Review- The War Games in colour

 

The idea of taking a vintage monochrome programme, colourising it and editing it down to less than half its original length is unusual. How many other series has this been done to? As someone who has really enjoyed the additional effects on some of the Seventies stories I’m glad that it is being done. Those who complain about it can be assured that the original versions are still there and still the official ones. This is a more fun way of watching old Doctor Who that may also help its appeal to younger audiences. It is art in a contemporary way, no less so than sampling or cover versions. So you can either enjoy them or ignore them.

 

The first edited and colourised story saw `The Daleks` corralled sometimes awkwardly from seven episodes into the equivalent of three and a half; here there is an even bigger task of squeezing about four hours into ninety minutes. Yet the results are much more successful than `The Daleks` perhaps because this story needed a good trim anyway. The result is an impressively muscular version of a previously flabby story that fair zips along sometimes to the point where it almost trips over itself, dialogue melting into the next scene. More than that it brings a sense of excitement and fun more suited to the second Doctor.

`The War Games` is an iconic story of course, containing the first sight and naming of the Doctor’s own race plus him speaking about why he left. Thus it’s influence spreads down the decades and beyond Doctor Who as well, the story being one of the inspirations for the tv series Outlander. We forget too that in the series lore introducing the Time Lords and then exiling the Doctor to Earth was just as iconoclastic a move as the likes of the War Doctor or the Timeless Child when shown so maybe we should be more generous about new developments. How widely the public learned of all this is debateable; by an odd quirk episode eight in which the Doctor’s background is explained for the first time was the least watched episode of the show for twenty years. That all being said, it is also a story whose significance hides its deficiencies. It is telling that save for the odd thing very little of the cut material is missed.

Thus it works much better than the `The Daleks` edit which cut crucial material concerning Ian and Barbara’s first encounter with an alien planet something that was too important to lose. The second Doctor’s swansong however is an altogether better candidate for this process being overlong and repetitive  to say the least presumably because it was expanded well beyond the original intended six episodes. Nothing is lost of the main narrative and this is a much easier watch than the original. Purists may complain that too many liberties have been taken but you can’t deny the focus of the story is sharpened considerably and for the first time it feels exciting to watch.

The Doctor, Zoe and Jamie arrive in what at first seems to be a First World War battlefield but it soon becomes clear things are not quite as they seem. Whereas the original version of the story takes an age to ramp this up, here we soon start seeing unusual aspects to proceedings and suspicion falls on the sinister General Smythe with his thick lensed glasses and hurry to have the travellers shot. But what’s that behind the painting in the house where he is headquartered? Noel Coleman incidentally is but the first of a slew of cold hearted antagonists who inhabit this story and each wear unusually thick spectacles. Presumably on account of being in charge, the War Lord gets a coloured pair which make him look as if he’s been shopping at Carnaby Street. Then again these spectacles underscore the story’s visual theme of things not being quite what they seem to be as well as  the participants in the Games being unable to see their technology. What are these aliens called though? Each takes the sobriquet of Chief so are they in fact named the Chieftains? Or the War Lords?  We will probably never know.

The opening sequence sets the pace for what has been turned into a frantic adventure which suits this story perfectly conveying the sheer chaos of the battlefield. It feels like we share just how crazy a time the companions have when they are in the thick of a situation like this. The editing is sharp and works really well yet loses none of the impact of what were always well staged scenes. One thing this version does is showcase just how well David Maloney directed the original. The battlefield sequences are filmed with fluidity and emphasise the dangerous surroundings.

The colourisation is excellent, less saturated than `The Daleks` was, with a lot more tonal subtlety. It also looks like the picture in the location scenes has been graded to match the familiar look of Seventies Doctor Who. A lot of the changes in fact seem aimed at suggesting this is as much the start of a new era of the series as it was the end of a previous one. The picture looks as if this material was shot recently rather than over fifty-five years ago, a clarity that works hand in hand with the edit. I do wonder though what the set designer in 1969 was thinking with the vivid walls of the War Lord’s headquarters which resembles a night club or boutique. The paper masks everyone is obliged to wear are odd too and along with the pulp sci-fi guns the whole place certainly captures the psychedelic late Sixties spirit. Inevitably the new effects do stand out though are subtly deployed for the most part so that by the time we see a SIDRAT zooming about in space it seems natural.

This version’s new music score is partially drawn from recent Doctor Who mixed with some familiar motifs, notably the Master theme from the Seventies. In fact a lot of aural effort is made to suggest that the War Chief is indeed that jackanapes and you can see why. Both in look and behaviour, he is very similar to Roger Delgado and fans have often speculated that he was the template that Terrance Dicks thought of when drawing up The Master. There’s nothing specific in `Terror of the Autons` to suggest it was intended but it’s so close it must have at least been subconsciously influenced. The difference is the snarling quality that Edward Brayshaw brings to what is a great performance that shows how well the actor got the tone of the story. I didn’t notice it but apparently there is the start of a regeneration noise mixed in after he’s been killed. Its notable that the barrage of (slightly overmixed) music ceases when the Doctor and the War Chief have their talk. Much as I like the rich score I do feel it sometimes intrudes a bit too much.

The extraneous material cut mostly involves a lot of running around, being captured and escaping yet some of what happens is used from later scenes of a character relating events to someone else. Thankfully the heavy handed flashbacks we had in `The Daleks` edit in which viewers were reminded of something they’d seen ten minutes earlier are absent. The only slight disappointment for me is the loss of some of the material between the War Chief and Security Chief which allowed Edward Brayshaw and James Bree to bicker. There is still quite a bit of them though.

We find Patrick Troughton in terrific form throwing all his energy into his last regular story. His cheekiness and sarcasm, his standing up to the antagonist and of course all that comedic running about are present and correct. I like the way he has of being flippant about important things; even when asked why he ran away from his home planet he simply says at first “I was bored”. Its only when things get really serious at his trial that he talks about the Time Lords not using their powers to deal with evil doings. Jamie and Zoe have less to do at least in the edited version where some of their material is cut especially relating to the setting up of the resistance.

I’ve always found the premise of the alien’s plan a bit flimsy. Even given the idea that humans are tthe most violent race in the Galaxy would a race that is clearly so powerful themselves really need to go to all this trouble? Especially given that these soldiers would be cut down in an instant by the Daleks or Cyberman or anyone else. For that matter why do the aliens choose only war zones for periods from before 1969? What about more powerful soldiers from the future?

After gliding along so well I do feel this version overwhelms the source material in the finale especially replacing those odd line drawings of potential faces for the Doctor with photos of future incarnations. This just draws attention away from the gravity of the scene. The new in -TARDIS regeneration is a bold move for sure but to me the close up of the third Doctor seemed to be AI generated and the sequence as a whole composed of too many different source elements to fully work.

Overall though I think this is a triumph which manages to achieve what all such projects aspire to and  potentially opens up the story for a new generation of viewers.