Day 65 — March 6th 2021
The Smugglers Episodes One and Two
The Smugglers — Episode One
I reckon Steven Moffat must really like this period of Doctor Who. We’ve had episodes that take place in the Wild West (like The Gunfighters), with the original version of the Cybermen (coming up in The Tenth Planet in a couple of days), having a monster stage a global take over using the internet from the top of a newly-completed London landmark (The Bells of Saint John aired the week I reached The War Machines during my last marathon, and the similarities didn’t pass me by!) and I’m sure I remember reading somewhere that the Captain Avery who appears in The Curse of the Black Spot was intended to be the same one mentioned here, making it a prequel to this story. And don’t even get me started on Daleks pretending to be servants and Scottish companions!
When announcing the departures of Steven and Dodo, Innes Lloyd told the Daily Mail; ‘Their fictional backgrounds make it difficult to introduce new stories’. I can’t help but think that what he meant was that he wanted to get back to basics with Doctor Who, and introduce the series fresh in the eyes of the audience when the fourth series began. Although Ban and Polly both got to interact with Dodo in the last story — briefly — they don’t really enter Doctor Who’s world until she’s left it. They get to come into this adventure completely fresh, and it’s the first tie we’ve been in this situation since the very first episode way back when. An Unearthly Child feels a long time ago to me now, let alone to viewers in 1966!
As such we get to experience the companions taking their first steps into history, and I’m pleased to see that Ben retains the tradition of a male companion taking his time to accept the idea of a police box that travels in time. As with Dodo, though, he seems all too ready to accept that it can move in space! The contrast between Ben and Polly is great fun to watch for the first third of this episode, as she enjoys their new location and he struggles against it.
It’s especially strange as in The War Machines Ben is very much the companion. Polly spends almost the entire time after Dodo’s departure possessed by WOTAN, so she hasn’t really been able to take part in this lifestyle yet. Somehow it works, though, and I like Ben being a little prickly with Doctor Who. I know we’ll be getting more of that after the regeneration, and it feels true to his character.
Both Ben and Polly feel contemporary in a way that Dodo never quite did, and I wonder if it was an attempt to make the show a bit trendier. Polly especially is right on the zeitgeist with her costume in this one — it’s almost identical to the one worn by Juliet Harmer in the pilot for Adam Adamant Lives! which was in production almost simultaneously with The Smugglers. And a brief side note while we’re on the subject, I’ve just spotted a police box lurking in the background of the above photo. It was meant to be!
It feels fresh having these two characters in the TARDIS. As much as I loved Steven, and enjoyed Dodo, it feels like we’re entering a new era of the programme here. And perhaps fittingly, we’re doing it with a style of story that won’t be around a whole lot longer…! On my last marathon I wasn’t overly fussed with The Smugglers, but I’ve enjoyed today’s episode well enough. The interplay between the (new) regulars is fun, and the guest cast are engaging me. If anything I think I feel more engaged with the show after the last couple of stories.
This episode features another instalment in a slightly unusual trend which can only be a directive from Innes Lloyd himself — Doctor Who has become tetotal. In The Massacre he gladly orders wine for Steven and himself, but since then (and coinciding with the arrival of Lloyd in the producer’s chair) he’s been dead against either himself or his companions having a drink.
‘We don’t touch it,’ he tells Longfoot when offered a brandy, and he does the same in the third episode of The War Machines when Sir Charles offers him a brandy, too. It’s not just that particular drink either; in The Gunfighters he says ‘Oh, my dear man, I never touch alcohol,’. I wonder if, having decided that the programme is for a younger audience than John Wiles had, Lloyd made a direct decision to have the hero not drink? It’s cropped up too often now in quick succession to merely be a coincidence!
Or perhaps there’s a spin off novel or audio out there where, after one drunken night too many with Steven and Dodo, Doctor Who resolves to clean up his act and sober up?
7/10
The Smugglers — Episode Two
I’ll confess to struggling a bit with this one. It’s noticeable that I found myself flagging a little until the cliffhanger, which I enjoyed. I think the main problem I’m having is that there’s so many characters to keep track of, and they all seem to interact with each other hand have their own distinct narratives to follow. And they all seem to be bad guys! I can’t really keep track of who’s working for/against who, and that’s a problem.
What I am enjoying, though, is Ben and Polly. It’s perhaps surprising that they’ve been split away from Doctor Who so early on, but it gives them plenty of time to shine in their own right here. I love Polly pretending to be a witch with a voodoo doll to get out of prison, and Ben feels like good value in any situation. I don’t have an awful lot more to add for this episode — which I’ll be giving a 5/10 — but thankfully I’ve got a Michael Craze story in reserve ready for just such an occasion!
I grew up on a farm in Norfolk, about two miles from a small town which seemed to me to be the middle of nowhere, and about as far away from the TARDIS as it was possible to get. I moved out at 16, first to Norwich, later all the way to Cardiff, in part because I thought it looked particularly nice on Doctor Who!
A year or two after arriving in Cardiff a friend from Norwich came to visit and brought with him a collection of Mythmakers DVDs. He was keen to show me the majesty of Jackie Lane’s ‘floating head’ (a sight that has to be seen to be believed), but first he wanted to show me the Michael Craze interview.
In goes the DVD, and there’s Nick Briggs trying to get a teleporter to work. It grudgingly does, popping him down on the side of a road… a mile from East Dereham! Not all that far from our farm, for that matter! He walks into town, all very familiar locations, and into the bar of the Phoenix Hotel. It transpires that 20 years after his travels in the TARDIS, Craze became the barman in the hotel.
I sent a picture to my mother and she not only recognised him but knew his first name. We didn’t visit the Phoenix often, but I can distinctly remember visits there as a kid, long before I discovered the world of Doctor Who. There’s something quite magical for me about knowing I very likely spoke to Ben Jackson at some point, never knowing that years before I was born he’d travelled through time and space in the TARDIS. Or at least in Riverside Studio One. In my own head canon, it was Ban Jackson himself who ended up living and working in my little home town, and that feels quite special to me.
I sold the farm last year to buy a permanant house in Wales. I’ve been here ten years next month, so I think I probably qualify as an honourary Welshman now. But we ventured back in February to attend a funeral, and I still made a point of saluting Able Seaman Ben Jackson as we drove past the Phoenix (It’s a Wetherspoons now, natch).
