Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 253: The War Games, Episode Three

All the cliffhangers in this one are really good, aren’t they? The Doctor tied up before a firing squad as the first shot sounds. The ambulance emerging from the fog only for our heroes to be chased down by a group of angry Romans (they were probably still annoyed at the Doctor for burning down their city). Now we can add the Doctor and Zoe being swept off by a mysterious TARDIS-like machine, leaving Jamie and Lady Jennifer behind in the American Civil War.

If anything, I’d say that today’s closing moments need another couple of seconds before they cut, as it’s a little abrupt here, but the impact is still in tact. It’s another one of those times that I’m glad I’ve not seen this story in such a long time, because while I can recall the major plot revelations, I can’t remember each story beat along the way. I’d forgotten completely that the Doctor and Zoe were taken away in the ‘TARDIS’, so it came as a great surprise.

The thing that I’m enjoying the most at the moment is the very real sense that the Doctor is already a little out of his depth here. He’s soldiering on anyway and just carrying on with things, trying to investigate exactly what’s happening, but he doesn’t really have a clue. When the ‘TARDIS’ arrives in the barn, he looks so confused by what’s happening that it really sells the moment to me.

I’m also finding myself really dawn to Lady Jennifer and Lieutenant Carstairs. It really shouldn’t work giving the Doctor – in effect – four companions for his final story, but they’re such well crafted characters that you can’t help but fall for them instantly. All the business with Carstairs trying to distract another soldier while the Doctor blows up a safe is fab (and it gives a chance for Troughton and Hines to light up the screen again, too), and his sacrifice to help the others get away is actually quite moving.

The story is evolving at a nice pace, too. We’re barely a third of the way through, and yet nothing is feeling too stretched out at this stage. Episode One plays out as pretty much a standard historical, but with the addition of a mysterious hidden video screen, and with some handy hypnotic glasses. There’s something of a subplot about people forgetting chunks of time, and the court marshal is a bit suspect, but there’s nothing all that out there.

The second episode builds on the elements from the first and then adds in a redcoat out of his time, and then hits you with the Romans at the end. Today, we’re introduced to the map of all the war zones (though conveniently, they only draw attention to the wars that we’ve seen and the American zone that we’re about to visit) and then the Central Zone, policed by a sinister man answering to the ominous ‘War Lord’. In some stories, taking this long to reveal all these elements would be something of a slog, but everything else in The War Games is of such a good standard that I’m really enjoying the pace. If anything, I’m slightly sad to be moving away from the First World War setting – it’s so well realised and this TARDIS team suit it to a tee.

I do need to give a slight cheer for the return of the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver, used here again to undo a screw. It’s telling that the device isn’t mentioned when he’s trying to break into a safe (though Jamie does make a joke about a tuning fork, referring back to The Space Pirates, which was a lovely touch), so it really isn’t built for breaking locks at this stage. If anything, it’s now making The Dominators look like the odd one out in terms of the Sonic’s uses, but I’m glad we’ve had one last appearance from it for the Second Doctor.