
meeting with Villa, with Zoe providing a whole lot of overt guidance
throughout. They finally agree to a plan that involves sabotaging the
control units in all of the various Time Zones in order to draw out
the Security Force, at which point they will steal a TARDIS and
assault the Central Zone.
Their
plan actually goes off without a hitch, to the point where the War
Chief is ready to detonate a neutron bomb to get rid of the rebels.
But the Doctor steps in and says he can halt the revolution and the
War Lord agrees to let him try. He then contacts the rebels and tells
them he is sending a TARDIS for them. They all hop on board and are
brought to the Central Zone, where they are met by a cadre of
Security Guards led by the Doctor, who tells them to surrender.
After
the rebels are led away, the Doctor confronts the War Chief and tells
him he knows all about his little plan. The War Chief doesn’t
really want to be BFF co-rulers of the galaxy with the Doctor! He
just wants him for his fully-functional (well, mostly) TARDIS.
The War
Lord then makes the monumentally stupid mistake of putting the Doctor
in charge of mind-wiping the captured rebels, but the Security Chief
– who, like Stone Cold Steve Austin doesn’t trust anybody
– just sort of throws the Doctor in with them. They all think he
betrayed them and Villa in particular is about to kill the Time Lord,
but he explains about the neutron bomb and they see reason. The
Doctor pretends to mind-wipe Jamie and the other rebels so they can
overthrow the War Lord.
Meanwhile,
the Security Chief has managed to find recordings of all of the
mutinous conversations between the Doctor and the War Chief. You can
practically see his little head glowing with joy. He moves to arrest
the two Time Lords, but then everything just kind of goes to hell.
The rebels rise up and chaos ensues. During the fight the War Chief
manages to kill the Security Chief and, seeing that the rebels are
going to win, sneaks off to steal a TARDIS. Unfortunately for him,
the War Lord is just kind of hanging around the TARDIS bay with a
bunch of Security Guards and they blast him.
The War
Chief’s Death Scene is AMAZING.
Back in
the map room, the Doctor has realized that with nothing more than a
bunch of limited, broken down TARDISes there is no way to get the
thousands of soldiers back to their own times. He has no choice but
to summon the Time Lords to help out. This involves making a cube out
of some pieces of paper and I wonder if this cube doesn’t have some
relation to the ones seen in “The Doctor’s Wife”.
The
Doctor does his best to escape to his own TARDIS with Zoe and Jamie
before the Time Lords arrive, but time slows down around them. There
is a desperate race to the TARDIS and the trio almost don’t make
it.
But they
do.
Once
inside, the Doctor activates the controls to try and find a location
outside of the Time Lords’ vast influence. Unfortunately this leads
to such silly things as the TARDIS being attacked by sharks and
alligators and I really don’t want to discuss that.
What I
will discuss is how the Doctor explains that the Time Lords are a
bunch of boring, stodgy snobs who don’t ever want to get involved
with life, the universe, and everything. He couldn’t stand it, so
he stole a TARDIS to go and see the sights.
After
several stops, the Time Lords finally recall the Doctor’s TARDIS
and its passengers to their home planet (which is not named). The
Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie are brought into a large chamber where the War
Lord is standing trial. As the Doctor is about to testify, a bunch of
Security Guards show up and rescue the War Lord. Just as they are
about to escape to a TARDIS, a force field surrounds them, the Time
Lords pronounce them guilty, and erase them from existence. It was
pretty creepy, actually. They were very casual about it. The Time
Lords also stated that they were going to lock the War Lord’s
planet away due to the war-like proclivities of his people. Yikes.
Don’t piss of the Time Lords, I guess.
After
they are done with the War Lord and his goons, the Time Lord council
turn their attention to the Doctor. They tell him they are sending
his companions back home. Zoe and Jamie are both sent back to times
directly after their first encounter with the Doctor, with their
minds wiped as though they never actually traveled with him.
As for
the Doctor, they tell him they are going to change his appearance and
exile him on Earth, since it seems to be his favorite planet.
This
whole next sequence was weird and kind of ridiculous and actually
bothered me quite a bit.
First,
the Time Lords tell the Doctor he can choose his appearance and he
makes this big show of not liking any of the crummy drawings they
show him of possible looks. I find it odd that such a highly evolved
society doesn’t have artists capable of producing images better
than what we saw. After he refuses all of their terrible suggestions
they tell him fine, he’s getting changed anyway and we get one of
the worst scenes I have ever seen in the history of Doctor Who.
Patrick
Troughton has been a lot of fun as the Doctor every time I have seen
him. He is obviously a very gifted actor and he just as obviously
took the role of the Time Lord very seriously. But the regeneration
(though it is not yet referred to as such) scene is just fucking
awful. The story ends with the Doctor just sort of spinning off into
the darkness. It’s worth noting that the actual regeneration was
not shown, which I did not know until now. No Jon Pertwee in this
episode.
Actually,
having seen that I wonder if Stephen Moffat (or whoever is in charge
at the time it comes up) couldn’t get away with claiming that
wasn’t even a proper regeneration, just a change of appearance. The
Time Lords never explicitly state they are taking one of his
regenerations.
Notes:
- One of the writers – Terrance Dicks, who I normally have a very high opinion of - referred to the ridiculous amount of being captured that happens to the Doctor and company as a clever way to lengthen the story out to ten episodes. It may have served its purpose, but I certainly wouldn’t call it clever. My eyes were sore from all the rolling.
- There is a fan-made short film in the DVD set called “Devious” that is supposed to take place between this story and the next one – Spearhead From Space. It’s not very good and doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it does feature Jon Pertwee in his final appearance as the Doctor.
The good
parts of The War Games
were very good. The long parts were very long. I can’t imagine I’ll
ever watch this again in its entirety. The stuff with the War Lord
and the Time Lords was all pretty excellent. The story was solid and
even the effects were quite good for the most part. All of the actors
were great except for Patrick Troughton at the very end. I can’t
imagine what led to… that.
Come
back next time for Spearhead
From Space, which is the
next story in the series and the first story for Jon Pertwee, the
third Doctor! I’ve actually seen this one before and really like it
for the most part. Plus – Shower
Scene. Ooh, yeah.
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