If there is one thing I am partial to it is a long,
satisfying adventure with lots of bangs, flashes and rubber. So what could
be better to entertain me than Patrick Troughton’s final story (apart from
the three times he appeared afterwards) – The War Games by Malcolm Dicks
and Terrance "Hulke" Hogan? The longest story ever made (apart from the
two that are longer), it grips one to the knife edge for four solid hours.
In the spirit of this tale of pointless death and card tricks I give you
twenty four things that occurred to me as I trawled through Doctor Who in
an Exciting Adventure With Men in Glasses.
-
As Mr Denney once pointed
out, a guard can clearly be heard breaking wind in episode six. Some
historians claim it is just the rubber of his costume and the actor
himself blamed a nearby dog.
-
Smythe sentences Jamie to
be returned to a regiment which doesn’t exist in this time zone and Zoë
is to go to a civilian prison which also doesn’t seem to fit in with the
aliens’ plan by existing.
-
Speaking of the "aliens",
they are lazy beyond belief when it comes to naming things. Nothing –
and I mean nothing – has been named. "The Home Planet", "The Scientist",
"The War Lord", "The Security Chief" and worst of all "The truth
machine". The only thing which does have a name are the time machines
and that’s just Sidrat (Tardis backwards).
-
The Security Chief’s
bizarre claim that the only way they could’ve escaped the processing
room was "by using a space time machine" is a little melodramatic
considering the walls were clearly build for artistic rather than
security reasons.
-
The Scientist claims that
the failure rate is "only 5%" and that this shouldn’t cause any
problems. And yet Smythe asks for 5000 specimens as a matter of course.
That would equal 250 rebels and I would think that 250 armed and annoyed
rebels from one group in one time zone would be at least vexing for the
aliens.
-
The Sidrat apparently has
"slightly different" controls to the Tardis even though one is a
six-sided console with knobs and levers on and the other is made
entirely from fridge magnets.
-
Why does the presence of
advanced technology in the private office of a General make a British
Captain believe the Doctor and desert from the army?
-
James Bree’s performance as
the Securty Chief is a wonder of nature. Stressing every single word in
the sentence, he frequently gets tired and leaves the last couple of
words for later.
-
Episode Ten features a
Gallifreyan dying like a Thunderbirds puppet who has just had his
strings chopped.
-
The Doctor cites the Quarks
– the Quarks – as a reason he should be allowed to continue defying the
Time Lords and wandering about the universe.
-
He even brings up the
Dominators – two camp bullies who can’t even get along with each other
let alone do any real damage to the galaxy. Sometimes I think he wanted
to lose his freedom.
-
The captured French soldier
only speaks marginally more convincing French than Officer Crabtree from
"Allo Allo"
-
And whatever happened to
the Tardis translating everything? We have people speaking French,
German and other made up languages. It’s only the fact that all the
dialogue in German is just simply translated repetition of scenes
already done in English which lets the monolinguists amongst us know
what the heck is going on.
-
The superimposed brains are
weird too – the processed soldier has the standard cauliflower while
Jamie seems to have some Lego.
-
The Security Chief’s
brilliantly witty reply to "What a stupid fool you are" has earned its
place in infamy. "What a stupid fool YOU are" he quipped and made the
watching millions wish he’d been a contestant on "The Weakest Link". Who
wouldn’t waste a few minutes of their evening waiting for the moment
when he shot back with "No, YOU are the Weakest Link."
-
It is left to Vernon
Dobtcheff to deliver one of the most important lines in the show’s
entire history. Vernon who?
-
We’re never told exactly
why the Aliens have a college teaching "Our Plan to Conquer the Galaxy
for Dummies" at the heart of their base.
-
It’s a good job there isn’t
a Gulf War II zone or they’d have terrible trouble with American
missiles landing in ancient Rome or the Russo-Japanese Peninsular.
-
There are two bearded
rubber security guards and they don’t half look like Chas and Dave on
fetish night.
-
How comes, whenever Smythe
or the bald German-American gets out their specs and hypnotises someone,
no one else notices? Have they been hypnotised not to notice hypnotism?
Or are they hypnotised to forget the hypnotism after he’s finished with
the hypnotism? But what would then be done with the first hypnotism
victim when he witnesses the second lot of hypnotism? Fuck, it’s
complicated.
-
Why would Smythe arrange
for a Sidrat to materialise in his bedroom? What would the men think if
they heard a wheezing and groaning coming from his boudoir?
-
The siren goes off every
time the War Chief enters a room. Or just at random. Whatever the sound
guys felt like really.
-
Philip Madoc is
magnificent. Anyone who disagrees is a freak and should be subjected to
some crude mental processing.
-
No one mentions that the
Aliens can also bend time – a fact ably demonstrated when they are
attacked by the same Romans in exactly the same way on two different
occasions.
I love the War Games and am glad I’ve bought it twice
on video. I look forward to the day when I can buy it for a third time and
not only watch it in pure digital glory but listen to Terrance, Wendy and
cheeky little Fraser commentate for four whole hours. Ahhh.
Post script - I wanted the French quote for the title
to this essay and got it from a site which specialises in transcribing
Doctor Who stories whether they exist in the archives or not. They work by
ear and not from printed scripts which still doesn't explain why in the
name of hell the following extract is in their version of part 7.
(Smythe moves to the window, torn between appeasing his
superiors and his thirst for revenge.)
(Smythe pulls out his revolver and fires off a shot as the
doors to one side of the drawing room burst open. He retreats to his
room.)
