217: The Gunfighters

217: The Gunfighters

Doctor : 1st (William Hartnell)
Companions : Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane) Steven Taylor (Peter Purvis)
Series : 3
Originally Transmitted: 30th April - 21st May 1966

Take it from me Doctor Who and westerns don't mix.

However this story does have some semi-interesting facts about it.

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Semi-Interesting Fact No 1 - It was William Hartnell's idea to have a story set during the wild west.

Semi-Interesting Fact No 2 - The part of Johnny Ringo in this story was originally offered to Patrick Troughton. He turned it down and Laurence Payne took the role. Ironically Laurence Payne & Patrick Troughton would both appear together in the Colin Baker story The Two Doctors 20 years later.

Semi-Interesting Fact No 3 - The Gunfighters was the first ever attempt by a BBC TV series to do a western.

Semi-Interesting Fact No 4 - The final episode of the Gunfighters had the lowest ever audience appreciation figures for any episode of Doctor Who. Only 30% of the test audience rated it.

Semi-Interesting Fact No 5 - The actor playing Doc Holliday was Anthony Jacobs. His 10 year old son Matthew visited the set during filming. Matthew Jacobs would go on to co-produce The Doctor Who American TV movie in 1996.

Semi-Interesting Fact No 6 - This is the first ever Doctor Who story set in the USA.

Semi-Interesting Fact No 7 - Due to the poor reception of this story the production team decided to stop the use of well known historical figures in stories.

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The story itself is very very dull. At the end of the previous story Doctor gets toothache from eating some of The Celestial Toymaker's candy. As usual with this period of Doctor Who, the Doctor has no control over the Tardis and is forced to take treatment wherever he lands. In this case Tombstone, Arizona in 1881.

He finds a local dentist who just happens to be Doc Holliday and has the offending tooth removed.

Meanwhile Dodo & Steven find the campest cowboy outfits they can find.

The Doctor also meets up with Wyatt Earp

During the whole 4 episodes of the story there's a really annoying song called 'Ballad Of The Last Chance Saloon' that is played and the end of EVERY single scene.

You can listen to it here, if you want to replicate listening to it during the story just put it on repeat for an hour and a half.

The song is sung by Lynda Baron, most known for her role as Gladys Emmanuel in the sitcom 'Open All Hours'. she also appeared in the 1983 episode 'Enlightenment' as the evil Captain Wrack

Her 2nd in command during that story was Leee John, lead singer of Imagination at the time.

Why am I telling you this now? Because it's a lot more interesting than the story, and I like that song.

Lynda Baron also played Val alongside Matt Smith during the new series too in the episode 'Closing Time'

Anyway there's some guff about the Doctor being used to fool the Clantons

that he is Doc Holliday, but other than that the regular cast are pretty superfluous to the main plot which is that of the Gunfight At The OK Corral between Earp & Holliday's gang and the Clantons. The Doctor attempts to diffuse the situation but nothing becomes of it and they all leave.

It feels like this story is history for the sake of it, it's full of bad clothes, bad American accents and just doesn't work. The sets look pretty good though.And then there's that really annoying song.

The Gunfighters was actually the final story of the original series I ever watched. I didn't own it until it was released on DVD last year. I think I fell asleep every time I attempted to watch it and in the end gave up bothering it was so dull. The DVD extras were interesting though.