The War Games

Could you imagine if the copies we had back were the Australian cut copies? Oh dear, it'd be like the Faceless Ones one all over again.

Oh, you may not know that because I've not done the Faceless Ones yet, but... uh for years i'd only i only had because we have two copies of that isn't that nuts we have two copies of the faceless ones one one is the cut australia copy and that was where my bootleg had come from and it only has tiny little bits of uh of comedian hands missing and the death of inspector gascoigne uh and it's not the same episode at all it needs those extra bits um though on the first australian broadcasts says timothy k oh no he's just said that and here's some extremely useless trivia that absolutely no one will care about the shot of the cybermen on the steps of st paul's used in the war games in color came from this episode not the reprise of episode seven the shot was one of mine ah of course that's why he's called that's chroma you see it's all about the color well congratulations timothy and thank you for that bit of uh that bit of trivia we love that sort of stuff and we love the fact that you're here uh frank shale says cyber salurians well they do have the same voice peter halliday as does the ambassador's captain halliday is all over three of the first four unit stories Yes, he is, isn't he? He really is.

He's the voice of the Silurians and the voice of the Ambassadors of Death, as well as the voice of the Cybermen here.

Although, obviously, the job he's really doing is packering.

And finally, on our top individual episode list makers episode, Blaine Coghlan says, Very, very nice.

Avoiding any snaps with you guys, mine would be, in chronological order, The War Games 9, the climax of the main story, the final comeuppance of the Chiefs secured in war, and that cliffhanger.

Planet of the Spiders 2, the entire cast and crew having enormous fun for a whole episode.

The Deadly Assassin 3, just an astonishingly bold idea, incredibly executed.

Mm.

And, and but that's because I remember, you know, when you look back and see the War Games titles or the, or Inferno, you go, "It's diff- it's different, this one," you know?

Mm.

And what is essential is to try and make something which the next generation will find nostalgic when they're older.

I think I might have skipped everything else and gone, "Oh, no, that's the one that everybody talks about that does all of those really radical things with continuity," and, "Hang on a minute.

How can we have a Time Lord villain before the War Games?" All of this.

Um, and I love it.

It's just great.

Um, it's definitely very clever.

Uh, it's, it feels weirdly like a Jonathan Morris script more than a Simon Guerrier one, 'cause it's doing lots of puzzles with, uh, with time.

Um, and, and literally with time as well, 'cause, you know, you've got sort of time slowing down in it, which is something we saw in the war games a little bit, if, if you wanna find any evidence of it in Sharon's era.

Um, [clears throat] I do think there's a lot to enjoy here.

And so if you get a great director, you get a great production.

Look at David Maloney's productions before the Hinchcliffe era, Planet of the Daleks, uh, The Krotons, The War Games, which is actually very good, but then look at the standard that he achieves working in conjunction with Hinchcliffe, Genesis, Planet of Evil, Deadly Assassin, Talons of Weng-Chiang.

Everything is elevated because you've got this great director in charge.

Just in terms of why this story looks so good, the production values are so high, it's actually devoid of monsters, though, really.

He's thinking

... we've had a few of these, you know, the, the Daleks in color and the War Games in color-

Yeah

... uh, these, these things, and they're always cut by Ben Cook.

On TV we had Children of Earth Day One.

DVD releases, we had The War Games, Torchwood Children of Earth, Remembrance of the Daleks Special Edition, the Torchwood Children of Earth soundtrack was released, the Doctor Who Annual 2010 was released, from Big Finish we had The Company of Friends with the Eighth Doctor, and the companion chronicle The Drowned World with the First Doctor, Stephen, Sarah Kingdom, and Robert, and the Bernie Summerfield audio was Absence.

Torchwoods everywhere! Arguably, this is the most successful in terms of appreciation, I guess you'd say, Torchwood ever gets.

It's on the radio.