The Gunfighters

A Holiday for the Doctor [Episode 1]

We're in Tombstone, Arizona, 1881. Hannah can see where this is heading but she knows very little about the historical event, having turned down my offer to show her the 1957 John Sturges film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral earlier in the week. Fair enough; who needs a hit film from the director of The Magnificent Seven when you could be watching the first ever TV western made by the BBC?

Hannah: The Doctor almost looks dressed for the period.
Me: This is exactly the period he's dressed for; Hartnell's costume has a late-Victorian look.
Hannah: This is ancient history for Steven.

We open with a song. "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" plays at intervals throughout the story, providing a linking narration in the style of a western ballad. Personally I love it, and I've never understood the objections that it sometimes receives; it enhances the atmosphere of the western setting, and it's an interesting and unique narrative device for the programme. But what will Hannah think?

Me: What do you think of the linking narration? It's sung by Linda Baron from Open All Hours.
Hannah: I like it.

Phew.

After getting a toothache at the end of the previous episode, the Doctor is in search of a dentist and just happens to come across Doc Holliday's surgery.

Hannah: What a coincidence, he's a dental doctor.
Me: Yes, that's historically accurate.
Hannah: I mean it's a coincidence that the Doctor happens to come here just when he needs a dentist. It's also very lucky that he's arrived somewhere with a humanoid dentist who knows the anatomy, as well. What if the TARDIS just randomly takes you to places with no humanoids for ages, while your toothache keeps getting worse?
Me: Oh, I don't know; based on the last three years, the chances of the TARDIS randomly arriving on Earth seem to be pretty good.

The Doctor is happy to confront Daleks and demigods but he's terrified of a trip to the dentist, and the look on his face as he braces himself for the extraction shows a side of Hartnell's Doctor that we've never seen before.

Hannah: Awww! Poor Doctor.

Meanwhile, the Clanton Brothers and their hired gunslinger Seth Harper are in town to take revenge on Doc Holliday; the Doctor, of course, gets caught in the middle of their vendetta.

Hannah: I love how they just get mixed up in anything, anywhere.

But when the Clantons force Steven and Dodo to perform a musical routine at gunpoint, we find that Hannah can only suspend so much disbelief.

Hannah: They're very lucky that she can actually play the piano. And that he's able to sing perfectly, just by sight-reading the sheet music for the first time. It was all going so well until then, and then it became improbable.

I thought we'd already bypassed "improbable" in the previous story, but apparently not.

After the credits, and once Hannah has gotten over her initial surprise that the ballad was an original song written for this production (some of the verses in the next three episodes would be an impressive coincidence otherwise), she turns her attention to the story's biggest weakness.

Hannah: The accents are very annoying. Obviously I don't know what the authentic accents would have sounded like, but I doubt they'd sound like this. Very annoying. Little bit grating.
Me: You can't have everything. Mary Poppins had already been released a couple of years earlier, so try thinking of it as our response to Dick Van Dyke.
Hannah: Fair enough.

Don't Shoot the Pianist [Episode 2]

Hannah's credulity is stretched even further when Steven takes over the piano duties.

Hannah: So, will this astronaut from the distant future be able to play the piano? Oh, apparently he can! Do they even have pianos anymore?
Me: Maybe it's a pianola? It would explain why their hand movements aren't matching any of the notes.
Hannah: Then why do they need a piano player at all? The Doctor just happens to have picked up two people who know how to play the piano incredibly well. It's not impossible, but it seems extremely unlikely that two companions picked up from very different parts of time and space would coincidentally both have these musical skills.

She doesn't seem to know how seriously she should be taking this story. Fortunately, this is clarified nicely when the Doctor finally shows up and Seth Harper tells him that he won't be leaving town, prompting the entire Clanton gang to lean forward and collectively say "Alive, that is."

Hannah: Is this supposed to be a comedy?
Me: Yes, it's yet another comedy historical. It's written by Donald Cotton, the same writer who did The Myth Makers.

Given her mixed feelings about that story (not to mention The Romans), I'm wondering how she's going to react to this information. Thankfully, she seems to be okay with it.

Me: Would it surprise you to learn that this story used to have a reputation as the worst Doctor Who adventure of all time?
Hannah: It does surprise me, because it's not that bad.
Me: It's one of my favourites, and certainly one of my top Hartnells. A couple of fans wrote a review of this story in the eighties, back when hardly anyone had seen the older ones, and called it the worst Doctor Who story ever; these are the same people who called The Celestial Toymaker a lost classic, if that tells you anything. Thankfully most people know better these days, now that everyone can see it for themselves.
Hannah: It's captivating. It's a well-acted, interesting story.

The highlight of the story is Hartnell's performance; he has some very funny lines, and he's clearly enjoying himself immensely. My favourite part of the whole adventure is his response to the Clanton Brothers introducing themselves, while Hannah particularly enjoys his complaint that "people keep giving me guns and I do wish they wouldn't" ("That's very Doctor-y").

