Jump to content

The War Machines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.167.250.105 (talk) at 17:00, 20 March 2008 (→‎Continuity). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

027 – The War Machines
Doctor Who serial
File:Warmachine.jpg
A War Machine
Cast
Production
Directed byMichael Ferguson
Written byIan Stuart Black
Kit Pedler (idea)
Script editorGerry Davis
Produced byInnes Lloyd
Executive producer(s)None
Production codeBB
SeriesSeason 3
Running time4 episodes, 25 mins each (material missing from parts 3-4)
First broadcastJune 25–July 16, 1966
Chronology
← Preceded by
The Savages 		Followed by →
The Smugglers
List of episodes (1963–1989)

The War Machines is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 4 weekly parts from June 25 to July 16, 1966. This serial is the first appearance of Michael Craze and Anneke Wills as the companions Ben Jackson and Polly, as well as marking the departure of Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet. It should not be confused with the Second Doctor story The War Games.

Synopsis

The Doctor and Dodo arrive in 1966 London and see that the Post Office Tower has been completed. Inside is WOTAN, an advanced computer that is supposed to link up with computer systems worldwide. However, WOTAN has plans of its own.

Plot

When the TARDIS lands in London near the Post Office Tower, the Doctor is unsettled by it. There the Doctor and Dodo meet Professor Brett, the creator of WOTAN (Will Operating Thought ANalogue), an advanced computer that even knows what TARDIS stands for. On C-Day, WOTAN will be linked to other major computers to take them over, including those of the White House, Cape Kennedy and the Royal Navy.

WOTAN begins to have its own agenda and takes control of Professor Brett through a hypnotic beeping noise. WOTAN's hypnotic influence is exerted over many humans including Dodo until the Doctor breaks her out of it. He subsequently arranges for her to be sent to the country house of Sir Charles Summer, leader of the Royal Scientific Club, who has come to the aid of the Doctor.

WOTAN uses its hypnotised workforce in a secret warehouse near Covent Garden to construct an army of War Machines to take over the world. Major Green, the chief of security at the Post Office Tower, has been programmed to oversee the construction of the War Machines. He ensures that any intruders are dealt with and all humans continue working on the project until they drop. Polly, Professor Brett's secretary, is one such production line convert, though a friend of hers, merchant seaman Ben Jackson, evades the production line. He seeks out the Doctor, whom he met through Dodo before her conditioning, and helps flesh out what is known about the threat of WOTAN and the War Machines.

The Doctor alerts the army to the warehouse production factory, but their bullets are useless against the War Machines. He knows WOTAN is behind the plot too, but can do nothing as humans cannot enter the Tower through the strong hypnotic beams being emitted. Given scientific and political support, the Doctor manages to capture a War Machine using an electromagnetic trap. He changes its programming and then uses it to enter the Post Office Tower and destroy WOTAN. This ends the threat and immediately releases the human slaves from the hypnosis.

Ben and Polly, the two "fab" young people the Doctor has befriended during the adventure, meet him at the TARDIS to explain Dodo has got in touch and decided to stay in London. The Doctor thanks them and heads into the Police Box - followed by Ben and Polly, who enter the TARDIS to return the old man his key. They are whisked off into time and space...

Cast

Cast notes

WOTAN received a credit as "And WOTAN" at the end of the first three episodes, the only time a fictional character was credited as itself in the series.

