The Smugglers Episode 4

The one where we find out who Ringwood, Smallbeer and Gurney were...

I'd only ever really known George A Cooper as the interfering caretaker Mr Griffiths in BBC school drama Grange Hill before I found him in Doctor Who, so it's quite a surprise to find that he gives very good, convincing villain. He makes Cherub a thoroughly unpleasant character, and although he does sometimes stray a little too far over the top in his performance, he's certainly one of the best baddies of the Hartnell era. If he'd introduced a little more balance to his performance, toning it down at times to make him more quietly threatening, it would have been spot on.

If Cherub is a shouty, snarling bully, then Captain Pike is merely all these things in a frilly shirt. Michael Godfrey pleasingly does manage to bring light and shade to Pike, coming over as broodingly nasty one moment, and outrageously demented the other. It seems as soon as Pike uncovers Avery's hidden gold, he turns into a swivel-eyed monster, possessed by greed and obsessed with betrayal in the ranks. He seems hellbent on murdering the Doctor (aka Sawbones), and the energy Godfrey puts in to his final scenes is unsettling to hear!

The Smugglers Episode 3

The one where the Doctor, Ben and Polly explore a graveyard...

Episode 3 of The Smugglers is somewhat inconsequential, so I'll start off by addressing the whole dating issue that surrounds this story. It's stated a number of times that this is the 17th century (ie, somewhere between 1600-1700), but in order for the references to Henry Avery and his treasure to work, this has to be set in the 18th century. Avery went missing in 1696, and it is thought he died sometime in the next two or three years (it's not actually known where and when he died), so The Smugglers surely has to be set after that.

Henry Avery actually appears in The Curse of the Black Spot 45 years later, which is apparently set in 1699. He's still alive and well here, although he does "go missing" from history when he and his crew disappear into the stars aboard the Siren's spaceship. That's all bunkum though, and really does not help the dating dilemma in The Smugglers at all!

The Smugglers Episode 2

The one where Polly pretends to be possessed by the Doctor...

The Smugglers is a terribly violent story, which I suppose is inevitable given that we're dealing with criminals and cut-throats. But there are things which happen in this story which could never, ever happen in Doctor Who today, most notably the copious use of blades. At one point, the ironically-named Cherub mentions cutting off the Doctor's ears, and also refers to "what them Mexican Indians can do to a bloke's eyelids". Pretty gruesome stuff, and bearing in mind that we've already seen Cherub murder poor old Joseph Longfoot with a knife between the shoulder blades (cut out by Australian censors so that we can watch the brief sequence today!).

Incidentally, I was intrigued enough to look up what Cherub's talking about in relation to Mexican Indians and eyelids. Yeurgh! It seems the Comanche people used to cut off people's eyelids so that their eyes seared in the sun. There are countless other tortures attributed historically to the Comanche, involving pretty much any body part you wish to name, so Cherub has obviously done his homework (and maybe even some work experience!). "Let me give him a taste of Thomas Tickler!" Cherub threatens the Doctor at one point. I dread to think what that would have entailed...

The Smugglers Episode 1

The one where Ben gets his kit off...

Doctor Who had been off-air for a couple of months, and when Season 4 kicked off with The Smugglers, the production team was kind enough to put a quick recap at the start of episode 1 to remind viewers that new companions Ben and Polly had (forcibly) boarded the TARDIS.

Ben and Polly don't seem too put out by the fact there appears to be an entire futuristic control room inside a police box. Ben wonders where "all this came from", but that's pretty much it. The Doctor explains (very quickly and freely, it has to be said) that his TARDIS is a time and space ship, and although Ben in particular does not believe the Doctor, the architectural and scientific impossibility of the dimensionally transcendental police box just gets glossed over.

The War Machines Episode 4

The one where the Eleventh Doctor makes an unexpected cameo...

Sometimes it's the little things that delight me most about Doctor Who. I think a lot of fans get enjoyment out of the silly little incidentals of their favourite show, those little moments that make them chuckle or get the hairs standing up on the back of the neck. Those private little moments that may mean nothing to everybody else, but which you always notice and treasure - your bits of Doctor Who!

I do enjoy the semi-regular feature in Doctor Who Magazine called Supporting Artist of the Month, which highlights some of the oft-missed performances by those uncredited people who mill about in the background, filling scenes and adding atmosphere. There's one particular supporting artist in this episode (who I think may well crop up in two different places) who I believe is a foreshadowing of a future Doctor! He's in the background of the studio scenes outside the Burrows warehouse, fiddling with equipment in a white coat (see picture on right). He looks the spitting image of Matt Smith! He possibly pops up again briefly in the scene where the US correspondent is reporting the news: he's busy on a phone, so it's hard to tell, but it looks like the same guy (and to be honest, I don't blame the other extra who crosses the screen, gently tapping him on the waist as he passes - is there more to these two supporting characters' relationship than we can ever know?).

The War Machines Episode 3

The one where the Army mounts an assault on a Covent Garden warehouse...

The design of the War Machines is both unwieldy and impressive at the same time. Raymond London's tank-like inventions are certainly formidable physically and defensively: as well as club arms that smash (mainly tables or empty crates), they have flammable gas-spraying guns, a miraculous radio signal that can jam rifles and machine guns, and a blinding headlight. These machines look and act like the all-conquering behemoths that they are, and they're certainly more convincing than their 1980s cousins, the Cleaners from Paradise Towers.

On the minus side, they're somewhat too clunky and bulky to convince me that they can take over the world. They certainly don't have stealth on their side (the incessant chirruping computer noises put pay to that), and I can't imagine how they'd actually get through a normal door, or down a narrow alley, or along a third-floor corridor, or even over an uneven patch of land. They have a range of about 30ft (or is it yards?) with their weaponry, but that's not good enough to catch every human being on the planet. WOTAN has an ambitious plan, but it needs a bit of work if it wants to conquer every major city in the world.

The War Machines Episode 2

The one where Dodo gets sent away to the country...

"Doc-tor Whoooo isssss re-quir-ed! Bring him heeeeere!" hisses the newly-discovered voice of WOTAN, thus opening a can of worms which has reverberated down through the decades and still has an impact today. WOTAN refers to the Doctor as Doctor Who, as does Professor Brett ("Top priority is to enlist Doctor Who"). Why he calls him Doctor Who is a mystery, unless it's his actual name (after all, WOTAN even knows what TARDIS stands for, so maybe it also knows what the Doctor's real name is?). Some of this is addressed with tongue firmly in cheek in World Enough and Time 51 years later of course.

A quick mention also for Gerald Taylor's thoroughly spooky voice for WOTAN (the end titles would have us believe that WOTAN is actually real and plays itself!), which is eerie, rasping and ghostly, not at all what you'd expect a computer to sound like. But it's all the better for that, swapping predictable electronic Dalek-style monotone for a more menacing vocalisation.

The War Machines Episode 1

The one where the Doctor visits the hottest nightclub in town...

Right from the outset, The War Machines is different, new and fresh. After the usual 20-second opening titles, we get an animated introduction of the story title, episode number and writer, with a drum roll to accompany it. This is highly unusual, but is another example of how the people behind Doctor Who were making changes to what was by then a tired format.

We're then treated to a glorious, sweeping view of the London skyline, and then a zoom into a leafy park where the TARDIS materialises. This is seriously progressive camerawork from director Michael Ferguson, a young talent who was only 28 years old at the time. His ambition and drive shines from the very first seconds of this episode. It feels very New Series.