127 The Smugglers: Episode One

EPISODE: The Smugglers: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 127
STORY NUMBER: 028
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 September 1966
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Julia Smith
SCRIPT EDITOR: Gerry Davis
PRODUCER: Innes Lloyd
RATINGS: 4.3 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes volume 3 (1966-1967)
TELESNAPS: The Smugglers: Episode One

"This is the Deadman's secret key: Smallbeer, Ringwood, Gurney."

Welcome to Doctor Who season 4!

When I was growing up The Smugglers had a bad reputation. It was one of the last Hartnells to be novelised and although I bought the CD I never listened to it till my "make sure I've heard/seen every Doctor Who story" session a few years back. So here we go on CD, as we'll be for most of the rest of the next season of the show and a large part of the one after that.

The Tardis dematerialises from Fitzroy Square. The Doctor doesn't realise that Ben and Polly are aboard until it's too late: they've come to return Dodo's key. Ben's keen to get away quick so he can return to barracks and is disbelieving when the Doctor explains that the Tardis travels in time and space not knowing where it will land. They materialise and can see caves on the scanner. Ben is very surprised when the Doctor opens the doors and he finds himself in a cave at the sea shore. Dismissing their move in space he decides to make for the nearest railway station with Polly, despite the Doctor's protests about them moving in time as well. They go to a local church where they meet worried church warden Joseph Longfoot who initially threatens them with a gun. When the Doctor enquires he says he's afraid of the friends of a man called Avery who he had dealings with before he turned to God. The Doctor resets his dislocated finer for him and in thanks Longfoot entrusts him with a riddle

"This is Deadman's secret key, Ringwood, Smallwood, Gurney."

The Doctor and his friends leave for a nearby inn and saying they know Longfoot the suspicious Landlord, Jacob Kewper, admits them and gives them lodgings. He sends his stable boy Tom to the Church Warden with a message that a delivery is coming but Tom finds Longfoot's body, murdered by the pirate Cherub who has visited him demanding the location of Avery's Gold. Tom rushes back to tell Kewper and is then sent to summon the squire. While Tom's away Cherub arrives at the Inn with some help, and having previously observed the Doctor talking with Longfoot he has him Kidnapped. Ben is knocked out in the struggle and on waking he and Polly can't give a satisfactory account of themselves so are arrested by the squire. The Doctor is taken by boat to the ship The Black Albatross where he meets Captain Pike who tries to intimidate the Doctor by plunging the metal spike that he wears, in the place of a missing hand, into the wooden tabletop.

That's great stuff that. I love the opening scene.

BEN: Blimey, where did all this come from? Well, it was a police box, wasn't it?
DOCTOR: What are you both doing in here?
POLLY: You dropped your key.
DOCTOR: How dare you follow me into the Tardis!
BEN: The what?
DOCTOR: The Tardis, sir! This is a vessel for travelling through time and space! Why did you follow me?
POLLY: I'm terribly sorry if we've annoyed you, Doctor. It was my fault, I'm afraid.
BEN: Well, what's all this then.
DOCTOR: And stand back from those controls. Those controls are used for dematerialising.
BEN: Dematerialising? What does that mean?
DOCTOR: You and this young lady are experiencing it. You are now travelling through time and space.
BEN: Yeah, well, make sure that I get back by teatime, Doctor. I've got to get back to my ship by tonight.
DOCTOR: Young man, it's going to be a long time before you see your ship again.
BEN: Hey?
POLLY: Why? When are we going to land?
DOCTOR: I don't know. That's the cause of half my troubles through my journeys. I never know.
POLLY: Why not?
DOCTOR: I have no control over where I land. Neither can I choose the period in which I land in. Oh, now, you see that scanner? That is what I call a scanner up there. We get a very good view of the outside.
DOCTOR: Ah, yes. I think we've landed in some sort of caves.
BEN: Yeah, well, thanks for the home movies, Doctor. Now if you'd just open these doors.
DOCTOR: Wait, wait, wait, young man, we don't know where we are. We don't know if it's safe or what period we're in.
BEN: Well, I'll take a little bet with you, ay? London, 1966, Fitzroy Square.
DOCTOR: Yes, I think it's quite normal. Yes, the temperature's all right. Well, I think you can leave, but watch your step.
POLLY: What a relief. You had me nervous for a minute, Doctor. Come on, Ben.
DOCTOR: Oh dear, all this distraction. And I really thought I was going to be alone again.

