Doctor Who:
The War Machines
By Ian Stuart Black
“DOCTOR….WHO…. Is ….
REQUIRED”
It’s the swinging Sixties
and London is a buzz. The hottest club
in town is The Inferno and that is where The Doctor meets two new friends. The lovely and swinging girl of the 60’s
scenes Polly and her soon to be boyfriend the grumpy sailor Ben soon to be
travelers in the TARDIS. Well soon and
unexpected and quite soon as the pair gets entangled with The Doctor and WOTAN.
WOTAN is a super computer
who thinks humans are inferior and should be ruled by machines. Thus WOTAN uses hypnotic influence to get
humans to assemble The War Machine to use in taking over the world. What is
funny about WOTAN is that he calls The Doctor Doctor Who. One of his instructions is Doctor Who is required.
For such an intelligent computer you would have thought it would know The
Doctors name.
Not to be overlooked is
the fact that The War Machines has one of the strangest companions leaving
ever. In fact you hardly see it. After
The Doctor frees her from WOTAN’s control he sends her off to the country to
recuperate. The Doctor finds out later
by a letter that Dodo has decided to stay on Earth and not continue traveling
with The Doctor. Indeed a very strange
parting of the ways in Doctor Who’s history. Almost as strange as when she
arrived by running into the TARDIS at the end of The Massacre.
The War Machines is one of
the few Hartnell stories that takes place during modern time in fact it is the
only one besides a few moments of episode 1 on An Unearthly Child. It takes
place in 1966 in London and it is a really different turn for The Doctor so
far. Mainly Hartnell’s Doctor visits
alien planets or goes back into the past of earth’s history. For them to be in contemporary London during
1966 is a risk that pays off.
It is a pretty cool
science fiction story that has a lot of really good moments. One of those moments is the cliffhanger to
episode 3 where The Doctor is facing down the oncoming war machine. He is just standing there hands on lapels
starring defiantly at the War machine.
The Doctor demonstrates such arrogance and no fear that it’s chilling at
how much command he has and the confidence he exhumes that it sends chills up
your spine.
The War Machines has a
UNIT story feel to it. With The War
Machine terrorizing London the army is there trying to stop it with The Doctor
putting together a contraption to stop the War Machine. It was very like a Jon Pertwee story in that
sense. It just had that science fiction
feel to it with the super computer trying to take over the world. It just was cool to see the present be
menaced for a change instead of watching a story in the future or the past. The
War Machines was something different for a change.
The War Machines is one of
my favorite William Hartnell Stories and it is also one of my favorite Doctor
Who stories of all time also. I think it
has to do with it feeling like a Doctor Who story that we are familiar with. You get the feeling something different is
happening and the show is going in another direction. Which it was since The War Machines ended
season 3 and season 4 heralded some mighty big changes. The War Machines is that rare gem that just
happens to be a really great story with a strong science fiction feel to it.
Grade A
"The War Machines is one of the few Hartnell stories that takes place during modern time in fact it is the only one besides a few moments of episode 1 on An Unearthly Child" - actually there are a few more that take place in present day including the end of "The Chase" when Ian and Barbara are dropped off as well as the scene on top of the Empire State building.
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