"And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way."
What an extraordinary way to conclude a decade. I don't think I've ever been quite this intimidated going into a Doctor Who story before. Ten farking episodes! At least there was a break in the middle of The Daleks' Master Plan. And it's all incredibly heavy stuff, as well. No feasts of Steven here. Where to even start? Maybe with a summary of the tone of the whole serial. The War Games is one big meditation on inevitability, the futility of war, and even death.
The clue is sort of in the name here. That and the writers' credits. I think Mac Hulke had to restrain himself a little bit, but the story comes close to saying the quiet part out loud in the scene where Smythe and von Weich, in their guises as a British and a German officer respectively, chuckle over a board as they merrily discuss sending their men to die against one another. Forget aliens, generals and chiefs of staff and things like that are the real War Lords. Although this message gets lost in the crush of episodes (and some strange characters like Villar), there's something wonderfully radical about the Doctor helping to muster a resistance movement made out of common soldiers of all nationalities.
Although it's anti-war, it's also not a pacifist story. This is evidenced by the trail of bodies that the resistance leave behind them. It's probably one of the most violent stories we've seen so far. I don't mind the dead War Lords so much; they more or less had it coming. But I still winced a little watching Carstairs gun down one Yankee soldier after another, knowing that they were all just being manipulated. They're just casualties of the War Lords' cruelty, and I don't think that the story quite sticks the landing on making that out like the tragedy it is.
And speaking of tragedy, for all the Doctor's efforts, the best he can really do for them is send them back to their own times and wars, and the games played by their own politicians rather than those of aliens. Very many of those people he rescued, I assume, would die after they returned anyway. It's a very grim realization, but fitting in that the Doctor's "triumph" in this story doesn't feel very much like one at all, doubly so from his perspective.
He doesn't know the half of it, because this is where, for a time, the Doctor's peregrinations must end. Having finally gotten himself into a predicament which he cannot possibly fix himself, he's forced to call upon his own people, here named for the first time as the Time Lords. When last we met another member of the Doctor's race, it was the Monk, a bumbling meddler whom the Doctor bested with naught more than a chuckle. This time's iteration on the theme, the War Chief (a character similar to the Master in many ways, but with a low cunning rather than the Master's sophisticated intelligence), is easily manipulated by the Doctor and killed by nameless security guards before the serial is done.
Then the full attention of the Time Lords at large is brought upon the occasion, and they dispatch the War Lords with almost pathetic ease. Even the eponymous War Lord (played to coldblooded perfection by the always good Philip Madoc), who seems so in control of the situation for most of the serial, is reacted to like a toddler having a tantrum by the assembled Time Lords. The way he dies shouting in fury, completely losing control of his fate, seems like a fitting end. And then they turn their attention on the Doctor. For once, there's no getting out of this fix. The Doctor is finished.
That brings us to the theme of death. Let's not get it twisted. They don't just exile the Doctor; they kill him. They disable his TARDIS, mind wipe his friends (in a manner scarcely kinder than the War Lords' processing), and destroy his current body, forcing him to change. More metaphorically, they cage him, restraining him to a single planet and a single century, decisively ending (for a time) the wandering that has characterized him since the beginning.
To boot, this is quite possibly the last time we can ask Doctor Who? with complete earnestness. We know what he is: a Time Lord. We know where he comes from: a planet of tatty sets full of self-important people who call themselves Lords. We even have one possible explanation for why he ran away: he was bored. Considering the ambiguous circumstances in which he started, this is an alarming turn of events indeed! But how much of it is true? How limiting for the character will it actually prove to be? Time will tell; it always does.
For now, though, we must say goodbye to the voyager, the eternal wanderer, the hermit without a name, a home, or a people. That hermit will return to us in time, but for now, the program must renew itself. The 1960s will end, the first humans will walk on the Moon, the Beatles will break up, and Doctor Who will die.
Long live Doctor Who.
"For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows
I took the blows
And did it my way."
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 19 March 2021.)
No comments:
Post a Comment