The War Machines | Sophisticated Idiots

The War Machines
1966

The War Machines review: The First Doctor, played by William Hartnell, faces down a war machine

or Ben and Polly's Little Kingdom

or Dead as a Dodo

Having shed his nonsensical David Tennant skin, Ncuti Gatwa’s introduction as the Doctor saw him strutting his magnificent stuff in a nightclub.

Intoxicatingly beautiful, he dominated the dancefloor with supreme confidence and effortless style. The very definition of sexy.

Yet this wasn’t the Doctor’s first rodeo. A mere 58 years earlier William Hartnell showed his upstart future self how it was done, sashaying across the dancefloor and desperately gripping onto the bar with all the dexterity of a first-time ice skater.

It’s summer 1966 and the Swinging Sixties have arrived to the extent that pop culture will never be the same again. The Beatles are writing Sgt Pepper’s, Bondmania is gripping the nation and England are a fortnight away from bagging the Jules Rimet (still gleaming).

Oh, and science fiction’s biggest star hangs out with his 20-something mates in a trendy London cattle market.

It may simply be a case of Hartnell getting another bucket list goal ticked off during his farewell tour before his role is nicked by Troughton, but the nightclub scenes are the highlight of The War Machines, a decidedly average Doctor Who adventure that at the same time manages to be astonishingly likeable.

We’re attributing this likeability to the fact everyone seems to be enjoying themselves (except for Dodo, whom we’ll return to later). Yes, even cranky old Billy Harts.

Maybe he’s been mellowed by the succession of colleagues abandoning him with such regularity, maybe it’s because it’s the end of the season and he’s got his bags packed for Mallorca, or maybe the slightly glazed jollity he’s sporting here is typical of a fella advancing in his vintage.

Whatever the reason, there’s something utterly charming about seeing him having such a thoroughly good time. Like your contented grandad after his annual glass of Harvey’s on Christmas afternoon.

True, it’s abundantly clear the old bugger can’t hear most of his fellow actors and precisely 50 per cent of his own lines are devoted to snapping, ‘what’s that child, hmm?’ (we were enjoying him rather patronisingly referring to the Minister the same way, until we turned on the subtitles which revealed he was using the character’s name of Charles. Which was disappointing), but this just adds to the level of whimsy that permeates throughout.

Also, is this one of the few stories in which the Doctor is not captured? Unfettered freedom definitely adds to the relaxed tone.

The contemporary London setting helps establish this cosy atmosphere from the outset and the Doctor and Dodo seem genuinely thrilled to be exploring the capital.

Nowadays the Doctor hangs out in the city more often than the EastEnders cast, but coming home was a real novelty for the show at the time. The TARDIS had been barrelling through time and space non-stop for three years since Babs and Ian massively exceeded their safeguarding duties to break into the Totter’s Lane junkyard.

In fact, this first episode is great. The recently opened BT Tower gets a good deal of screen time (Concorde’s PR flunkies will take another 20 years before abusing the Beeb’s proclivity for product placement with Time-Flight) as the latest beacon of architectural British muscle-flexing. It’s now owned by an American hotel chain, obvs.

Then we descend into an Elon Musk wet dream with AI being plugged into every major powerhouse on earth. Our worldly-wise audience immediately clocks that this is likely to go tits up, but it’s okay, we’re reassured of Wutan’s impressive credentials through its ability to calculate a square root and check the TARDIS Wiki page. Phew.

The press conference is hilarious. Here at Sophisticated Idiots we have attended many such an event and never have we experienced such a ham-fisted effort. Several comms chiefs will soon be joining Ben in drowning their sorrows at the Inferno bar.

Speaking of whom, Ben’s introduction in this story is brilliant.

He’s probably one of the best characterised companions of the entire series (a prototype for Jamie, we reckon) and his well-choreographed brawl is pleasingly authentic – better than any of the fisticuffs served up in the 70s. We’re also loving his kind of cockney drawl you only hear these days in Statham films.

He’s outshone by Polly though, a bold-as-brass quintessential 60s girl who demands the limelight in every scene. Her no-nonsense ‘snap out of it’ pep talk to a depressed Ben is pure gold and together, they’re a great double-act.

The War Machines could have been a great little two-episode curio if it just basked in its London setting and hypnotised a few dudes until the Doctor saves the day. Sadly, this is a four-parter and it becomes a drag.

Ironically, it suffers from the expectations of the 60s tropes by shoehorning a monster into the story, and as soon as the war machines themselves turn up - incredulously, knocked up in a single night by the Wutan mind-controlled slaves (the Wutan clan?) - the whole thing becomes a plod-fest.

While it’s impressive what the Blue Peter team can do with an empty box and some toilet roll tubes, the war machines themselves (that’s right, we won’t give them the distinction of caps) were never going to be a terrifying prospect.

Seeing them slowly bouncing off wooden props and taking 20 minutes to straighten up must have been embarrassing then, let alone viewed through the prism of modern effects.

We refuse to make allowances here for this being a budget-constrained show 60 years ago – we’ve already afforded this story more production design leeway than any Peter Davison entry is going to receive.

This is a production team who were able to devise and bring to life the Daleks. They have no excuse for their efforts on the war machines being so laughable.

Note to designers everywhere: steam does not make for a frightening weapon. All they achieve is making the battle scenes confusing and interminable. We’d rather watch Ben’s nightclub tussle on repeat.

Nevertheless, it was a shame that the titular tossers arrived at the BT Tower top-floor HQ without any preamble. We were genuinely looking forward to seeing how the oversized, non-manoeuvrable boxes were going to negotiate the lift and the tight corridors of the tower. A spin-off could have loomed.

And that’s it. Season Three wraps with a charming little tale that outstays its welcome but nonetheless makes us happy with its sheer 60s joy.

It just leaves us to share this exchange, a recording of an actual on-set conversation from two of the writers:

Writer 1: And that’s Season Three in the can. There’s nothing we’ve forgotten is there?

Writer 2: No, pretty sure we’ve got everything tied up neatly. Wutan’s destroyed, Ben and Polly snuck aboard the TARDIS. The cheque from the BT Tower guys will clear tomorrow.

Writer 1: Are we happy with how we left things with Dodo?

Writer 2: Who? Oh, crap. Didn’t we kill her off?

Writer 1: No, she went for a sleep.

Writer 2: I thought that was Hartnell.

Writer 1: Yeah, but he came back after lunch. How do we tell the audience her contract expired and that you and I split the cash we saved by not getting her back to film a farewell scene?

Writer 2: Umm…

Writer 1: Hurry up, Hartnell’s got his passport out and is grabbing his bags.

Writer 2: Err, get Polly to tell the Doctor that Dodo says she’s fine and not to worry about her?

Writer 1: Feel’s a bit dismissive.

Writer 2: Don’t worry, this’ll get wiped after broadcast anyway so no-one’ll remember.

Writer 1: Fair enough. Go for it.