The War Machines

Episode 1

The last story of the third season is a refreshing change of pace for a number of reasons. For one thing...

Hannah: Real episodes!

The story title is displayed in giant computer-lettering, which is so big that the last word needs to be split over two lines.

Hannah: What are they doing? "The War Mach Ines". Interesting.
Me: It's only the second story with an overall title, so they're still experimenting with the style.
Hannah: It's relevant to this story, I assume.

The TARDIS arrives in Fitzroy Square. Hannah is gobsmacked.

Hannah: How's he done that, then?
Me: What?
Hannah: How did he get them back to sixties Britain? This appears to be sixties Britain.
Me: Yes, it's the first modern-day story. Well, actually the first modern-day story was Planet of Giants but it features a shrunken TARDIS crew that doesn't interact with any other characters, so most people tend to skip over it and acknowledge this as the first instead.
Hannah: So this is the first proper contemporary sci-fi story. Very exciting.

To Hannah's obvious delight, the Doctor places an "out of order" sign on the TARDIS door ("So he does sometimes learn!") before noticing a newly-erected but very familiar landmark.

Hannah: Is that the BT Tower?
Me: It is now, but it was originally the Post Office Tower.
Hannah: He's sniffing aliens? Oh, now he can feel the presence of Daleks? Is this the first time that Daleks have interfered in modern times? It feels very modern Who-ish to me, now that the Daleks have sneaked into a human organisation and built something.
Me: This is the modern show, pretty much; it's a sci-fi story set in contemporary London. It becomes a standard of the series later, but this is the very first time it happens.
Hannah: I'm liking the new style, it's just weird that this is the first time he's started wigging out because he can sense Daleks. Is it some weird Time Lord intuition thing?

The Doctor and Dodo somehow manage to casually walk straight into the laboratory on the top floor and discover that Professor Brett has created the ultimate supercomputer, WOTAN.

Hannah: What a waste of paper; it's printing out a six-digit answer on a whole sheet of A4. You know what this reminds me of? The Discworld computer, Hex. Out of cheese error!

The professor's secretary Polly takes Dodo to "the hottest nightspot in town," the Inferno nightclub, and Hannah's senses are immediately assaulted with an explosion of fab and groovy stock music.

Hannah: Well, this seems completely out of place! Did somebody complain that it wasn't "in touch" enough?
Me: It's 1966! We're in contemporary London at the beginning of the Swinging Sixties; this is when the cultural revolution started happening.
Hannah: It actually does make sense, because it makes the story feel closer to home and more relevant. It's scarier having a threat in modern times. So it's not the Daleks that he was sensing earlier, but something else has still spooked him?
Me: How do you know it's not the Daleks? It would fit the title.
Hannah: Polly seems strangely important in this.
Me: That's Anneke Wills; she was married to Michael Gough at the time, who you may remember from The Celestial Toymaker.
Hannah: I feel like there's an age difference.
Me: About 25 years. He encouraged her to do this because he had so much fun playing the Toymaker.
Hannah: Ah, that's nice.

When Polly and Dodo's new friend Ben gets into a fight with one of the rowdy clubbers, Hannah is impressed with the choreography for a change.

Hannah: Nice. Not too shit. There's no hesitation; usually they do it slowly to avoid hitting each other. The two actors are really good. Wait a minute, the Doctor took a taxi?
Me: Yes?
Hannah: And he paid for it?!
Me: Why wouldn't he pay for it?
Hannah: He doesn't have money!

The Doctor stops off at the Royal Scientific Club, where Sir Charles Summer informs us that WOTAN operates itself without any human input; Hannah finds it odd that this is supposed to be reassuring ("I'm much more disturbed by that!"), especially when she realises that it can hypnotise the scientists in Brett's office. WOTAN believes humans are incapable of running the planet, a point of view to which I can readily relate.

The Doctor entered the nightclub in search of Dodo and the bar staff immediately start digging his fab gear; Hannah responds with the most disbelieving expression I've ever seen since we started this project. And that's really saying something.

