The War Games Episode Four

The one where the Doctor and Zoe infiltrate the alien control centre...

The alien travel capsules are TARDISes in all but name, so I wonder why designer Roger Cheveley chose to not have the interior like the Doctor's Ship? After all, the Meddling Monk's TARDIS was very similar to the Doctor's, and even the Dalek time machine reflected the architectural footprint of the Doctor's Ship. These capsules are obviously something slightly different, which we can tell by the rather flimsy interior design! Quite how the Doctor and Zoe are expected to hide from a passing garrison of Roman soldiers by hiding behind a see-through plastic shower curtain is baffling!

I love the weird controls these alien people have though, they're like little fridge magnets which are moved about into different formations to complete certain tasks/ circuits. We can all pretend to do that at home!

Now that Jamie and Jennifer have been abandoned in the American Civil War zone, it means several actors get to flex their accent muscles, although most of them don't flex them nearly enough. David Garfield was spot on with his German accent in episode 3, but struggles to capture a yankee accent here, and goes rather over the top with his upper class English accent too. Leslie Schofield manages a little better with his American but it's still not great.

Best of the lot is the wonderful Rudolph Walker as Harper, who swoops in to rescue Jamie and Lady Jennifer because he recognises that they are not from this time zone. Harper reveals that he sees and knows everything about the bizarrely connected zones, and is part of a gathering alliance of rebels intent on attacking their alien oppressors. I love Harper. He's not given a lot of characterisation, but he's a black man who's given an important role, and most importantly, a name! Harper says he is immune to Von Weich's hypnotic monocle, making him one of the 5% of human specimens which the aliens' mind processing technology doesn't work on. It is this 5% which is forming a resistance.

This technology is demonstrated by a nameless scientist in the aliens' training school, where the doorways are shaped like keyholes, and everybody wears crazy spectacles with slots for lenses. The Doctor and Zoe don the specs as a disguise to sit in on a demonstration of the aliens' brainwashing machine, leading to a lovely scene where the Doctor surreptitiously finds out how to reverse the processing by claiming the machine can't do it (cue more fridge magnet manoeuvering!).

The scene where the War Chief enters the classroom never fails to give me goosebumps, and I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck flexing just writing about it. It's written, directed and acted so perfectly. The War Chief turns to see the Doctor, and a flash of recognition crosses his face, and then we see the same flash of recognition, and then fear, on the Doctor's face. "Run, Zoe!" cries the Doctor, as the clearly panicked War Chief bellows: "STOP THEEEEM! STOP THEEEEM!". Visibly rattled, the War Chief then orders a full-scale shutdown of the centre until the rebels are found, but it's more than clear that the Doctor and the War Chief recognise each other somehow, and see one another as a threat.

All the best bits of the episode happen in the aliens' control base, and the scenes in the war zone with Jamie and Jennifer getting repeatedly captured, then escaping, then getting captured again, are tiresome. The battle scenes are all very well handled by director David Maloney, especially the location scenes with the horse, but overall, it's just padding while the real action goes on elsewhere.

Dicks and Hulke are weaving a riveting story here which pulls together so many fascinating ideas which reach out and impact upon Doctor Who's future. For example, in the aliens' ability to abduct human soldiers from their time periods and release them into a false environment for their own evil ends, there's the early idea for the Time Scoop later used by Dicks in The Five Doctors. In the Machiavellian War Chief we have a proto-Master, even down to the way he cuts his facial hair! There's even a clear influence on the miniscope seen later in Carnival of Monsters, with different environments/ zones placed side by side, with the occupants able to cross between them.

All in all, there's no two ways about it: The War Games is proving to be a major turning point in Doctor Who's history, written with intelligence and skill by Dicks and Hulke, and directed with style and care by Maloney. But can they keep this level and rate of success going for another six episodes...?

First broadcast: May 10th, 1969

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: That look of recognition between the Doctor and the War Chief.
The Bad: The pointless exploits of Jamie and Jennifer.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

NEXT TIME: Episode Five...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Five; Episode Six; Episode Seven; Episode Eight; Episode Nine; Episode Ten

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-war-games.html

The War Games is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-War-Games-DVD/dp/B002ATVD8W.