Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (78 page)

The best of this episode plays as a black comedy. We pass into three different time zones in 25 minutes, and all we get is the same pointless conflicts – it’s hard not to get blasé about them. And just as we begin to relax a little too much, and watch Lieutenant Carstairs gun down nineteenth-century Americans with impunity, we’re pulled up short by that
brilliant
scene where Smythe and Von Weich so callously discuss future battle plans as if they’re playing chess. The more death and war we see, the more we behave like them – indeed, most of the episode plays upon the excitement of driving through a whole series of zones in which people massacre each other as if they were nothing more than pit stops. It’s why the moment when Lady Jennifer realises that Carstairs has sacrificed himself (or so she thinks) to allow the ambulance to escape has such quiet power. There’s no outcry, no grief – just a look down and a mumbled “Oh dear”, the ultimate repression of emotion. That’s what you do in times of war. That’s how you get through – it’s the “proper” way to behave.

T:
The War Games is an infamously long story, it hasn’t yet – for my money – shown signs of treading water. The script keeps feeding us tantalising clues with enough regularity to keep us interested, and it hasn’t needed to reveal the answers quite yet. And it helps that we’re benefitting from the presence of some great characters – Jennifer and Carstairs are delightful, wonderfully played allies, and there’s an unflappable bravery to Carstairs as he stays put and tells her to drive on. It clearly demonstrates the duality of war; we get to simultaneously witness the best and worst of mankind.

David Maloney orchestrates the action like a maestro, using simple but very effective tricks to suggest that a vast number of troops are present. His film work is impressively staged (even if one of the Roman soldiers looks rather comical as he stares at where the lorry once was, his mouth wide open in shock), and his approach to that excellent scene between von Weich and Smythe is inspired, as he films them from underneath a table mapping out the battlefield.

Troughton is clearly giving his all to this – he obviously relishes the idea of blowing up the safe, and grabs one of the braids on Jamie’s sporran – much to the surprise of his co-star! – when looking for a fuse. Let me also give a quick nod to Gregg Palmer, who gives a sweet little cameo as a German lieutenant, even if he’s a harbinger of doom for our leading men. (The only other occasion he popped up in Doctor Who was in The Tenth Planet, and you know what that meant for Hartnell!) And hooray for Lt Crane, the jolly toff – amidst all the fear and jeopardy, he’s an opponent who impedes our heroes because of his polite, chummy desire to have a chat!

May 5th

The War Games episode four

R:
Those funny little cardboard visors that all the alien students wear, with little black crosses for the eyeholes, ought to look rubbish. But actually when Troughton and Padbury put them on, it does somehow manage to dehumanise them. And I know Toby probably thinks I’m pretentious about such things, but I think it’s honestly because they
are
a bit rubbish. It’s like the strange swirly lined Batman sets, or the guards dressed in PVC – in any other story, if this were the alien world we were being presented, it’d be laughable. But it works here precisely because it provides such a contrast with the realism of the World War I set, or the striking normality of the barn in the American Civil War zone. It’s as if from scene to scene we’re jumping back and forth between period drama and cod sci-fi – and the effect is genuinely disconcerting. I love this strange alien world, of sudden hysterical alarms and background warbling mood sound, of overbright lighting and white walls. It feels artificial. And yet it’s the reality of the story – whereas all that
looks
sturdy and designed to the nth degree, all the historical settings we visit are as fake as a three-pound note. It does clever things to our perception of the story, that, and what we regard as real and what we regard as fantasy – and over this long story it subtly destabilises what we’re used to seeing around us, so that when co-writers Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke drop their
big
surprises about the Doctor’s background, we’re in a mood receptive to accept it.

