245 The War Games: Episode Two

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 245
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 26 April 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulme & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
RATINGS: 6.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

"Both these things are in the wrong time. But what are they doing here in 1917?"

One of the firing squad is hot by a sniper allowing Zoe to rescue the Doctor. Smythe reports he is leaving for the conference to his superiors as a Tardis noise is heard and a black box materialises. Ransom bursts in but Smythe convince him he's seen nothing and has been called to a meeting then enters the box and dematerialises. Jamie meets a Redcoat solider in the cells who thinks it's 1745. He remembers fighting in the highlands, then there being a mist and then being in the First World War. The Doctor pose as an Examiner from the War Office with Zoe as his secretary. Ransom, Carstairs and Buckingham search for the escaped prisoners. Jennifer is starting to doubt what happened during the court-martial and is remembering a mist, which Carstairs blames on gas. Jamie and the Redcoat stage an escape but the Redcoat is killed, Jamie is recaptured and taken to the Examiner. Zoe knocks the commandant of the prison out and they make to leave but are cornered by Ransom. Jennifer is still doubtful of the trial when Ransom returns with his prisoners. Carstairs makes known his objections to the court martial, but Ransom still believes it was fair. Jamie tells the others about the Redcoat and Zoe about the communications device. The Doctor wonders what they are doing in that time period where they don't belong. Carstairs talks with the prisoners and takes them to the General's room to see the screen for himself. The Doctor finds the screen but neither Jennifer or Carstairs can see the screen till the Doctor gets them to concentrate. In a control room elsewhere Smythe watches them. The Doctor and his friends escape with Jennifer & Carstairs in the ambulance. Smythe returns and orders the ambulance found and shelled, convincing Ransom over his objections of attacking an ambulance containing women. The ambulance drives into mist which obscures their view. Jennifer is overcome by an urge not to go on. When the mist clears they find themselves on a peaceful dirt track near a river. Climbing a hill to get a better view they find a Roman Legion charging towards them!

Oh that was top, top stuff, one of the very best Troughton episodes. The lead actor gets a couple of great scenes in it. First he commandeers the staff car:

DOCTOR: Stop! And about time too! Where have you been?
DRIVER: Eh?
DOCTOR: You were sent to meet us!
DRIVER: Meet who?
DOCTOR: Now don't argue! Take us to the prison! In you get, Miss Heriot. Well, drive on!

Then he gains entry to the prison as an Examiner from the War Office , a little nod towards his first story Power of the Daleks where he also poses as an Examiner perhaps?

GORTON: Who? Civilians? Well, tell them to wait. I'm having my tea.
DOCTOR: How dare you treat me like this, sir!
GORTON: What? Who the blazes are you?
DOCTOR: Don't you address me like that, sir! This is disgraceful! I shall make a complaint directly to the Minister himself!

GORTON: Minister? Oh, I don't understand. Who are you?
DOCTOR: I'm the examiner from the War Office, I'm here to inspect the military prison. This young lady is my secretary. Well, you were expecting us, surely?
GORTON: Well, there must be some mistake. I mean, can I see your identification papers?
DOCTOR: How dare you! You send no car to meet us on our arrival, and now you add insult to injury by doubting my credentials! Do you know who I am, sir?
GORTON: Well, I'm terribly sorry and all that. It's probably my adjutant's fault. Would you care for some tea?
DOCTOR: We are here to inspect the security arrangements of the prison. Now I suggest we stop wasting time and get on with it!

All this is done just using the force of his personality, no sign of any of the "psychic paper" the new series is fond of using to get round any identity issues. Wonderful stuff.

REDCOAT: Highlander! Keep away from me, you!
JAMIE: Hey, easy now. I'm a prisoner too, you know! How'd you get here? Well, come on, how did you get here?
REDCOAT: I don't know, I can't remember! I got lost, I think.
JAMIE: What year do you think it is?
REDCOAT: Year? Why, it's seventeen forty five.

Then you get the deepening mystery of what is actually going on. The presence of the Redcoat makes it obvious something's not right with time here and is a nice reminder of Jamie's origins in the Jacobite rebellion too.

JAMIE: Look, you must try and remember!
REDCOAT: I've told you. I was fighting up in the Highlands, I got lost and I don't..... There was this mist.
JAMIE: Uh huh.
REDCOAT: It came down all round me. The next thing I knew, everything was different.
JAMIE: Well, how do you mean, different?
REDCOAT: Well, there were these great big guns, bigger than I'd ever seen before, and carts moving along without horses.
JAMIE: Aye, I've seen those too. Now, go on, go on.
REDCOAT: Well, then these fellows in the funny uniforms, they came along, and they caught me and brought me here. Where are we?
JAMIE: I don't know. But I've got to get to the Doctor. Look, and you're going to help me.
REDCOAT: Oh, no! I don't trust you. You're one of them rebels!
JAMIE: Now look, just you listen to me a moment.