Hannah: What?! "He looks like a disc jockey"?!
Me: "He looks like that disc jockey." A particular one, not disc jockeys in general.
Hannah: Which one?
Me: Jimmy Savile, presumably.
Hannah: Ah... okay.
Me: Yes, probably best if we don't get into that.

And then we come to the moment I've been waiting for. Dodo is hypnotised by WOTAN and receives her instructions: "Doctor Who is required. Bring him here." I turn to Hannah, expecting her to erupt with apoplectic fury, but we segue into the credits without so much as a raised eyebrow.

Hannah: One of the characters was called Flash.
Me: Okay... not... you're not going to comment on what just happened?
Hannah: Why? What just happened?
Me: Weren't you listening to what he said?
Hannah: I didn't hear the last bit; I only heard him say "Doctor Who is required."
Me: ...
Hannah: What?
Me: You're not interested that they're calling him "Doctor Who", then?
Hannah: No.
Me: Okay, great.
Hannah: It's happened before.
Me: That's the first time he's ever been called "Doctor Who" on-screen, apart from in the credits.
Hannah: Really?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: Does it matter?

Episode 2

Hannah: Maybe WOTAN is asking one of the scientists "Doctor, who is required?".
Me: I'm sure that must be it.
Hannah: WOTAN wants to create new machines that are portable and have their own power unit included. So basically they need him to help invent the laptop.

Their first attempt to recruit him to the cause is not an unqualified success, and basically amounts to Dodo trying to guide him towards two men who are waiting across the road with a bottle and a cloth. Meanwhile, in a nearby warehouse, WOTAN's new "mobile computers" are already in production.

Hannah: I love how he just casually proffered a bottle of chloroform in the middle of the street. How have they already gathered everything they need to build these War Machines? Oh, and all the crates have got a "W" printed on them! A "WOTAN" logo! They've organised that very quickly. There's no way they got all this stuff together in less than one night.
Me: Astonishing, isn't it? It only takes the Post Office a few hours to build an army of war machines capable of world domination, but it took them five days to deliver my Father's Day card by first-class post.
Hannah: Oh, no.
Me: What's wrong?
Hannah: It's got spiky whisks. It's got four arms, and two of them are spiky whisks.

The workers even manage to take time out of their busy schedule to murder a local tramp ("Poor tramp"), whose death is somehow momentous enough to make the pages of the morning newspaper. After WOTAN fails to condition the Doctor over the phone (and thoroughly disturbs Hannah with the accompanying music) the Doctor expertly deprograms Dodo, wipes her memory of the whole ordeal, and sends her away to recover in Sir Charles' house in the countryside. Having achieved all this, he stops to wonder what Dodo knew about WOTAN's plan.

Hannah: Too late, you've already put her to sleep. Isn't it better to keep her memory, so that he can get information and know exactly who or what he's up against?

When WOTAN's pet project is finally unveiled, Hannah is even less impressed than before; as far as she's concerned it's nothing more than a bigger and bulkier version of a Dalek, gliding around with its waving arms and whisk-shaped guns.

Hannah: It's a tank with arms. I wonder where I've seen that kind of design before.
Me: Surely most tanks are armed?
Hannah: Ha. No, it's a small portable tank with arms.
Me: A portable tank? As opposed to what, a fish tank?
Hannah: It looks silly. Clumsy, inefficient, slow and hard to manoeuvre. What is it doing? It's just knocking into everything!

During the credits, Hannah gets to play her favourite game.

Hannah: Is Dodo going to be on holiday next week?
Me: I genuinely don't know how to answer that.

Episode 3

Me: I can tell you're impressed with the War Machines.
Hannah: Bollocks. They're careening around all over the place like drunk toddlers.
Me: When was the last time you saw a drunk toddler?
Hannah: A video on YouTube. Although to be honest I think it was just a toddler.