And talking of big surprises – we don’t know yet what the importance of the War Chief could be, but the sequence where Edward Brayshaw and Patrick Troughton first see each other across a crowded room, and (my God!)
recognise
each other, makes me shiver. There’s that one moment of horrified realisation (in which they’re clearly
both
panicked by the encounter), there’s that little pause – and then the alarms sound, the Doctor flees, the War Chief loses his composure for the first time, and all Hell breaks loose. You know that this is something big, and it’s achieved in the subtlest of ways – purely through the right use of silence and noise, and through eye contact. It’s brilliant.

So’s the cliffhanger. David Savile has played a very likeable Carstairs. And so when he holds Zoe at gunpoint and begins talking so gently – dreamily as if he’s stoned, even – that he’s going to kill her, it’s quite unnerving. (He doesn’t do it half so well when they film the same moment as the reprise for next week – but that’s because by that point, the script requires him to obsessed and vengeful, not as here the creepy man who has lost all his personality.)

T:
I agree with you 100% on this – the alien set designs and costumes need to be outlandish (complete with groovy sets, bonkers specs and funky beards) to contrast the dirty, realistic and unflashy Earth conflicts. No other Doctor Who story looks like this – but then, no other story could get away with it.

Meanwhile, this adventure is one of the most consistently well-cast stories we’ve had yet. Edward Brayshaw has now come to the forefront as the War Chief, and he has such poise and elegance, coupled with an underlying glacial darkness. He looks
magnificent
, striding about as he does like a tall homosexual lion with his impressive mane, massive medallion and penchant for eye shadow. Such a performance would be too big for mundane hospital dramas, but it’s pitched perfectly for slightly heightened sci-fi; it’s impressive and Shakespearean, and not remotely silly. And the moment where he and the Doctor see each other really
is
a momentous occasion. We’re used to seeing the Doctor arriving and
becoming
someone’s nuisance or a nemesis, but here, he’s faced with someone who is immediately afeared, shocked and desperate just from clapping eyes on him. With a jolt, we’re reminded that the Doctor has a
past
.

Vernon Dobtcheff is also superb as the unnamed Scientist. Actually, Dobtcheff is something of a legend amongst the acting profession – he makes it his business to attend every single major opening night, and if he can’t, he sends cards. He features marvellously in Rupert Everett’s autobiography, and pops up all over the world to such an extent – seemingly conspiring to enter different actors’ lives on different continents at the same time – that there’s a jokey rumour that there are a vast number of Vernon Dobtcheffs. Sadly, I don’t think he’s on the forthcoming DVD of The War Games; it’s a missed opportunity to talk with such a celebrated figure. (That said, he’s never been out of work since his stint on Doctor Who, and might remember nothing about it.)

And beyond the casting concerns, the
scale
of this story continues to be impressive – no fewer than three factions encounter Jamie and Jennifer in the barn – and the developments keep us guessing. I’d like to tip my hat to the fact that it’s the black character who is impossible to hypnotise, and displays bravery and defiance, and to say what a shock it is when von Weich turns up with a different accent but equal malevolence. And to cap it all off, we get that brilliant but disturbing shot of the frozen, upright soldiers awaiting deployment from inside the SIDRAT. They’re erect cadavers, grotesque parodies of humanity waiting to be reactivated, then sent to kill or die. It’s a gruesome image – intriguing, alien and unsettling – and it encapsulates this entire story in one shot.

The War Games episode five

R:
What I love about The War Games is that it brings out so many really terrific performances. I’d argue that the Troughton stories as a whole have traded largely in stereotypes, and there have been fewer opportunities for guest stars to do as much with the parts as we saw in the days of Hartnell. But The War Games is making up for it. And what makes this story so wonderful is that the scope of the parts is large enough to encompass completely different styles of acting. You’re right; Vernon Dobtcheff’s Scientist is great – and hilarious, precisely because he’s so downplayed. The scene where he allows Troughton to run rings around him as he experiments with his mind-wiping machine is brilliant, never quite sure whether to be irritated or impressed by this strangely-clothed student who’s so much cleverer than him. Whereas James Bree’s Security Chief is so very stylised, walking as if the movement of limbs is a concept he’s not used to and takes no pleasure in, his every word clearly enunciated but just flat enough to feel inhuman. With Edward Brayshaw going the whole hog as a rather cavalier villain, displaying his golden medallion out to all and sundry, this collision of styles ought to be a complete mess. But for The War Games it works wonderfully, because the story is all
about
a collision of styles.

