Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 257: The War Games, Episode Seven
Dear diary,
I like that we finally get the introduction of the War Lord this late in to the story. It almost feels like a shot in the arm when things were in danger of becoming a little stale. Philip Madoc turns in a fantastic performance here, and I'd completely forgotten that we last saw him only a few weeks ago in The Krotons. Maybe it’s the addition of a beard? Either that or most characters are just blurring into one as I watch more and more Doctor Who (is it telling that I can’t remember his name from that story?).
The downside to the addition of this character – the brains of the operation as it were – is that it really serves to highlight just how incompetent the War Chief and the Security Officer are. We’ve had several episodes in which the Doctor and his companions are able to run around, continually managing to overcome any attempt to suppress them, but seeing the War Lord’s reaction to the news really compounds the mountain of errors that have been occurring in his absence.
I think the best moment has to be the argument between the Chief and the Officer, as they blame each other for each successive problem, only for the War Lord to cut in an announce that if they can’t get along, they’ll simply be replaced. There’s something cool, calm and collected about him, and when he does lose it and shout at them it really cuts through.
Although I’ve been enjoying the last few episodes, it feels like today we’re finally starting to move towards some kind of conclusion. I’ve commented all along that the Doctor seems to know that this is too big for him to manage, but even here, just three episodes from the end of the1960s, there’s no indication of just how big the shake up to the programme is going to be. If anything, it looks like the Doctor has it all sussed out. Until the last couple of minutes, when the guards turn up and take him away, he’s completely in control of the situation. They’ve gotten together a fair number of the resistance group, the chateau has been secured in its own separate time zone so they can’t be attacked by the various armies gathering outside, and they’ve got the deprocessing machine, ready to convert any soldier from outside. Even on top of that, the Doctor is pretty sure that he can replicate the technology given enough time (how? It’s not like he can easily pick up parts from the 1917 zone!), so that it can convert whole groups of soldiers at a time.
It seems as if we’ve got our solution all worked out and ready to go. I can’t really remember what happens from here (until the cliffhanger to Episode Nine), so I’m hoping it’s suitably grand enough to justify the Doctor having to go all the way and call in the Time Lords for help.
Something I do have to mention today is the name of the alien’s time machines. All the way through these entries for The War Games, I’ve been referring to it simply as a ‘TARDIS’, but of course I know that’s not what they call it. ‘SIDRAT’ has always been the term used to describe them (see what they did there?), but the only mention of the name on screen is in this episode in which it’s pronounced ‘side-rat’. I have to say that despite that being their ‘official’ name, I’m just not that fond of it. I’m pretty sure that one of the novels even gives the description of what ‘SIDRAT’ stands for, but it just doesn’t work for me.
