025 - The Gunfighters

Broadcast:

30^th April - 21^st May 1966

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Steven, Dodo

Adversary:

The Clanton Brothers

Written by:

Donald Cotton

Director:

Rex Tucker

Music:

Tristram Cary

Script Editor:

Gerry Davis

Producer:

Innes Lloyd

Average Viewers:

6.25m (6.5, 6.6, 6.2, 5.7)

Summary: Arriving in the Wild West, the Doctor finds himself mistaken for Doc Holliday and becomes the target of the Clanton Brothers' revenge. It's time for the gunfight at the O.K. Corral...

The Gunfighters represents some interesting points in Doctor Who's history. It is the last commissioned by the team of Wiles and Tosh, and therefore the last that Lloyd and Davis had to wrangle to fit their own style. Related to this is the fact that it is the last story to feature individual episode titles. As an historical adventure focusing on specific events, it is the first to contain serious misrepresentation of the facts (aside from the travellers' presence of course) and the last to focus on real events. It infamously received the lowest Audience Appreciation Index (though later figures were calculated differently and may not be comparable), the final episode in particular which also had one of the lowest number of viewers. On a brighter note, Anthony Jabobs who plays Doc Holliday, is the father of Matthew Jacobs who visited him on set and went on to write the TV Movie (where the Doctor returns to America and dons a Wyatt Earp costume!)

Around the world at the time, various political and military struggles continued. US troops in America reached a quarter million, while tens of thousands picketed the White House in protest. Mao Zedong issued the 'May 16 Notice' beginning the Cultural Revolution in the People's Republic Of China and intending to enforce communism by removing capitalist, traditional and cultural elements from Chinese society. It would last ten years and cripple the country politically, economically and socially.

In the UK, the Moors Murders trial ended with Ian Brady being found guilty of three murders, each carrying a life sentence, while Myra Hindley was found guilty of two murders and an accessory to the third. It would be almost twenty years before they were officially connected with their other two victims. A two month strike began by seamen, Liverpool won the First Division title while Everton won the FA Cup by scoring three goals in the last 16 minutes to overcome Sheffield Wednesday's 2-0 lead.

Musically, The Beach Boys released their "Pet Sounds" album, Bob Dylan released "Blonde On Blonde" and the British charts were topped by Manfred Mann's "Pretty Flamingo" and the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black". Meanwhile cinemas were showing Elvis Presley's Frankie And Johnny, Othello which featuring future Master actor Derek Jacobi, and most fittingly Westerns Ride Beyond Vengeance and Gunpoint. But how would the Doctor, Seven and Dodo cope when faced by pistol swinging, Stetson wearing, liquor swigging cowboys on a tight TV budget...?

... Not very well if you look at the audience figures, but Rex Tucker did a fantastic job as director using high and low angles as well as removable panels to allow cameras to shoot 'through' the walls and add extra spacial representation. The painted back-cloths and set walls go unnoticed, even in the crisp picture afforded by modern technology, and the only problematic piece of set is the bar in the saloon which rocks a little more than you might expect when bodies fall against it (one forwards, one backwards). The main criticism levelled at The Gunfighters is the relentless presence of "The Ballad Of The Last Chance Saloon" as sung by Linda Barron with occasional instrumental moments, but to Tristram Cary's credit, the musical style varies according to the mood of the story and despite what some people say the words add extra meaning and explanation to numerous scenes that aren't always able to convey full details. The fact that the song rolls on through each of the four episodes shouldn't be taken as a negative point because incidental music has always done that and we must remember that on its original broadcast a week would pass between each episode rather than watching them back to back. When broken up into half a dozen sections per week I believe it works perfectly well but I must also acknowledge the fact that all 27 in a single hour and a half sitting is a little much.

Like the audience of 1966, I don't like The Gunfighters a great deal. I appreciate it's high production values, even if it does lack the wide vistas one might expect with such a setting, but it is ultimately a Western and that just doesn't sit well with me. A Town Called Mercy revisited the theme last year and although it threw in sci-fi elements I still didn't really enjoy it. That said, I think it does reasonably well for those who like Westerns and have a reasonable knowledge of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp... though knowledge of the 1957 film Gunfight At The OK Corral would be more beneficial than knowledge of the true history since the film was the more prevalent source with several scenes lifted directly. It's also worth noting that Lloyd and Davis tried to change the feel of the inherited script by injecting a little extra comedy but for the most part I found it too forced and tacked on, though the Doctor's reaction to leaning on the barman's corpse is a nice dark touch.