While the Doctor and Sir Charles await Ben's return ("There's all kinds of bad things happening, and he's sitting there drinking?") and a truckload of army soldiers prepare to tackle the War Machines ("Aww, what a big radio!"), the hypnotised Polly is starting to question her conditioning.

Hannah: Why is it that always one of the main characters that manages to break their programming? It's never one of the other random guys who thinks "maybe I shouldn't be doing this" and just leaves.
Me: I think the main characters are supposed to be made of stronger stuff.
Hannah: They're just people.

The battle in Covent Garden shows that the soldiers' weapons are predictably useless against War Machine 3, although the War Machine's weaponry doesn't look any more formidable.

Hannah: Look at him, firing his smoke-whisk.
Me: They're hardly likely to fire actual ammunition around all these crates of explosives, are they?
Hannah: Maybe they're just fire extinguishers and the War Machines are being misunderstood. Why do they keep crashing into all these piles of empty boxes? Are they not dramatic enough by themselves? They've got mallets for arms - which are only really useful for crushing things - and they've got the fire extinguisher whisks. Two mallets and two smoky whisks.

The episode ends with one of the all-time great dramatic cliffhangers: everyone decides to make a hasty strategic withdrawal except the Doctor, who stands his ground to face the War Machine alone.

Hannah: Uh... Doctor? You wanna, like, run? No?

Episode 4

Hannah: That's just blatant vandalism.

Either the War Machines are very keen on wanton destruction, or the props are so cumbersome that the production team can't steer them properly.

Hannah: It's like a cowboy, shooting its guns into the air. It really doesn't like telephone boxes, does it?

Luckily we have Kenneth Kendall to bring some much-needed credibility to the proceedings.

Hannah: Is this a real television newsreader?
Me: Yes, he's the first celebrity ever to play themselves in Doctor Who. He also plays the BBC announcer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Speaking of things whose origin and purpose are still a total mystery, the War Machine is surrounded by a magnetic field when it trundles straight into the Doctor's blindingly obvious trap.

Hannah: It's a silly robot in a boxing ring.

The Doctor reprograms the War Machine to enter Brett's office and destroy HAL (excuse me, "WOTAN"), almost killing Polly in the process. Presumably most of the scientists weren't so lucky.

Hannah: It feels a little bit anticlimactic; the Doctor just tinkered with a robot and sent it in. He didn't have to have a heart-to-heart with WOTAN.
Me: "A heart-to-heart with WOTAN"?
Hannah: Yeah, the Doctor often likes to try and talk his enemies down before he destroys them.
Me: It's a computer; what do you want him to say?
Hannah: It's a sentient computer! It would have been nice for them to have a little talk, even if it was just: "I'm the Doctor, what do you want?" "Everything." "Well, you can't have that, and I'm going to stop you." It seems like a bit of an abrupt way to defeat something that was going to take over the world.

The Doctor returns to the TARDIS now that everything has been resolved. Well, almost.

Hannah: So where is Dodo? She was on holiday... wasn't she? Is she not coming back?

Ben and Polly bring the Doctor a message from Dodo; she's decided to stay behind in London.

Hannah: That's not a proper goodbye! She left in the middle of a story?
Me: Yep. Episode 2 was the last you'll ever see of her.
Hannah: In the middle of a story? Why would you not even say goodbye?
Me: It's not the only abrupt departure in the series, but it's the worst offender by a country mile.

But it's okay, because Ben and Polly end up boarding the TARDIS when he's not looking.

Hannah: Has he left again without realising that they've come on board? That's just... why doesn't he just ask people if they'd like to come with him?

The Score

Hannah: I like the new style. I don't know how I feel about WOTAN; he was obviously a bit rubbish if he can be defeated by a handful of people. And as for the War Machines themselves, I can't even begin to say just how rubbish they are; I don't see how he was ever going to take over the world with those. So there are lots of good elements, but overall there was a little bit too much running around and not doing much, with a slightly weak ending.

7/10