On this tape, Doctor Who – The Gunfighters. An infamous story, considered one of the worst in the series history.
It starts with a song. Not necessarily a good sign. And the first cowboys we meet have some very English sounding american accents.
One actor who’s able to do a decent American accent is Shane Rimmer, though.
Before episode 3 there’s the end of an episode of Neighbours. I love the fact that Jim from Neighbours, actor Alan Dale, has carved out a great career for himself in the US playing vice presidents and other stern political figures. He’s in loads of things that you wouldn’t expect. And only an hour before, someone on twitter retweeted a tweet of his back on the set of Neighbours. Another weird bit of synchronicity.
https://twitter.com/RealAlanDale/status/989991041058000896
Before episode 4 there’s another bit of Neighbours.
I’m failing to get any enthusiasm for this story. Westerns are so dull.
The end of the last episode has some non-contemporary titles instead of the original ones, probably because UK Gold didn’t show these in order. Annoying.
After this, recording switches, and there’s another bit of Neighbours.
Then, it’s more Doctor Who, which I didn’t know was on here. Episode One of The War Machines.
There’s a big computer, Wotan, which is going to be linked up to all other computers in the world. “Doesn’t this put a lot of power into the hands of whoever operates Wotan?” “Nobody operates Wotan. Wotan operates itself. The computer is merely a brain which thinks logically without any political or private ends.” And people are still making the same kind of statement today, about AI systems, without realising the inherent bias that we build into pretty much everything.
There’s a swinging nightclub scene where companion Dodo goes with new arrival Polly, and they meet young sailor Ben.
Naturally, Wotan doesn’t have the best interests of humanity in mind, and he’s soon taking people over, including Dodo. There’s a controversial moment at the end where Wotan intones “Doctor Who Is Required”, thus canonically stating that the Doctor’s name really is Doctor Who. Many fans refuse to accept this.
In the next episode, Wotan starts building war machines so it can take control. They’re not that impressive.
Dodo tries to get Doctor under Wotan’s influence, but the telephone call he makes to hypnotize him was obviously a bad line, as it didn’t work. Surprising, since the call came direct from the Post Office Tower.
There’s another snatch of Neighbours before the next episode.
The Doctor gets the minister to send the army in to destroy the War Machines. Doesn’t seem like a Doctor Who solution.
There’s a dramatic cliffhanger where the Doctor walks slowly towards the War Machine as the soldiers flee, and he gets a ‘hero moment’.
Some newsreading from Kenneth Kendall.
The end of the episode sees the departure of Dodo – she doesn’t even get to say goodbye, she just sends a message via Polly and Ben. Seems a bit abrupt.
After this, recording continues for a short time with the start of The Duchess of Duke Street. It’s Christopher Biggins and James Laurenson.
The tape ends during this.
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