To address the story then, the TARDIS lands unseen as it did in The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's Eve and when they learn where and when they are, Steven and Dodo raid the TARDIS wardrobe for suitable clothes and both end up with outfits more showbiz than real (as Marty McFly would in Back To The Future Part III. The Doctor introduces themselves as travelling players Steven Regret, - a Tenor, Dodo Dupont - wizard of the ivory keys, and Doctor Caligari (which elicits the exchange of "Doctor who?", "Yes, you're quite right") Meanwhile, the Doctor is nursing his tooth ache following the incident with Cyril's sweet at the end of The Celestial Toymaker and thus he makes his way into Doc Holliday's surgery to have it extracted. Steven and Dodo make their way to the Saloon and find themselves forced to act out their cover stories with Steven singing "The Ballad Of The Last Chance Saloon" while Dodo plays the piano.

From there, the story revolves around the Doctor reluctantly carrying Holliday's gun (because it would be rude not to have one) and therefore being misidentified as Holliday himself while Dodo and Steven get tangled up with Holliday and the Clantons respectively. There are elements of farce and silliness which don't sit well with the general tone and strong direction, most notably a rapid-fire shared line with the Clantons taking one word each to get over Phineas's stutter "K-k-k-kid, brother, Warren, Earp", and Steven's double-take at the dead barman. Similarly, Dodo has a moment with Doc Holliday when he is effectively holding her prisoner. She suddenly becomes headstrong and masterful in an attempt to get away, taking his gun and pointing it at him but she drops the attitude when he points out that her aim is way off "oh, I'm sorry. How about this" and she eases again when he backs down. The story ultimately leads to the gunfight at the OK Corral, of course, which takes a good three and a half minutes to play out and has a wonderful lingering final shot, quite in contrast to the 'funny' business, as was the moment when Steven was about to be linched and briefly had a noose around his neck.

Apart from the ill-judged humour and historical inaccuracies, there are a number of inadvertent errors. Early on, Dodo comes to the top of the saloon stairs having heard a shot during a scuffle but Doc later claims that she saw him fire his gun. The Doctor recognises Johnny Ringo from a wanted poster he had seen earlier yet the poster only had his face and not his name! There's a major line fluff in the first episode as the Clantons realise they won't recognise Holliday "Now let's get this straight, you mean you don't know where Holliday... you... you ne', you never met Holliday either?" and Anthony Jacobs seems to struggle with his lines several times throughout the story and uses his American drawl to cover it, only an occasion in the second episode gives the game away as the line he eventually delivers doesn't quite make sense "I'll be back just as soon as you've finished breaking up my character" instead of "I'll be back quicker'n you can tear my character to pieces"

Following the gunfight, the story wraps up pretty quickly with the travellers back at the TARDIS and saying goodbye, all without any real reflection on what has just happened, merely a summary that everyone is dead - pretty shocking given the Doctor's repeated asertion of his dislike of guns. It has been suggested that a better ending would have been for them to get away during the gunfight and let it play out without them then cut to the TARDIS scene which is really the start of the next story. As presented, the travellers return to the TARDIS immediately followed by a fade to black (to represent the passing of time) and the very next scene is them arriving at their next destination and it all feels rushed and unsympathetic - perhaps a reflection of Lloyd and Davis wanting to brush the story aside and get on with one of their own!

That final TARDIS scene sees a change of costume and the Doctor proclaiming certainty that they are very much in the future at an age of piece and prosperity, but the scanner screen seems to be showing a cave man or some sort of savage approaching with a club. Could the Doctor be wrong again? The next episode caption states "Dr. Who And The Savages"... which of course is not the episode title but that of the story. It became customary for stories to be referred to as "Dr. Who And..." but it would always be dropped from the on-screen caption, with one exception leading to story 52 receiving the screen name of "Doctor Who And The Silurians" by mistake.

The Gunfighters is a mixed bag. In keeping with the injected humour of this story, it seems strangely apt to describe it with the cliché of the good, the bad, and the ugly (in the year The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was made!) It scores very well on the production side but is let down by mediocre story and drama and is dragged down further by poor humour, questionable performances and very little 'wow factor'. Although I prefer The Ark and find The Space Museum far more watchable, The Gunfighters receives a higher score of 61% thanks to the component system I use. My biggest problem with The Gunfighters is that it is a western and that is a matter of taste.