251 The War Games: Episode Eight

EPISODE: The War Games: Episode Eight
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 251
STORY NUMBER: 050
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 07 June 1969
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks
DIRECTOR: David Maloney
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Derrick Sherwin
RATINGS: 3.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The War Games

"We are going to bring a new order to the galaxy, one United Galactic Empire!"

The recovering resistance discuss their next move. The Security Chief tries to interrogate the Doctor accusing him of being part of a plot to betray them to the Time Lords. Zoe recalls the names of the other resistance leaders and Carstairs' group make plans to contact them. A SIDRAT arrives but they throw a grenade into it. The Security Chief accuses the Doctor of being sent for by the War Chief, but the War Chief interrupts admitting the Doctor is one of his own race and taking him into his personal custody. An upset Security Chief confers with the War Lord. The War Chief and the Doctor discuss their departures from the Time Lords the Doctor accusing the War Chief of leaving to gain power. The War Chief says the aliens want to conquer the galaxy and is using the War Games as an audition for human troops for their armies. The Mexican resistance group lead by Arturo Villa arrive at the château. Carstairs absent, Jamie speaks with Villa, supported by Zoe and brings them onside. The Doctor is interrogated by the War Chief, but the Security Chief. The War Chief says the Doctor will help them destroy the resistance and the War Lord says they will succeed or die. The Resistance plot to ambush a SIDRAT at the American Barn. Resistance groups attack the communication units destroying them. The Security Chief dispatches guards & technicians to the damaged sites emptying guards from the HQ. The War Lord considers using a neutron bomb against the resistance. The Doctor send the Resistance a SIDRAT and asks the leaders to travel to the headquarters in it. They arrive at the alien HQ and are captured by the guards, betrayed by the Doctor!

Coerced by the War Chief there's a real feeling at the end of this episode that the Doctor has betrayed the resistance. The episode rolls along at a lively paste liberally interspersed with brief action sequences, leading to The Doctor's betrayal of the resistance at the end.

SECURITY CHIEF: Answer me. You must answer. Admit that the War Chief sent you here. You are both of the same race. Your arrival here is part of a plot to betray us to the Time Lords. Answer!
SECURITY CHIEF: You will answer me now or I will destroy your mind totally!

We first heard of the Time Lords in episode 6, when they were identified as being the race The War Chief came from. Now, following lots of hints about the technology the War Chief provided being similar to the Tardis, it's revealed that The Doctor is a member of the same race:

SECURITY CHIEF: Admit it, the War Chief sent for you. At this volume your mind will only last for fifteen minutes. Thirty if you are lucky. Now, admit that the War Chief sent for you!
WAR CHIEF: Are you trying to kill him?
SECURITY CHIEF: I am trying to get the truth out of him.
WAR CHIEF: You'll never make him talk that way.
SECURITY CHIEF: You are very sure.
WAR CHIEF: He is one of my own race. Your truth machine cannot work on us if we choose to resist.
SECURITY CHIEF: You admit it then. You do know him.
WAR CHIEF: Of course I do. And only I can deal with him. Release him.
SECURITY CHIEF: He is my prisoner.
WAR CHIEF: But I am your superior.
WAR CHIEF: You and I are going to talk alone.
DOCTOR: I have nothing to say to you.
WAR CHIEF: We shall see. Guards, take this prisoner to the War Room.
SECURITY CHIEF: You have no right to interrupt my interrogation.
WAR CHIEF: Your interrogation has been completely unsuccessful. I have methods of my own.

We knew that the Doctor had met the War Chief before when they recognised each other in episode four. Now they finally get to talk:

WAR CHIEF: You may have changed your appearance, but I know who you are.
DOCTOR: Oh, do you?
WAR CHIEF: Your machine is a Tardis. You're too familiar with it's controls to be a stranger.
DOCTOR: I had every right to leave.
WAR CHIEF: Stealing a Tardis? Oh, I'm not criticising you. We are two of a kind.
DOCTOR: We most certainly are not!
WAR CHIEF: We were both Time Lords and we both decided to leave our race.
DOCTOR: I had reasons of my own.
WAR CHIEF: Just as I had.
DOCTOR: Your reasons are only too obvious. Power!
WAR CHIEF: How much have you learnt of our plans?
DOCTOR: I know that you've been kidnapping soldiers from the Earth from various times in it's history and bringing them here to kill one another.
WAR CHIEF: But do you realise our ultimate objectives?
DOCTOR: No objective can justify such slaughter.
WAR CHIEF: The war games on this planet are simply the means to an end. The aliens intend to conquer the entire galaxy. A thousand inhabited worlds.
DOCTOR: Yes, but why choose the people of the Earth?
WAR CHIEF: They are the most suitable recruits for our armies. Man is the most vicious species of all.
DOCTOR: Well, that simply isn't true.
WAR CHIEF: Consider their history. For a half a million years they have been systematically killing each other. Now we can turn this savagery to some purpose. We can bring peace to the galaxy, and you can help. You see, I'm not the cold-hearted villain you suppose me to be. My motives are purely peaceful.

We've known for years that The Doctor fled his homeworld's society but I think this is the first time he's been accused of actually having stolen his Tardis!

