{"id":34880,"date":"2022-03-24T00:44:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/?p=34880"},"modified":"2022-03-22T14:45:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T14:45:56","slug":"why-i-love-the-war-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2022\/03\/24\/why-i-love-the-war-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Love: The War Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Before everything available was released on home media, there was a lot of received wisdom and urban myths about Doctor Who<\/em>. The Troughton era was perceived as a golden age (in comparison to the clunky Hartnell days) but all the best stories were in Season 5. And \u2013 worse than that \u2013 the very best ones had been junked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that was left were the dregs of the Kroton-end of Season 6, not the classic monster era with lumbering Yetis, creepy Cybermen, and icky seaweed. The War Games<\/em> was renowned to be a drawn-out desperate attempt to fill a 10-episode void. The final episode reveal of the Time Lords was barely worth the drudge of the previous nine. Worst of all. No monsters. Yes, none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, all this nonsense was blown away on Thursday 1st February 1990 (I was age 16). Back home from school via WHSmith to pick up the clunky double VHS (two tapes in two cases sellotaped together), I inserted the cassette and started to watch… Just over two hours later, my brother and I (a Troughton fan) had devoured the first five episodes. By then, my Dad was home and wanted to watch the news, then the Commonweath Games highlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were incensed. We\u2019d just seen Jamie shot by security guards. How was he going to survive? I mean, we knew he would but it was gripping stuff. The best we could hope was that my Dad would go to bed early and we could watch the rest that night. But he always stayed up until Question Time<\/em> finished at 11pm. And we had school the next day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So, we polished the remaining episodes off on Friday. A trip of a lifetime: all the way to the Time Lord\u2019s home planet, then sentenced to be exiled back to earth. The trial only took a few minutes (stitch that, Doctor Six). As Doctor Who <\/em>epic stories go, it\u2019s far more cohesive, consistent, and thrill-a-minute than The Trial of a Time Lord<\/em> or Flux<\/em>. Or the proto-epics like the Key to Time season, Black Guardian trilogy, or Frontier in Space\/Planet of the Daleks<\/em>. (It\u2019s hard to compare to The Daleks’ Master Plan<\/em> because so much of that is missing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It proves there is nothing wrong with being long; you just have to do it right. And The War Games<\/em> keeps up the momentum with brilliant reveals such as when Smythe pulls back the portrait door to show this isn\u2019t just a trip to earth\u2019s history, when soldiers from other times appear, when the TARDIS crew cross over to a different war zone, when the War Chief is revealed to be one of the Doctor\u2019s own race… It all culminates in the epic reveal (after six mysterious years) of the Doctor\u2019s own home planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cliffhangers are excellent, from the first episode with the Doctor seemingly shot by firing squad, through the Roman chariot charging on our heroes, a brainwashed Carstairs about to shoot Zoe, the TARDIS crew soon to be crushed inside the SIDRAT capsule… They keep up the momentum like those Flash Gordon<\/em> chapter movies from the ’40s and ’50s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the characters from the squabbling War Chief and Security Chief, to the epic cast of soldiers on both sides are all well drawn out and watchable. Particularly the delightful pairing of Leitenant Carstairs and Lady Jennifer, who hark back to Ian and Barbara: they are best companions we never had (or didn\u2019t have for long enough).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Necessity, graft, and inspiration drew out from two of Doctor Who<\/em>\u2019s finest writers, Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, arguably the best end-of-Doctor story there ever was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s not just a romp. The title\u2019s a giveaway. It\u2019s about evil men causing death and destruction. About brainwashed soldiers fighting for a cause they don\u2019t fully understand. And about heroic resistance fighters risking their lives to reveal the truth, while striving for justice and freedom. It\u2019s about as inspiring a story as we could hope for right now.<\/p>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s why the Doctor Who Season 6 conclusion is a much-loved classic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":34882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"Why I Love: #DoctorWho The War Games","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[73],"tags":[4806,129,132,442,137,141,69,509,964,965],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/The-War-Games-Patrick-Troughton-Second-2nd.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21201,"url":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2019\/06\/21\/50-years-of-the-war-games-patrick-troughtons-last-serial\/","url_meta":{"origin":34880,"position":0},"title":"50 Years of The War Games, Patrick Troughton's Last Serial","author":"Joe Siegler","date":"21 June 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Fifty years ago today was a monumental date in Doctor Who history. 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