Whether planned by Davis & Lloyd or not the new companions first sight of the inside of the Tardis and the usual questions that that produces fall at the start of a story that itself starts a new season of the show, Doctor Who's fourth. So we start the season by getting an effective introduction and refresher on Doctor Who, the Tardis and why the Doctor knows not where and when he's going.

We also get the Doctor saying he was looking forward to being by himself, a position that so far he's not found himself in, bar for a brief interlude at the end of the Massacre. From this point on he has a constant run of human companions till the end of The War Games in three seasons time. Then when we get to our location the circumstances only serve to reinforce Ben's view point that they can't have travelled in time. Meanwhile Polly's sixties clothing make her appear to the locals as a boy avoiding any awkward questions. Getting down to the business of the story itself we find a lot of stereotypical roles here, but it's all competently enough done leading to an entertaining first episode.

This is Brian Hayles second script for the series. His first, through little fault of his own, had to be rewritten more than once and he gets a second chance here. He obviously did something right because he's invited back again for the next season.

David Blake Kelly plays Jacob Kewper, the Inn Keeper. He previously appear in The Chase episode 3: Flight Through Eternity as the Mary Celeste's Captain Benjamin Briggs His Out of the Unknown episode The Midas Plague is one of the ones that exists and is on the recent Out of the Unknown DVD Set.

Also appearing only in this episode is Terence De Marney as Joseph Longfoot. I can't see anything else in his long career that I recognise him from. He met his death in 1971 by accidentally falling in front of a London Underground train at High Street Kensington!

His on screen death in this episode survives courtesy of the Australian Censor who has preserved a small amount of material from three of the four episodes of this story.

However that isn't the only sight of this missing episode that we have! The Smugglers is a major step forward for the series location work as it's the first time a location outside of the London area is used. From the 19th-23rd of June 1966 cast and crew filmed in Cornwall, involving several nights away from home. During that time some colour 8mm film was shot at the Trethewey Farm location and this can be found, along with some material kindly hacked out by the Australian sensors, on the Doctor Who - Lost In Time DVD.

In the clips of the film, which include both footage being shot and the crew between takes, we see Kewper dispatching Tom to fetch the Squire, Tom riding away, the Doctor being abducted and the Squire arriving at the Inn.

Onto the extras: Les Clark plays Daniel in this episode only. He'll be back in Terror of the Autons: Episode Three as a Daffodil Man and The Mind of Evil: Episode Four as a Prison Officer as well as appearing in Blake's 7 twice: Assassin as a Pirate and Games as Mecronian. Derek Ware recalls him on The Mind of Evil DVD saying that Clark was a Commando in the Second World War after which he worked for 10 years as a policeman and later was a Private Eye as well. There's a Daniel credited for later episode but it's played by a different actor! Ricky Lansing is a Villager at Inn / Pirate who previously appeared in Small Prophet, Quick Return & Death of a Spy, the second and third episodes of the Myth Makers as a Trojan Guard. Also a Villager at Inn / Pirate are Roy Stanton as who was in the final fourth episode of the previous story,The War Machines, as a Soldier while Harry Tierney returns in The War Games: Episodes Four & Seven as an uncredited Resistance Man and Day of the Daleks Episode Four as a Plain Clothes PC and Tony Maddison was an extra in The Savages: Episode 1.

Gordon Craig makes his debut as The Doctor's double in this episode. I presume that's him in the 16mm colour shot above being loaded into the cart. He returns in episode 3 of this story and episodes 1 & 3 of the next, The Tenth Planet.

Sadly this episode of The Smugglers has a somewhat ignoble claim to fame: It's the first episode of Doctor Who to watched by less than the 4.4 million viewers who saw the very first episode, An Unearthly Child. Only 4.3 million tuned in for this episode and an even lower viewing figure is recorded later on in this story.

During Doctor who's summer break 2 events occurred that are worth mentioning: On 6th August it was announced that William Hartnell would be leaving Doctor Who. Then two days before this episode aired, on the 08th September 1966, the first Star Trek episode, The Man Trap, aired in the USA.