Carstairs & Lady Jennifer recall the mists too, but they arrive at a possible explanation for it:

BUCKINGHAM: You remember we were talking about not remembering things?
CARSTAIRS: Yes?
BUCKINGHAM: Well, things are starting to come back to me.
CARSTAIRS: What sort of things?
BUCKINGHAM: Well, I was on my way to the hospital, well behind the lines. I was driving through a forest and all of a sudden there was a strange sort of mist. Fog. And then I was in a field dressing station looking after some wounded soldiers.
CARSTAIRS: Hmm. Loss of memory.
BUCKINGHAM: No, but isn't it strange that you should to be suffering from it too?
CARSTAIRS: Mist!
BUCKINGHAM: What about it?
CARSTAIRS: I wonder, could it be some kind of new gas? If perhaps the Germans have invented a new type of poison gas, one that affects our minds.

The Doctor meanwhile is concerned things aren't as they should be.

DOCTOR: A redcoat, Jamie?
JAMIE: Aye, and he thinks he's in 1745.
DOCTOR: But that's a complete anachronism.
JAMIE: Aye. It's a what?
DOCTOR: It's something out of it's own time.
ZOE: Yes, like the telecommunications unit in the General's room that I told you about.
JAMIE: Eh?
ZOE: I found it when I was looking for the key.
DOCTOR: Both these things are in the wrong time. But what are they doing here in 1917?

He hasn't seen the box General Smythe disappeared in yet either. The Tardis noise and materialisation of the box genuinely make you think that perhaps maybe the Doctor's own people are involved. He's said very little about them before now and maybe the reason he ran away is to do with repulsion at their activities. The only hint of who the people behind this are is a glimpse of Smyth with someone when the viewscreen is activated:

By the end of the episode we know that there are at least three different conflicts connected to each other here, seemingly by the areas of mist that the Doctor & friend drive through: the First World War, the Highland conflict of 1745 and something involving Romans. But how is it possible to move between the three different times? A decent mystery is slowly evolving here.

More location work this episode. We briefly saw Birling Manor Farm providing the building exteriors at the end of the first episode but we get much better views of it here.

The Lane, West Dean provides the slope The Doctor & Zoe observe the prison from and the road where the Doctor talks his was into the car driven by the military chauffeur played by Peter Stanton.

The similar looking Eastbourne Waterboard Road provides the road the ambulance escapes from the chateau down:

The sequences in the Roman Time Zone are filmed at Seven Sisters Country Park.

More new cast this episode. Richard Steele is Gorton, the prison commandant, and he'll be back as Sergeant Hart in Doctor Who and the Silurians, and a Guard in The Mark of the Rani. He'd been the television Quatermass and the Pit as a Sightseer in Hob.

The redcoat is Tony McEwan who's also Baldwin in Planet of Evil, also directed by David Maloney. He's not the only member of this story's cast to return for that story either!

In a blink and you'll miss him appearance as one of the Military Policemen who opens fire on Jamie & the redcoat is the king of the background characters, Pat Gorman in a credited roll! He was last seen in The Invasion as a Cyberman and will next return in The Silurians as a Silurian.

