 |
| The Doctor stands his ground. |
4 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 97 minutes. Written by: Ian Stuart Black. Directed by: Michael Ferguson. Produced by: Innes Lloyd.
THE PLOT:
The Doctor and Dodo arrive in 1960s London. They instantly notice the Post Office Tower, the tall communications tower in central London, which Dodo is surprised to see is now complete. She is even more surprised when the Doctor announces there is "something alien" coming from that tower, and insists on investigating.
He passes himself off as a visiting scientist, and he and Dodo are able to meet with Professor Brett (John Harvey), creator of WOTAN, a thinking computer. In four days' time, Brett proudly announces, WOTAN will be linked up with other major computers in allied countries. While Brett's secretary, Polly (Anneke Wills) takes Polly to a nightclub, the Doctor attends a press conference about WOTAN led by Sir Charles Summer (William Mervyn). Sir Charles is baffled when Brett appears at the very end of the conference to insist that an electronics expert accompany him to the tower for an unspecified emergency.
The emergency is WOTAN itself. The machine has calculated that humanity has advanced the Earth as far as it can. The machine has hypnotized Brett, and in short order hypnotizes the electronics expert and the tower's chief of security. It puts its mechanized humans to work, hypnotizing others to build war machines at strategic areas around London. A phone call to the nightclub, and Dodo falls under its influence as well.
Dodo's instructions are simple: To bring the Doctor to the Post Office Tower, to bring him under WOTAN's sway. "He has advanced knowledge which WOTAN needs," Brett announces. "Doctor Who is required!"
BECOMING THE DOCTOR:
In a real sense, the First Doctor's era is about the gradual transformation of a selfish, arrogant exile into the hero of later incarnations. He is certainly no hero in his first few stories, sneering down at his human companions and clearly valuing his own life far above theirs. In one memorable instance, he even threatens to eject them straight out into space. Over the first season, he ceased looking at his companions as inferiors, nuisances to be thinly suffered, and even formed a family dynamic with them. The second season saw him growing more active in his adventures, more interested in actively stopping evil where he found it as a goal in itself, rather than just a means to return to the safety of the TARDIS. By the third season, he had become recognizable as the Doctor we will know in later years.
A new series viewer who sat down to watch those first three stories could be forgiven for wondering how this could even be the Doctor; that same viewer sitting down to watch The Time Meddler or The War Machines would feel comfortable in recognizing him as very much the same character.
That transformation is perfectly encapsulated by the Episode Three cliffhanger. As a War Machine cuts through a group of highly trained soldiers like a knife through butter, the order is given to pull back. Everyone else flees - the officials, the armed military men. The Doctor stands his ground and, as the deadly machine approaches, actually steps toward it, head held high in a posture of defiance. The man we met at the beginning of the series would have been the first to flee; the Doctor, as he has become, is the one man who does not run.
The actual transformation of the character was completed some time ago, by the end of Season Two, maybe even by as early as The Rescue. But I don't think there's a scene that encapsulates it as completely as this one does... And it's a pretty fantastic episode ending, as well!
CHARACTERS:
Dodo: Jackie Lane's contract expired at the end of Episode Two, leading to Dodo's offscreen companion exit, a final insult for an actress who was largely let to struggle gamely against characterization that was inconsistent when it wasn't outright nonexistent. I can't help feeling a bit bad for Lane, who often showed that she could have been decent had the writing been there to support her. Still, it's clear the instant Polly is introduced that Anneke Wills far outshines her. The most damning indictment of Dodo is that, in the story's second half, I not only didn't miss her - I genuinely didn't notice that she wasn't there.
Ben/Polly: The War Machines introduces two new companions, immediately coding them as a pair in a way that hasn't been done since Ian and Barbara. Ben is introduced at Polly's nightclub, with Polly making faces at him to cheer him up, then clashing with him after he (groundlessly) blames her for "encouraging" a boorish customer. The two are deliberately contrasted. He's a Cockney sailor, rough around the edges and a bit surly. She's gorgeous, effortlessly refined, and speaks with upper-class properness. He's wary of others and skeptical in every situation. She's warm and compassionate. They are designed to fit as a pair, and they do, with Craze and Wills showing instant chemistry. It's telling that Ben's priority throughout the story is Polly's safety, while others (including the Doctor) brush that off as a lesser concern. He aids the Doctor in resolving the threat - But the instant the Doctor has put his final plan in motion, Ben is off to the Tower to rescue Polly.
Pompous Bureaucrat of the Week: William Mervyn's Sir Charles is wealthy and influential, and thoroughly proud of it. He is stubborn, refusing to believe Ben when he talks about the War Machine he observed, and as Ben grows more insistent, he actually says, "I don't like your tone." He is also... an ally, a genuinely useful one. In the Troughton era, he would be a fool who would provide reluctant help at most. In the Pertwee era, he would be an imbecile and an active impediment. Here, since the template hasn't yet been set, he actually does believe the evidence of his own eyes and ends up using his influence to put the Doctor effectively in charge of the assorted forces.
THOUGHTS:
I've observed before that pretty much anything Doctor Who ever did, at least during its classic run, was first done in the Hartnell era. The War Machines is the first UNIT story in all but name. Make Sir Charles into a useless buffoon, give all of his "good" material to the Brigadier, and replace Ben and Polly for Mike Yates and Jo Grant, and you'd have a standard-issue Pertwee story.
The War Machines is an enjoyable contrast to the bulk of the Hartnell era. It's the series' first story to take place during the present day, even making a plot point out of the real-life Post Office Tower (known today as the BT Tower). At a time when most Doctor Who stories were dialogue-driven, this story is action-driven. It's a good thing this one exists, as the final two episodes would be challenging to properly capture in either a still reconstruction or a narrated audio.
The War Machines themselves are effectively designed, though it's a little too clear that the production was only able to create one working War Machine. The machine is reasonably intimidating, and director Michael Ferguson shoots from below to make it appear more formidable. On the down side, Ferguson is a little too fond of showing the War Machine breaking through stacks of boxes. By the end of Episode Three, it's actually unintentionally comical; any stray box you might see is guaranteed to be knocked over by the War Machine at some point.
The story is fueled by a very of-its-time theme of distrust of technology. The promise of WOTAN forming a very crude Internet results in people being essentially mechanized themselves. A weapons test is performed on a hypnotized man, who does not even flinch as he is killed by the War Machine. Hypnotized humans work on an assembly line, basically reduced to cogs in a machine as they prepare for WOTAN's attack. The human workers are referred to in mechanized terms, as well; it is announced that "all human beings who break down will be eliminated."
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed The War Machines. Sure, some of the action scenes look a bit stilted, even silly, to modern eyes - not helped by the need for the DVD release to patch over missing material in the Episode Three warehouse battle. Still, there's no denying that the action is more ambitious than the average Doctor Who story of the time. Better still, that action is in support of a well-paced and enjoyable story.
Rating: 8/10.
Previous Story: The Savages
Next Story: The Smugglers
Search Amazon.com for Doctor Who
Review Index
No comments:
Post a Comment