Doctor Who:
The Gunfighters
By Dennis Spooner
“So fill up your glasses and
join in the song. The law’s right behind you and it won’t take long. So come,
you coyotes and howl at the moon, Till there’s blood upon the sawdust, In The
Last Chance Saloon.”
Following the events of
The Celestial Toymaker The Doctor apparently has a toothache. So he sets off to find a dentist. Well he
lands at the western town of Tombstone home of the OK Corral. Roaming around
the town are the likes of The Clantons, Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday. The Doctor proceeds to find Doc Holiday and
to get his tooth fixed while Steven and Dodo try to blend in. What happens next is quite comical as the
three travelers get caught up in the shootout at the OK Corral.
Ok. Well this one is a
winner. The Gunfighters is one of the
worst Doctor Who stories ever.
EVER! It is dull and boring and
it has one of the worst songs ever and it keeps being played over and over
again throughout all four episodes. God
that song is so awful and it would have been better if they played it only once
at the beginning of the story. What is worse Steven and Dodo start singing it
also. The story is pretty inaccurate also. I mean the events of the Gunfighters are very
loosely based on the events that took place at Tombstone. But I guess if you are working on a BBC
budget and it is a studio based story then you are limited.
What I do not understand
is why The Doctor would go to Tombstone to have his tooth fixed. Didn’t the TARDIS have some sort of medicine
for that or some future Timelord tooth fixer? Plus he goes to see Doc Holliday
who at the time of the OK Corral gave up being a dentist and was a renowned gambler
and gunfighter. He would not have been
my first choice to get my tooth fixed especially if I had a time machine at my
disposal.
The Gunfighters is just
plain hard to watch. The story goes in
all directions and tries to be funny. At
least I hope that was their intent. Plus it is very dull and lacks much of
action until the end when you get to the shootout. Which I have to say is pretty lame in
itself. It just wasn’t a well written
story. The scenarios were just awful with The Doctor being mistaken for Doc
Holliday was just lame. You would expect Wyatt Earp to know what one of his
best friends would look like. Well if
you want to see what a Doctor Who story should not be and want to watch in
utter horror then The Gunfighters is for you. If you want to keep your sanity
then just skip over this one and watch The War Machines which would make your
brain happy.
Grade F
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