Hannah: I do actually find the song annoying.
Me: You said you liked it last time!
Hannah: It's a good idea; it's an interesting device and adds another layer to the episodes. But it's annoying.

Never mind. I'll settle for that.

Me: So how do you think this compares to other sci-fi comedy westerns?
Hannah: Like what?
Me: Well, there's Back to the Future: Part III, there's that episode of Red Dwarf...
Hannah: I don't remember much about the Red Dwarf episode.
Me: "Gunmen of the Apocalypse" won an International Emmy Award, you know.
Hannah: And how many awards did this win?
Me: The same number as Carry On Cowboy.

Johnny Ringo [Episode 3]

Hannah: People are dying left, right and centre, but weirdly there's no real sense of danger. I didn't even feel worried when Steven had his head in a noose. It feels odd that there's a sense of light-heartedness at the same time as being dark.

I don't ever bother trying to point out that the director's daughter Jane Tucker (from Rod, Jane and Freddy) appears in the mob scene, because Hannah never watched Rainbow as a child. I've tried to get my head around this, but frankly it just doesn't bear thinking about.

Hannah: The Doctor still keeps calling Wyatt Earp "Mr Werp". Is that on purpose?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: Why?
Me: It's a running joke.
Hannah: Steven even picks up on it, but the Doctor never corrects himself; usually he calls people the wrong name once or twice, but this is continuous. And how are we spelling that? "Wearp"? "Wurp"?

After the mob has broken up, accompanied by what Hannah regards as some of the ballad's more peculiar lyrics ("He's gone kind of mental"), she's expecting the plot to be neatly wrapped up.

Hannah: That felt like the end. Everything's fine now, all they have to do is get Dodo and go back to the TARDIS. What could possibly stop them?
Me: Well, the fact that they haven't got Dodo.
Hannah: Ah. That'll be it, then.
Me: And also that we've spent three episodes building up to a shootout that hasn't happened yet.
Hannah: I was genuinely thinking this story could have ended now; I'd completely forgotten that Doc Holliday had run away from town and taken Dodo.

As the cliffhanger sets up the inevitable finale, Hannah seems strangely quiet.

Me: Are you alright?
Hannah: I was thinking about cowboy hats.

The OK Corral [Episode 4]

Hannah: Oh. I'd forgotten about this.
Me: What?
Hannah: The singing.
Me: Don't you think it adds to the atmosphere?
Hannah: Yes. Adds to the western theme.
Me: And it's unique in the history of Doctor Who. Even if I hated the song, I'd love the fact that they tried it.
Hannah: I love it as a concept. I don't like that style of song that much, that's all. It's not for me, but it works.
Me: It's not like I'd normally spend my time listening to Old West ballads either, but there's a time and place for everything.
Hannah: Why have the town marshals got two identical "wanted" posters in their office? Surely it would make sense to have different ones. I'm sure there's more than one person who's wanted.

When the legendary gunfight finally comes, there's a familiar sense of mood whiplash.

Me: It's like The Myth Makers; you get three episodes of light comedy, and then it turns all violent and brutal.
Hannah: They're all lousy shots.
Me: Maybe everyone's very good at dodging?
Hannah: They're just walking forwards and being shot at!
Me: I think the Earps are supposed to be better marksmen than the Clantons.
Hannah: Yeah, but they're facing off almost point-blank. There's no excuse for this.

I try to distract her by pointing out some notable historical inaccuracies in this story, but she's not having it.

Hannah: I don't care, I'm trying to get over the fact that nobody can shoot each other. They should all be out of bullets by now. Why is it taking so long?
Me: Historically the gunfight lasted about thirty seconds, but in dramatic terms it would be a bit boring if they all killed each other straight away.
Hannah: Well it's much more realistic. Are these guns so old and shit that nobody can fire in a straight line and hit anything that they're pointing at? Oh good, people are starting to actually die.
Me: It's called dramatic licence. You don't want a total anticlimax after two hours of story.
Hannah: That doesn't mean you have to give everyone the aim of a Stormtrooper.

As the time travellers prepare to leave, Dodo stops to listen to the ballad.

Hannah: Are they breaking the fourth wall and implying that they can hear their own narration song?
Me: No, that's coming from the saloon.
Hannah: Thank God for that.

Sadly, we've come to the end of an era.

Me: That was the last story with individual episode titles.
Hannah: It sounds more boring that way. The stories are still more than one episode each, right?
Me: Yes, but now the audience has some sense of the series being divided into specific adventures, rather than one continuous ongoing story.
Hannah: Great.

The Score

Hannah: I did like it, but I didn't like all of it. Certain things were good, but the accents were a little bit annoying. It's a nice balanced story; dark and gritty with some comedic elements. It's just the shit bits that I don't like.

8/10

Me: You're sure?
Hannah: It's fun, well-balanced, entertaining, mostly well-acted and well-directed. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood because my tooth still hurts.
Me: You should see a dentist.
Hannah: Hilarious.