“The War Machines” is the last adventure of the third season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1966. It’s a four parts adventure written by Ian Stuart Black and directed by Michael Ferguson.
The story
The Tardis materializes in London near the Post Office Tower and the First Doctor (William Hartnell) has the strange feeling that there’s something evil at work. Together with Dodo (Jackie Lane), he visits the tower and discovers that a supercomputer called WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue) has recently been activated and will soon be connected to the most powerful computers in the world.
While the Doctor investigates WOTAN, Dodo and its creator’s secretary Polly (Anneke Wills) go have some fun in a nightclub where they meet Ben Jackson (Michael Craze) but Dodo receives a telephone signal from the supercomputer that controls her mind and orders her to bring it the Doctor.
Extras
This DVD contains a fair amount of extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, Radio Times Billings, a trailer about the next DVDs to be released and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.
There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track moderated by Clayton Hickman by actress Anneke Wills and director Michael Ferguson.
Now and Then. A look at the locations used for this adventure to see how they looked in 1966 and how they look today.
Blue Peter. A compilation of clips from the show Blue Peter connected to this adventure.
One Foot in the Past. A documentary about the Post Office Tower.
WOTAN Assembly. A documentary on the restoration of this adventure. Some copies were found in various states of preservation. In the detailed work carried out they also used audio recordings made at the time by some fans so more than ever this DVD was produced with passion.
War Machine Design Plan. The design of the “war machines” in PDF format.
“The War Machines” is the first real “Doctor Who” contemporary adventure. Previously the “Planet of Giants” was also set on present Earth but the protagonists were reduced to a height of a few centimeters. Instead, this time there were no tricks and this adventure included various elements of London in the ’60s.
Producer Innes Lloyd started his work on “Doctor Who” in the third season and decided to replace historical adventures thinking that the audience got tired of them. Therefore he decided to produce adventures set in the present or the near future with elements more rigorously scientific.
Script editor Gerry Davis met with Dr. Christopher “Kit” Pedler from University of London considering him a potential scientific consultant for “Doctor Who”. Davis asked him to imagine what would happen if somehow the Post Office Tower took over. Pedler said that it would be the work of a computer that can communicate with the rest of the world via telephone.
This idea was by far the best Gerry Davis received by all the scientific consultant candidates he spoke with so not only he offered the job to Kit Pedler but also decided to have it developed by writer Ian Stuart Black. This is why Pedler is credited in “The War Machines” titles.
The development of that idea however led to a script full of plot holes. WOTAN’s plan in fact doesn’t seem the result of a good strategy because the supercomputer acts before being connected to the other most important computers in the world. He had only to wait a few days and the conquest of the world would’ve been much easier.
The Doctor, who conveniently detects a threat from the start, is easily accepted even by the authorities and that’s not credible, especially because in the classic “Doctor Who” series he often got in trouble because no one knew him.
At the time, various slow pace adventures were produced consisting of several episodes, instead in “The War Machines” the pace is very fast by the standards of the time. For once it would’ve been better to extend the story to develop it better and avoid other minor plot problems.
Another novelty of this adventure is represented by the change of companions for the Doctor: it’s in fact the last in which Dodo appears while Ben and Polly are introduced. Considering the fact that Steven left the Doctor at the end of the previous adventure, this means that in “The War Machines” a total change of companions is completed.
Dodo isn’t exactly the most beloved companion in “Doctor Who” history. She appears only in a few adventures often changing her accent and that means that there was a consistency problem in the character. Actress Jackie Lane’s contract expired with the second episode of “The War Machines” and she hasn’t even a farewell scene. The fact that even at production level they didn’t know what to do with Dodo is confirmed by the fact that producer Innes Lloyd wrote Jackie Lane a letter of apology explaining that she had been a victim of circumstances.
In the creation of the new companion it was decided not to use teenage girls like the ones seen before but one a few years older. Thus the character of Polly was created and simultaneously Ben as well: unlike Dodo, they had much success.
Despite its flaws, I think that “The War Machines” is a funny adventure with a style that partly compensates for the substantial issues. This story set on Earth was successful and in some ways this became the forerunner of the stories where the Doctor works with UNIT produced years later.
The contents of the DVD are particularly interesting for “Doctor Who” fans so I recommend buying it to them, others can buy it if they find it at a bargain price.
