DVD review (region 2)
Directed by David Maloney
Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Philip Madoc
Release date 6 July 2009

The final serial for Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor was a 10-episode epic that introduced the Time Lords and saw the Doctor forced to change his appearance…

As Doctor Who approached the end of its sixth year on air, there was a feeling at the BBC that the show had run its course. The production team, on the verge of departing along with lead actor Patrick Troughton, were faced with devising a serial that could both provide some answers to who the Doctor was (a long standing mystery built into the show’s very title and dramatic DNA), yet would still leave the way open for a new team to take the show into the 1970s if the BBC decided to keep it going.

The result - after several other stories fell through - was a 10-part serial that began straight-forwardly enough yet build to an epic, mythological climax that changed the show forever. The War Games has a classic serial form: the Doctor and his companions arrive in what they believe to be the First World War.

It soon becomes apparent that it’s not the real thing, and the group move through a series of ‘war zones’ featuring battles from across human history. Eventually, after several episodes of serial adventure padding (writers Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke were alternating episodes) in which the group move back and forward between the war zones, it is revealed that a group of aliens are behind a plot to develop an invincible army using the best (or should we say worst?) of humanity’s fighters. The security of the galaxy is under threat.

More interesting are the last couple of episodes when it becomes clear that the War Chief is one of the Doctor’s own people, aiding and abetting the aliens in their task. Faced with a problem of a magnitude he cannot solve alone, the Doctor is forced to call upon the Time Lords for aid. It’s a big moment in the series’ history, one conveyed with suitably dramatic gravitas on screen as time itself slows down as the Time Lords intervene. These final episodes are great, introducing a pop-art influenced alien base and bringing the Doctor back to his home planet (to remain unnamed in the series for a few more years yet).

The climax wraps up the story of the War Chief and the alien War Lord, leaving the Time Lords to deal with the Doctor. Mirroring the first episode of the serial, he finds himself subject to a court martial, forced to justify his actions in interfering in the wider universe. A spirited defence wins the Time Lords over and they sentence the Doctor to Earth, changing his appearance and paving the way for the Pertwee years of the early 1970s. The losers in all this are poor old Fraser Hines and Wendy Padbury (very spirited in their joint appearances across the disc’s many extras), who as Jamie and Zoe had portrayed one of the best companions teams the series had seen. Mind-wiped and sent home, they will only remember their first adventure with the Doctor. It was a fate that would be echoed in that of Donna in the climax to the fourth series of the revived Doctor Who.

The first two discs of this triple-disc release feature the 10 episodes of The War Games, wonderfully crisp and cleaned up, with a chatty commentary from Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Philip Madoc, Jane Sherwin, Graham Weston, co-writer Terrance Dicks and script editor Derrick Sherwin. There are also the usual subtitles and text production notes, with inevitable duplication of information between these, the commentary and the extras.

There are some great extras (collected together on the third disc) on this significant release. The ‘making of’ piece, War Zone, is fine if unexciting, while the latest instalment of Stripped for Action – the on-going series looking at the Doctor Who comic strips Doctor-by-Doctor – is up to the usual standard. Very welcome is On Target, which looks like the beginning of a similar series on the Target novels. This one focuses on Malcolm Hulke, reminding viewers just how great his novels were, illustrated with some very effective readings by Katy Manning (who can still do Jo’s voice very effectively) and Peter Miles. His Cave Monsters novel is still a favourite to this day!

Recent Doctor Who DVDs have featured variable quality extras, focusing on some of the ‘real world’ connections to Who stories. These have been hit-and-miss in approach and have annoyed many fans. Finally, though, everything finally comes together in Time Zones in which some historians discuss the real-world conflicts featured in The War Games, but also has the talking heads examine how the serial depicted those wars, and personally reflecting on their own experiences of watching the show: it’s very well done.

Less exciting are the location feature Now and Then (a compilation of shots of fields, tracks and Brighton’s rubbish dump) and Sylvia James: In Conversation, which fails at the start of the to-camera interview to even explain who she is! More effective is a candid chat with composer Dudley Simpson, which ends with an ominous ‘to be continued’, so there’ll be more Deadly Dudley in future. Shades of Grey attempts to extol the virtues of black and white television, not always successfully, while Talking About Regeneration is a great little feature discussing all the Doctor’s regenerations to date, offering new insights even at this late date in the show’s history.

Easily the worst thing by far on the disc is Devious, a turgid, incomprehensible ‘fan film’ which had been included just because it features a brief cameo appearance by Jon Pertwee shortly before he died. This is taking the completist instinct too far: it’s a sad sight, while the am-dram stuff can only make sense to, and be enjoyed by, the people who made it. A waste of time and disc space: it’s a shame really as it’s presence on this disc really is unwarranted. Brian J. Robb

VERDICT: 9/10
The story is too long and it’s obvious the writers were padding out the middle bit like mad, but the set up is great and the conclusion fantastic. A great extras package makes The War Games a must buy for any self-respecting Doctor Who fan!