Continuity

  • This serial is the first in the series to be completely set on present day Earth. The previous landings of the TARDIS in the 1960s were either brief (the Empire State Building sequence from The Chase, several landings during The Daleks' Master Plan, the stop over on Wimbledon Common in The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve) or exceptional (Planet of Giants, where the TARDIS crew were shrunk down to the size of insects and could not fully interact with present day humans). Here, for the first time, we see the Doctor take a leading role in the protection of the planet, which becomes a regular theme for the series from here on.
  • The decision to set more episodes on present-day Earth was taken because the producers felt that the audience was becoming bored with the purely historical episodes that had been a major element of the show to date. As a result, this story marks the beginning of the turn away from historical stories. The two historical stories of the next season, "The Smugglers" and "The Highlanders", were to be the last historical stories until Season 19's "Black Orchid".
  • The titling style of each episode in this serial differs from the standard titles of other serials. Instead of a title overlay, after the "Doctor Who" logo has faded, the screen shifts to a solid background containing four inversely-coloured rectangles aligned down the left-hand side (reminiscent to an old-style computer punch card). The title, one word at a time, scrolls upwards - "THE", "WAR", "MACH", "INES" - with a final flash displaying the complete title on two lines. Another flash reveals the writer, the next flash reveals the word "EPISODE", and the final flash shows the actual episode number. All of the lettering displayed in this titling sequence is shown in a retro-computer font. Each of the four episodes' title sequences have slight variations to them.
  • WOTAN is pronounced "Votan" – as, it is explained, the Norse god sometimes was. It stands, though, for Will Operating Thought ANalogue, which is indicative of its ability to connect to the human brain.
  • WOTAN refers to the Doctor as "Doctor Who" – the only time the character is ever given this name within the series' narrative (though he is often credited as such in the end titles). While there is nothing in the series that directly contradicts it, many fans see this as an error and several theories have tried to account for it, one noting that WOTAN may have been misinformed, since it also described the Doctor as "human" (but see also Doctor Who (1996)). WOTAN also manages to discern the meaning of the acronym TARDIS; how it manages to do so is not explained.
  • At the start of the serial, the Doctor comments that he feels the same sensation as he felt when the Daleks were around. While this appears to be intended to equate the War Machines and WOTAN to the Daleks, it is interesting to note that the events of the serial are revealed later in the series to happen contemporaneously with the Second Doctor serial The Evil of the Daleks.
  • Another series entry that preshadows the idea of the internet is The Green Death, which features a very similar computer villain. The Face of Evil also sees the Doctor encountering another such being (this time having been linked with his own brain rather than that of a human) and commenting on how familiar the threat has become.
  • The Past Doctor Adventures novel The Time Travellers by Simon Guerrier is set in an alternate reality where the Doctor had not been around to stop WOTAN. The villain is never referred to by name, only as "the Machine", and while he was overthrown thousands were left insane by his mind-control and Britain was reduced to a technologically backward dictatorship.

Production

  • Working titles for this story included The Computers.[1]
  • This is the last William Hartnell era serial, and the only serial featuring Anneke Wills and Michael Craze, to exist in its entirety.
  • Jackie Lane's contract expired midway through production of this story. She does not appear again after episode two; Dodo's off-screen departure is relayed to the Doctor by Polly.
  • Michael Craze provided the voice of a policeman heard in Episode four.
  • One War Machine was made, the production team changed the numbers to symbol the different machine.

In print

The Target novelisation by Ian Stuart Black

A novelisation of this serial, written by Ian Stuart Black, was published by Target Books in February 1989.

Broadcast, VHS and CD releases

  • Aside from its soundtrack (recorded off-air by fans), this serial was lost in the junk of episodes in the 1970s. The master videotapes for the story were the last of those starring William Hartnell to be junked, surviving until 1974.[2] The 16mm film telerecording copies held by BBC Enterprises were also the last of their kind to be destroyed, surviving until 1978, shortly before the junking of material was halted by the intervention of fan Ian Levine.[3]
  • In 1978 a collector in Australia provided a copy of episode 2. Later in 1984 copies of all four episodes were returned from Nigeria. Episodes 2, 3 and 4 all had cuts to them, but most have been restored due to a combination of the other copy of episode 2, material used in a promotional item on the BBC's Blue Peter and censored clips from Australia. Some of the restored footage did not have its accompanying soundtrack, and so the missing sound was restored from the off-air recordings.
  • To date, only episodes 3 and 4, do not exist in their entirerty as was originally intended. Episode 3 is missing a visual brief bit of dialogue with Krimpton talking. This was replaced in the VHS release with a combination of a shot of WOTAN with the accompanied dialogue from the off-air recordings. Episode 3 is also missing around 59 seconds worth of the battle in the warehouse. Episode 4 is missing only a small amount of material. The first instance occurs with the man in the telephone box. Part of the continuing closeup of the man talking on the telephone is missing, but this was compensated on the VHS release by continuing in audio-only over the top of the beginning of the high shot of the phone box. There is also two lines of dialogue missing when Polly reports back to WOTAN. This scene, however, has not been re-instated for the VHS release as it was felt that there wouldn't be enough visual material to drop into the gap.
  • The serial was released on VHS in 1997, with an item from Blue Peter and a BBC1 "globe ident" (from the first part of the story) as an extra.
  • An audio CD of the serial's soundtrack, with linking narration by and bonus interview with Anneke Wills, was released in 2007.
  • Anneke Wills recently told fans that she had recorded a commentry track for a DVD. It is not known when the DVD will be released.

References

  1. ^ Stated on A brief history of Time (Travel) (column on right)
  2. ^ Pixley, Andrew (June 2005). "No Further Interest". Nothing at the End of the Lane — The Magazine of Doctor Who Research and Restoration (2): pp. 38–43. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  3. ^ Bignell, Richard (June 2005). "Withdrawn, De-accessioned and Junked". Nothing at the End of the Lane — The Magazine of Doctor Who Research and Restoration (2): pp. 44–49. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

Reviews

Target novelisation

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_War_Machines&oldid=199625598"