It’s why there’s such pleasure to be taken in those scenes where the rebels are together, this ragbag of different accents and different costumes. They all look as if they’re from different adventures, all coming together incongruously in the BBC canteen. (I’m very sorry that Rudolph Walker bites the bullet so early, though – he gives one of the richest of the performances as Harper, one of the resistance members, and I’d have liked to have seen more of him.)

And that’s it for Lady Jennifer, she’s gone! As a companion in the making she’s worked rather well, and Jane Sherwin has turned a woman who could so easily have been a prim and starchy aristocrat with a plum in her mouth into someone charming. (If you’re going to cast the producer’s wife in Doctor Who, better to go with Derrick’s than Peter Bryant’s, I think.) It’s odd that she tells Jamie to pass on her best wishes to Carstairs, though, when she’s every reason to believe he must be dead, and certainly no cause to expect him to be inside an alien base. It’s one of those little instances where the writers presume the characters know the same thing they do, and clumsy as it is, it’s an illustration of the enormous speed at which this epic story was composed.

T:
I worried when we started this project that I’d bang on about the actors too much – because that’s my field and one of my main interests – and although I’d like to think that I’ve restrained myself generally, here, on this final adventure, I haven’t been able to stop. But can you blame me? There’s so much to talk about! You’re right that it’s a shame about Rudolph Walker and Jane Sherwin – they both did a terrific job, and made an impact even amongst this vast and flashy cast. But stepping up to bat is Graham Weston, who gets a great entrance as Russell – the man whose no-nonsense pragmatism is necessary to hold the ragtag resistance together. It’s good that they don’t shirk from the difficulties of bonding such disparate fellows together.

But I have to ask – what the bloody hell is James Bree doing? I remember reading an interview with Catherine Tate where she admitted that she thought the Daleks were the Doctor’s
only
nemeses, and appeared in all the adventures. It’s a reasonable enough supposition, but only if you’ve paid precious little attention to the programme. I bring this up because one suspects that Bree thought that too – did his agent tell him he’d be playing a lead villain on Doctor Who, and he presumed that he had to act like a Dalek? (His interrogator’s headgear, at least, is a bit Dalek-like; otherwise, he’s in entirely the wrong costume.) I wouldn’t so much mind, except that he’s acting in a manner completely at odds with everybody else around him. Oh, all right – I’m not convinced he’s got the right approach, but I’ll give him a bit of time and see if my opinion of it improves.

Watch. This. Spaaaaaaaace.

May 6th

The War Games episode six

R:
It must be nice to have an influential Dad. Here’s David Troughton in his TV debut playing Private Moor – in a little tale which allows him to be scared, angry, a bit heroic and to have a rather good fight scene. And it’s a measure of how much
space
this ten-episode tale affords us; usually, if someone was to be given something for his first showreel, they’d be given a scene with a few lines in it, but the midway point of this long adventure allows Troughton’s storyline to be stretched right across the episode. And perhaps it shouldn’t work, perhaps it ought to look a bit tokenistic. But it’s brilliant. Partly because it at last allows room for a small character, a young soldier of no great consequence, to have the focus placed upon him for a change – and by giving him his moment, the writers allow every him to represent every other frightened Tommy who’s been exploited and become a victim of power politics he can’t even begin to understand. The War Games is all the richer because for all its epic ambitions, it still has the room to remind us that it’s a story about lots of ordinary people being treated callously. And it’s brilliant too, because David Troughton is extremely good. There’s an RSC star in the making here.