The Smugglers

Episode 1

The fourth season picks up where the previous story left off, with Ben and Polly wandering on board the TARDIS just in time for take-off. After a brief angry rant, the Doctor explains the TARDIS to his two young interlopers.

Hannah: I like this, it's like a summary for anybody who's never watched it before. Is the Doctor annoyed that he has two new travelling companions, or not? He says he thought he'd be alone for a bit, but did he want that to happen or does he actually feel relieved? I don't know. He probably would have been fine by himself, and there'd be fewer people around to get captured.

Ben and Polly's first trip has brought them to a fairly innocuous beach, but experience has taught Hannah to expect the worst.

Hannah: I thought the water was made of acid.
Me: Why?
Hannah: There's always acid water. It would learn them well.

It comes as a bit of a surprise, therefore, when our heroes discover a local church.

Hannah: Oh, they are on Earth then?
Me: Yep. This story was filmed in Cornwall during the summer, so I'm sure it would look beautiful if we could see it.
Hannah: Yes. Although I went to Cornwall just after the summer and it rained every day.

Specifically we're in 17th century Cornwall, and it's not long before the extremely feminine-looking Polly is being addressed as "lad" by the churchwarden.

Hannah: Do they think Polly's a boy because she's wearing trousers?
Me: She also has her hair under a cap.
Hannah: That's ridiculous. She's a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and a high-pitched voice. And she's far too tall to be a boy who hasn't hit puberty yet.

Once the Doctor's new companions have finally accepted that they're in the 17th century, Polly resigns herself to the situation and decides to make the best of it.

Hannah: She's very practical. I like her. But I want Ben to shut up. His Cockney accent annoys me.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around the search for the late Captain Avery's buried gold.

Hannah: Cursed treasure! I want a proper pirate story.
Me: There are pirates in this, although admittedly the story is more Famous Five than Pirates of the Caribbean. But there was also a Matt Smith pirate episode called "The Curse of the Black Spot".
Hannah: (dismissively) Oh yeah.

This episode concludes with the Doctor meeting the pirate captain. Once Hannah has gotten over her disappointment that he isn't played by Tutte Lemkow in his customary eyepatch, she starts to wonder how Captain Pike got his name.

Hannah: Is it because he's got a pike for a hand? I love that he has a pike instead of a boring hook.
Me: I think it's a barbed hook.
Hannah: It's got a pointy bit and a curvy bit. It's a pike.

Episode 2

One of Captain Pike's pirates, Jamaica, is particularly noteworthy.

Me: This is the first ever speaking part for a black actor in Doctor Who.
Hannah: Really?
Me: We've occasionally seen black actors in non-speaking roles before, and speaking characters played by blacked-up actors, but this is a genuine first. Although the character is still a fairly dodgy caricature, so it's not that progressive.
Hannah: His name is Jamaica? I've never known that to be a name.

Hannah is clearly thrilled that we're getting a story about pirates and smuggling, but things get even more Blytonian when Ben discovers a secret passageway after catching one of the King's revenue men; she just about recognises John Ringham (from The Aztecs) after I point him out, but she's not impressed with Ben's conduct.

Hannah: He's a bit thick, saying all these things; he's wittering on about the TARDIS to the captured official when he's already being viewed suspiciously. Why does the Doctor attract such silly people?

Episode 3

Hannah: I don't think you're going to have anything interesting to write for this story.
Me: Why not?
Hannah: Because I haven't got much to say. There's very little to say, and we can't see anything.
Me: To be fair, it's not like anyone else has got much to say about it either. This is easily the least-remembered Doctor Who story of all time.
Hannah: Why?
Me: Well, there are no surviving episodes, so nobody has been able to watch it since the original transmission, and it was made at a time when the "pure" historicals were starting to lose favour. It also doesn't have any kind of memorable hook because there are no monsters or enduring imagery or anything, and the historical setting isn't particularly iconic in the way that most of the others were, so essentially it's just four episodes of a runaround in Cornwall that nobody can watch.
Hannah: I like the setting. I find smugglers and pirates really interesting.
Me: It's not a judgement on the quality of the story, it's just that it's probably the most obscure story in the history of the series. It's like the Brad Dexter of Doctor Who.
Hannah: I don't know who that is.
Me: Exactly. He's the one from The Magnificent Seven that everyone always forgets about.
Hannah: I like Cornwall, I like the seaside and I like smugglers and pirates; I'd love this story to be amazing. They could have done it so much better.

Episode 4

This story has now become one of my most wanted missing episode recoveries, just on the strength of the location filming alone.

Hannah: There's a lot of violence in this one.
Me: It is unusually brutal, even for the historical ones.
Hannah: Wait, what? Did he flay people? Is that what he said, he turned people into sailcloth? This is getting darker every moment.
Me: He said the ship's chandler has "sewed many a merchant into a sailcloth nightgown," so I think we're supposed to interpret that as literally making clothes out of recycled sailcloth. I hope so, anyway.

Meanwhile, one of Captain Pike's pirates asks him whether there are any more smuggled goods inside the church.

Me: Don't tell him, Pike!
Hannah: (weary sigh)

As the story ambles towards its conclusion, the pace suddenly starts to pick up. At least, that's what it sounds like.

Hannah: Yay, a sword fight we can't see. It's so exciting. Swish swish, clang clang.
Me: You're never that impressed when you can see them.
Hannah: Not often. Sometimes I am.
Me: Maybe it's best left to your imagination.

That stupid boy Pike manages to let the Squire goad him into proving the obedience of his crew.

Hannah: Make them all prove their obedience by doing handstands and balancing their swords.
Me: I think you might be confusing this with Cirque du Soleil.

Then it all climaxes with a chaotic brawl in the church tomb.

Hannah: This is really weird. Such a quiet smuggling story, and then a massive fight.

After the Doctor, Ben and Polly have slipped away and the TARDIS is ready to leave, Ben is keen to get back to 1966 and rejoin his own ship before he gets in trouble.

Hannah: He still doesn't quite understand time travel. He thinks every moment that he's running around doing stuff, time is passing in his original timeline. No, that's not how time travel works; if there's any chance of you getting back, either it'll be random and nowhere near that time anyway, or hopefully you'll eventually be able to go back to exactly where you left off. So he'll have aged by however long it takes to get back, but nothing will have changed. He wants to get back to 1966 before it's too late, but it will never be too late! Time travel!
Me: But what if the next story takes place in, say, 1986?
Hannah: Yes? And?
Me: He'd be 20 years late.
Hannah: Yeah, but it's so far out that it doesn't count.

The episode ends with the set-up for the next story, as the Doctor declares that the TARDIS has landed in the coldest place in the world.

Hannah: The world?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: Coldest place in the world?
Me: That's right.
Hannah: Which world?
Me: You'll find out next week.

The Score

Hannah: I really wish it had been a better story because I like smugglers and pirates, and there were some fun bits. But as it stands, it was nothing special and I didn't understand much of what was going on, so it's only really worth...

5/10