Previously he was a Freedom Fighter/Rebel in Dalek Invasion of Earth, a Planetarian in Mission to the Unknown: Delegate Detective thinks he's Sentreal the black Christmas tree, a Greek Soldier in The Myth Makers, a Guard in Massacre, a Worker in The War Machines, a Monk in The Abominable Snowmen, a Guard in The Enemy of the World, a Cyberman in The Invasion and a Technician in The Seeds of Death. He returns as the Silurian Scientist in The Silurians, a Technician in The Ambassadors of Death, a Primord in Inferno, the Auton Leader in Terror of the Autons, a Primitive & Long in Colony in Space, a Coven Member in The Dæmons, a Guard & Film Cameraman in Day of the Daleks, a Sea Devil in The Sea Devils, a UNIT Soldier in The Three Doctors, a Presidential Guard and Sea Devil in in Frontier in Space, a Global Chemicals Guard / 'Nuthatch' Resident in The Green Death, a UNIT Corporal in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, a Guard in The Monster of Peladon, a Soldier in Planet of the Spiders, the Gate Guard in Robot part one, a Thal Soldier in Genesis of the Daleks, a Cyberman/Dead Crewman in Revenge of the Cybermen, a Guard in The Seeds of Doom, a Soldier/Brother in The Masque of Mandragora, a Chancellery Guard in The Deadly Assassin, a Medic in The Invisible Enemy, a Kro in The Ribos Operation, the Pilot in The Armageddon Factor, a Thug in City of Death part one, a Gundan in Warriors' Gate, a Foster in The Keeper of Traken, Grogan in Enlightenment, a Soldier in The Caves of Androzani, a Slave Worker and a Cyberman in Attack of the Cybermen. Of those it' easiest to spot his face in Abominable Snowmen, Planet of the Spiders, Robot and The Armageddon Factor! He's got several Blake's 7 appearances to his name as a Scavenger in Deliverance, Federation Trooper / Rebel in Voice from the Past, Trantinian planet hopper Captain in Gambit, Death Squad Trooper in Powerplay, Federation Trooper in The Harvest of Kyros & Rumours of Death, Hommik Warrior in Power, Helot in Traitor and a Federation Trooper in Games & Blake. We was also in Adam Adamant Lives! as a Guard in More Deadly Than the Sword, a Man at Club in Beauty Is an Ugly Word, a Coven Member in The Village of Evil, a War Office Guard / TA Soldier in D for Destruction and an S.S. Guard in A Sinister Sort of Service. He appears once in The Prisoner as a Hospital Orderly in Hammer Into Anvil and just once in Doomwatch as Man in Hear No Evil. His Porridge appearance in the second Christmas Special The Desperate Hours is another easy spot: he's the Prison Officer who comes into the loos as Fletcher and friends are sampling the contraband home brew. He was in two episodes of The Sweeney as a Flying Squad Officer in Thou Shalt Not Kill (director: D Camfield) & Latin Lady, and two The Tomorrow People stories: Worlds Away as the Vesh Hunter and War of the Empires as a US Marine. In the BBC The Day of the Triffids he played a Blind Man in episode 5 while in Douglas Camfield & Robert Holmes adaption of The Nightmare Man he played The Killer with Camfield using him again as a Legionnaire in Beau Geste. He was in The Professionals five times: as a Golfer in Killer with a Long Arm, a CI5 Agent in Close Quarters & Servant of Two Masters, a Security Man in Weekend in the Country and the Police Superintendent at inquest in Discovered in a Graveyard. He's a Policeman again in The Young Ones: Interesting and towards the end of his career Russell T Davies uses him in Dark Season as a Heavy.

The Sniper that fires on the shooting squad is Clive Rogers. IMDB thinks he was a Space Guard in The Space Pirates and returns as a Resistance Man in episode five of this story before playing a Brother in The Masque of Mandragora and a Mentiad in The Pirate Planet. He's also in Doomwatch as a Visitor in The Iron Doctor.

IMDB has James Haswell down as a Prisoner in this episode. I've not spotted any so I'm a little suspicious about this credit. He was a Guard in Bell of Doom, an extra in Seeds of Death 4's location filming, supposeldy an Extra in The Space Pirates, and returns as Corporal Champion in The Ambassadors of Deathand a Beat Policeman in The Talons of Weng-Chiang whioch is also directed by David Maloney. He'd also appear in the missing Out of the Unknown The Yellow Pill (director M Fergusson)as a Plainclothes Man and the Blake's 7 episodes The Harvest of Kairos as a Labourer and Children of Auron as an Auron Technician. Another Prisoner, so again we're slightly suspicious, is Douglas Roe who's in Blake's 7 as a Federation Trooper in Seek-Locate-Destroy & Blake.

Bill Hughes is down on IMDB as a Prison Guard / Prisoner. He'll be back in The Talons of Weng-Chiang as well as a Passer By while Paul Phillips, with the same role against his name, is also a miner in The Monster of Peladon.

Onto the Roman Soldiers: Raymond Farrell Roman Soldier was a Tavern Customer in The Massacre and an Inferno Customer in The War Machines. He'll be back as a Guerilla in Day of the Daleks episode three & American Aide in Day of the Daleks episode four followed by a Prison Guard in Frontier in Space. He's also in Moonbase 3 as a Technician in Outsiders. We saw Tom Laird earlier this season in The Seeds of Death Episode Four as the prone Doctor when Troughton last took a holiday. Crawford Lyall appears in three Doomwatch episodes as a man in Burial at Sea, Invasion & The Logicians.