And so the Troughton era comes to an end.
One of the bonus features on the DVD set notes that the original plan had been for it to close out with a 6-parter and a 4-parter but that pre-production issues meant that both had to be scrapped and Terrance Dicks was tasked with writing a mega 10-parter in record time.
The story begins on a jolly note with the TARDIS landing in a field of mud and Jamie eagerly stepping out only to find his fine boots sinking in the muck. Zoe and the Doctor both laugh at the Scotman's minor footwear tragedy. What a contrast to the ending 4+ hours later.
The field of mud is World War I's No Man's Land. But what seems like a typical tale of the TARDIS crew landing in a historical mess and having to find a way out becomes something more when we discover that General Smythe, leader of the English troops, is more than a mere martinet. He goes oddly missing from his office on occasion and greatly values his privacy as there is futuristic electronic equipment hidden behind a painting. And his trendy spectacles seem to be endowed with hypnotic powers that allow him to make an overly inquisitive aide forget the odd things he's seen that he shouldn't have.
That muddy field was, in reality, a simulacrum of No Man's Land. In fact, it's one of many war zones where recreations of various conflicts from humanity's past play out in bloody verisimilitude. In addition to Smythe, the German command post in the 1917 zone has its own commandant that is more than he seems, Von Weich. In addition to a fine Blofeld scar, which, when shown in close-up, is attached via a bit of fine mesh, he has a monocle that mesmerizes his Teutonic troops.
It turns out these two gentlemen are members of a race of aliens that are hosting the titular games. When needed, they can leave the war zones via a contraption that materializes and dematerializes and sounds just like a TARDIS! They end up at some futuristic HQ with a War Room and a big board.
But these folks are not running the show and report to a chap that calls himself the War Chief who sports a fine Fu Manchu mustache. He is of a different planet and is in league with those that host the games. The War Chief often finds himself at odds with the Security Chief who is a little weaselly guy with a shrill, annoying nasal voice. In one scene in which they bicker, the Security Chief casually mentions that the War Chief is a Time Lord which I think is the first ever mention in the show of the name of the Doctor's people.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are piecing together exactly what's happening. The hosts are doing a lot of brainwashing on the belligerents to make sure that they don't know that they've been whisked away from their own time and place on Earth by the renegade Time Lord. The other one, the War Chief, I mean. Furthermore, our heroes discover these misty liminal areas which allow one to travel from one war zone to another.
The Doctor and Co. are becoming a pain and the man who controls the purse strings shows up - the War Lord. We learn what he and his minions are really up to: they are using the games as a way to let the cream rise to the top and assemble an army of only the best human fighters to conquer the galaxy. The War Chief, it turns out, is merely a hired gun lending his talents and TARDISes to the cause. But, of course, he has his own motivations and is plotting his own scheme.
While I was disappointed that Dicks and his co-writer, Malcolm Hulke, revealed the electronics in Smythe's office much too soon, they otherwise did a very nice job of slowly introducing us to the figures behind things. At first we think it's Smythe and Von Weich but then we get the War Chief. But this too is misdirection and we are introduced to the War Lord. They simply did a fine job of revealing a little at a time to keep us guessing as to what was going on instead of showing us the big picture early on. You hear a transport pod thing make a TARDIS sound and go, "Wait! I know that sound!" but are left to ponder how a TARDIS would have gotten there for a few episodes before the reveal.
The HQ of the aliens running the games is a rather neat bit of set design. There's an interrogation room that has a guillotine door, for instance. The door, the wall it's on, and the floor are painted with this weird psychedelic spiral. Not only does it look neat, but it is also quite appropriate as that is where people are subjected to a mind probe, essentially. It was reminiscent of The Prisoner. The room where the humans combatants are processed, i.e. - have their minds altered, has these open shelves - no backs - and looks like a trendy living room where some hip kids from 1967 might assemble after a shopping trip on Carnaby Street to unpack their goodies over a joint.
Of our heroes, Jamie and the Doctor acquit themselves well with plenty of derring-do on the Scotman's part and the usual routine of the Doctor being all crafty, in addition to slip ups like finding himself before a firing squad. Zoe doesn't do a whole heck of a lot, though. There are a couple instances of her using her brains for the cause but mainly she stands around looking on and gets carried along by events.
There's a fair amount of exterior scenes here that take place out in the zones and they were done well, including some really nice shots made with a short lens that added a sense of being there, of immediacy. Plus, there was a fair amount of camera movement in the scenes shot on a soundstage. Just really nice cinematography all around.
The ending is a major bit of Doctor Who lore. With the War Chief dead and the War Lord's hideous recruitment drive foiled, the Doctor finds himself responsible for getting all of the wayward humans back to Earth in their proper times and he just cannot do so on his own. So he calls in the Time Lords to mop up the mess. To do so, he sits on the floor, lays out a series of what at first appear to be cards but they magically assemble themselves into a small box. Inside the Doctor has somehow encoded a summary of events and a plea for the Time Lords to make things right. Kind of a square version of Voyager's Golden Record. Reluctantly, he dispatches the mundane looking beacon.
The Doctor knows that, after sending it, the Time Lords will know where he is and come looking for him. He desperately tries to put a lot of distance between him and his people but, despite his best efforts to send the TARDIS to some backwater where they will never find him, they do and we get what I expect is our first glimpse of Gallifrey, though it is never named, and the Doctor's people as they bring the ship back to the Doctor's home planet in a scene echoed 17 or so years later in The Trial of a Time Lord.
The War Lord is tried before a triumvirate of rather stoic Time Lords who seem to not want to move a whole lot and, after a brief attempt at escape, the arch villain and his remaining minions are wiped out of existence. Their bodies not only disappear into thin air, but they are purged from the time lines so that it is as if they never existed in the first place. Quite an exercise of power!
With the War Lord having paid for his crimes, it is now the Doctor's turn before the tribunal. He stands accused of violating the Time Lords' non-interference laws. Our hero pleads guilty and proudly proclaims in a rather rousing speech that, arguably, has set the tone for the character ever since, that he does what is right by helping those who need it, unlike the Time Lords who remain aloof from all of the wrongs in the universe, content to observe and allow evil to do its dastardly misdeeds. The Doctor is given access to a "thought channel" to allow him to give his defense by showing some of the villains that he's defeated in his life who appear on a big screen in back. It was a proto-Matrix that, again, brought The Trial of a Time Lord to mind. And, of course the Daleks are described as the most heinous evil doers he's faced.
In the end, the tribunal finds the Doctor guilty but sentences him to a much kinder punishment than that given the War Lord: exile on Earth with a non-functioning TARDIS and to have his appearance changed against his will. However, they at least give him a few new visages to choose from, if he were so inclined. This idea of choosing a new appearance will return when Romana regenerates in Destiny of the Daleks.
Our final glimpses of the Second Doctor are of him spinning in a black void and disappearing into the distance.
Since we never see the Doctor regenerate, fans came up with the Season 6b theory that there was time for further adventures between his sentence being handed down and him actually regenerating into Jon Pertwee. Perhaps he'd been exiled to Earth but the enforced change of appearance came later. And so there are some tales that seem to fit into this gap, including a TV story, The Two Doctors.
My Second Doctor marathon is not quite over.
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