Day 125 — May 5th 2021
The War Games Episodes Three and Four
The War Games — Episode Three
Doctor Who’s got his Sonic Screwdriver back, and it makes the absence in The Space Pirates stand out more than ever.
It might seem a silly thing to say, but the thing that impressed me the most about the sequences with the Sonic is that they were both shot. What I mean is; Doctor Who convinces a German soldier that he’s from the future by using the Sonic Screwdriver on the man’s gun. He shows him how it can take a screw out and put it back in again. A few minutes later he’s forced to do the same demonstration after the man has been hypnotised. You could argue that it’s blatant padding, but where I was expecting them to simply replay the same film footage of the screw being moved, they’ve actually shot a slightly different angle on the event. After The Invasion got their money out of those moving missile shots, and The Space Pirates made damn sure we’d seen how pleased they were with the beacon blowing up by playing it three times in one episode, this was a welcome approach…!
I’m not an expert on the Sonic Screwdriver, but I do know that the Sonic Screwdriver used in this story is a penlight made by Everready and it has the catalogue number 1980. I know that because Lee Moone has written a brilliant blog on the subject which details the lengths he went to to work out the exact right model. It’s well worth a read if you’re interested in a bit of detective work!
Incidentally, I bought a vintage Everready penlight the other day that vaguely resembles the one from The Dominators so that I can charge up and down the hallway pretending to be Doctor Who. The wife is delighted that I’m so careful with money.
I really like the idea of Doctor Who using the Sonic screwdriver to convince the man that he’s from the future, and it’s something I don’t think you see happen nearly enough in the series. I’m surprised that we’ve not had a similar scene in the New Testament (that I can recall) where a companion uses their smartphone as the indicator.
It comes after a brilliant sequence where our hero has decided that the best policy is to simply tell the truth, and I enjoyed the soldier’s reaction;
Soldier: ‘Other planets? A time machine? The girl is from the future and the boy is from the past?’
Doctor Who: ‘Well… you told me to tell you the truth.’
Soldier: ‘I think you must be mad.’
Zoe and Jamie go on to recount how they each met Doctor Who (‘aboard a space station’ and ‘in Scotland in 1745’ respectively) which is a rather neat bit of refreshing ready for the story’s climax. I’d never spotted that before.
I’m really keen on the whole sequence in the German camp — it manages to be gritty and real and scary in a different way to the threats we’ve already faced in the British camp. Every time I start on The War Games I worry that it won’t maintain a ten episode run, but when you’re watching you remember how carefully they shift the story along and change up the settings to keep things interesting.
And it’s honestly a thrilling moment when the German officer takes his soldier aside and starts to polish his monacle. You realise what’s happening just at the moment you’re supposed to, and David Garfield is genuinely terrifying in the part. You suddenly realise just how gentle General Smythe is by comparison! I’ll also note here that I reckon the German soldier in this episode is the Doctor Who character who looks the most like me. Or at least the most like me before I started losing my hair. I have nothing to especially note about that, I’m just pleased to have found my Doctor Who counterpart.
I really loved The Time Meddler when I watched it, and the reveal that the Monk has a TARDIS remains one of the best cliffhangers in the series. But I think the revelation that the baddies here also have TARDISes works even better. We saw one in the last episode, almost as a tease, but here we get a proper look, and our heroes get to see it too, and watch as a stream of soldiers spills out;
Zoe: ‘So many of them! That thing must be bigger inside than outside, just like the Tardis.’
Doctor Who: ‘I must have a look inside...’
Jamie: ‘Be careful now, Doctor!’
Lady Jennifer: ‘What on earth is it?’
Zoe: ‘It’s some kind of space-time machine, I think.’
Lady Jennifer: ‘But it just appeared from nowhere!’
It’s a brilliantly simple way of showing that the machine is bigger on the inside, and there’s something really interesting about the way that Jamie and Zoe are worried while Doctor Who simply takes it in his stride, albeit concerned. Once again it feels like the story is being moved forward at just the right speed to keep me hooked.
A 7/10 for this one.
The War Games — Episode Four
Ooh, I don’t know if this is a double bluff or a triple bluff, but the use of Carstairs in this one is brilliant. He’s wheeled out as a test subject for reprogramming, and when he comes round he’s been completely brainwashed. He believes himself to be in an office in 1917 and the man with the funny glasses to be his commanding officer. Originally I’d written down that it might have been nice to see his point of view — see the other actor in uniform, and the set change, a bit like the shots of the blank wall in Episode Two when he can’t see the telescreen — but actually I think it’s better the way it is. There’s something oddly unsettling about his blind acceptance of the facts in such an unusual setting.
And then they turn the tables by having him be the one to call out Doctor Who and Zoe for being the strangers among them! I’d completely forgotten about that and it was so effective. I think I might have actually gasped. And it’s so well played, too;
Scientist: ‘Objects which are beyond his comprehension, he will not see at all. Now, who are these people?’
Carstairs: ‘They’re my brother officers, sir. Except… those two people. Those are German spies!’
It’s proper striking, and that we cut away from that to follow the other action with Jamie works especially well because when we cut back… Doctor Who and Zoe haven’t been captured, Carstairs has! It’s such a clever bit of wrong-footing, having the baddies think that the conditioning hasn’t worked. The more the narrative trips me up like this the more I love it. There’s something really scary about this sequence, too, when we know that he’s right but we’re rooting against him at the same time.
And it does it again a few minutes later! Once our heroes are finally realised for what they are — intruders — Zoe runs into Carstairs again and expresses her relief only to discover that he’s still working against them! Ohh, it feels like ages since we had a good twist like this which totally works and I’ve enjoyed it so much that it’s single handily helped to bump up the score.
I can’t remember the last time the guest cast were this well-served in a story. David Savile is being given so much to play with, and it makes the whole story so much richer.
Elsewhere the episode continues to introduce new ideas and then develop them further. During The Space Pirates I complained about that sort of thing. It felt there like they introduced a new idea just in time for it to suddenly be really important. They’re doing exactly the same thing here, but this time around it works. I don’t know if that’s simply because I’m enjoying the story more or if it’s just more deftly done.
Take for example the Resistance group in this episode. We’re told early on that the brainwashing technique fails on about 5% of the people fighting these wars, and then as the episode goes on we get to see that in practice. It’s surprisingly exciting to finally get an injection of new characters to help our regulars save the day.
And even in this storyline they’re trying to wrongfoot us. We meet a Civil War general… and it’s David Garfield again! That was a nice reveal, although it did make me think that it may have been nice for him to play all the highest-ranking officers. It would have been a fun shock to discover that the person in charge of the German front line in 1917 was the same man in charge of the one they’re fighting against.
No sooner have we had the revelation of his involvement here than we get to see Harper turn the table on him, by not only resisting the hypnotising monocle, but actively bragging about it in the man’s face;
Harper: ‘Look, I ain’t going to tell you nothing.’
Von Weich [with monocle]: ‘You’re going to tell me where they’re making for.’
Harper: ‘Sorry, Captain. That stuff doesn’t work on me.’
This is another strong one, and I’ve been agonising a bit about the score to give it. My head says it’s an 8, but my heart is pushing higher than that having enjoyed all the twists and turns along the way. I’m gonna follow my heart and say that this one’s a 9/10.