It's taken five and a half years of the show to finally find out who his people are, the Time Lords first mentioned in episode six, but it'll be a few more years before we find out the name of his home planet. We'll see it earlier than that though, quite soon in the future in fact.

WAR CHIEF: We have soldiers from most of the major wars in the planet Earth. The first World War, the war between Russia and Japan of 1905, Thirty years war.
DOCTOR: But why make them kill each other?
WAR CHIEF: How else can we find the most disciplined and courageous fighters?
DOCTOR: You have given these aliens our science and our knowledge to carry out this disgusting plan.
WAR CHIEF: We are going to bring a new order to the galaxy, one United Galactic Empire.
DOCTOR: An empire of slaves, with you as one of it's rulers.
WAR CHIEF: Doctor, this is also a matter of your own survival. Unless I can convince the War Lord that you will help us....

However The War Chief's association with the Doctor, perhaps coupled to The Security Chief's suspicions, put them both in a bit of a predicament which leads to the climax of the episode.

WAR LORD: What is the prisoner doing here?
WAR CHIEF: I am interrogating him.
WAR LORD: You interrogate without guards?
WAR CHIEF: I know this man. He is a fugitive from the Time Lords.
SECURITY CHIEF: As you are.
WAR CHIEF: That's right, as I am.
WAR LORD: Did you bring him here?
WAR CHIEF: No, he arrived by chance.
WAR LORD: Did the Time Lords send you?
DOCTOR: No.
WAR LORD: Have you informed them?
WAR CHIEF: He dare not. That would betray him.
SECURITY CHIEF: He has allied himself with the resistance and has organised them against us. He must die!

WAR CHIEF: No! He has agreed to help us destroy the resistance. He will cooperate. He has no alternative.
SECURITY CHIEF: He should be killed now. We cannot trust him.
WAR LORD: If he helps us destroy the resistance. If. His life will be spared.
SECURITY CHIEF: War Lord.
WAR CHIEF: I have decided. I hold you responsible for the success of the plan. Failure will mean death, to both of you.
DOCTOR: I never promised to help you!
WAR CHIEF: But you will. You have no alternative.
DOCTOR: But to help people like that to conquer the galaxy?
WAR CHIEF: Not people like that, people like us. I intend to take over as Supreme Galactic Ruler. You can help me to rule, if you will cooperate.

As we meet the other Resistance Groups we get a few new people to meet. The Mexican leader Arturo Villar is player by Michael Napier Brown

Stephen Hubay plays Russian leader Petrov. You can see him in You Only Live Twice as a Control Room Technician.

In amongst the Mexican Bandits is John De Marco, previously in The Gunfighters as a Lynch Mob Member. He'd go on to appear in the first episode of Doomwatch, The Plastic Eaters, as a Passenger - First Plane / Lab Assistant. You can see that on The Doomwatch DVD

One of the Resistance Men is supporting artist & stuntman Steve Emerson. He's previously been a Guard in The Macra Terror and would return as a UNIT Soldier in The Claws of Axos, a Retrograde in Frontios and a Guard in Revelation of the Daleks. He was in the missing Doomwatch episode Burial at Sea as a Lifeboatman and The Professionals episode The Gun as Mac. Late in life he's found a measure of fame for playing John the barman in Shaun of the Dead

This season, the sixth, had not gone well for the script department. From taking an episode from The Dominators and adding one to The Mind Robber, stretching the Invasion, major rewrites on Seeds of Death, a back up script being pressed into use and that writer immediately being commissioned for another things hadn't gone well. At least three scripts had been abandoned this season already. The plan was to conclude with a six part Malcolm Hulke script and a 4 part Derrick Sherwin story at the end of which the Doctor would regenerate. Somewhere along the line they both fell through. What I suspect happened is Sherwin ran out of time to write when he found himself doing Peter Bryant's job when Bryant was taken ill. Terrance Dicks, Script editor, is told they now need a ten parter so he and Malcolm Hulke sit down, take elements from Hulke's script and build a larger tale around it.

This is what Season 6 might have looked like, given what we know about the intended stories, if things had gone to plan vs what actually happened:

Intended			Actual
Story	Author	Episodes	Story	Author	Episodes
The Dominators	Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincoln	6	The Dominators	"Norman Ashby" aka Haisman & Lincoln	5
The Mind Robber	Peter Ling	4	The Mind Robber	Peter Ling	5
The Invasion	Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler	6	The Invasion	Derrick Sherwin & Kit Pedler	8
The Dreamspinner	Paul Wheeler	6	The Krotons	Robert Holmes	4
The Lords of the Red Planet	Brian Hayles	6	The Seeds of Death	Brian Hayles & Terrance Dicks	6
The Prison In Space	Dick Sharples	6	The Space Pirates	Robert Holmes	6
The Impersonators	Malcolm Hulke	6	The War Games	Malcolm Hulke & Terrance Dicks	10
AAA	Derrick Sherwin	4

There is considerable evidence that Terrance Dicks learnt much from the experience of script editing season 6. Although he frequently mentions scripts as being a problem, there is no evidence of a crisis of this magnitude occurring again until after Terrance Dicks leaves his post in five years time. Indeed Barry Letts, producer for most of that period, talks about how they would try and be ahead of the game working on the next season's scripts.