It wasn't a week between the previous episode and this one: it was
longer. And when we did get to watch it we had a string of
interruptions. This added to the difficulties caused by the poor quality
of the audio (neither I nor my son have particularly good hearing) to
produce an experience that was, well, less than ideal. Even for a
missing episode.
So, what can I say? Ian gets more to do than he has since the fight at the beginning of The Lion,
so that's nice. Unfortunately it's mostly fighting again, which really
can't be judged from the soundtrack (though he does get to rescue the
Doctor at the end through guile). His sparring partner Ibrahim's voice
reminded me of the evil emissary of Emir Ahmed el Ahmed, ruler of the
land of Silver Sand, from Noggin and the Flying Machine - which was first broadcast in 1964, so that's probably not so surprising. As I've mentioned Noggin before I won't say too much now; but the feeling of recognition was quite intense.
This isn't a strong episode for women, despite a significant part of it
taking place in the quarters of El Akir's harem. Barbara tries to
organise an escape, but is overtaken by events; Maimuna weeps that her
family is safe; Fatima is sneaky. And that's it. The plot is resolved by
the men - Haroun, who I believed dead, arrives to kill the Emir; Ian
sorts out their flight back to the TARDIS. Elsewhere neither Joanna nor
Safiya appear, and Vicki hardly gets to do anything at all.
In fact, the plot thread taking place in Richard's castle resolves
itself all too quickly. I thought it was neat that the King knew it was
Leicester who betrayed him to his sister, but said otherwise because he
needs the Earl more than he needs the Doctor; but one scene with Julian
Glover (and none with Bernard Kay or Jean Marsh) felt far too little.
As a conclusion to the serial, this isn't very satisfying. The previous
episode seemed quite tightly plotted, and I was looking forward to
seeing how the jigsaw fitted together at the end; but here it feels like
the pieces are pushed together randomly, with corners cut off to speed
things along. It's as if David Whitaker thought he was writing a
six-parter but then realised he had run out of episodes, and had to tie
things up in a hurry.
I will give a thumbs up to the music, though: there's very little, but
what we have is good. I particularly like the piece Dudley Simpson
provides for the Doctor and Vicki's leaving scene in the castle. One of
my complaints about the new series is how every moment has to be filled
with sound, and this shows how effective a smattering of music can be.
The Warlords was first broadcast 35 years (well, 35 years less 7
hours 25 minutes) before my daughter was born. It's the first episode to
fall on a significant birthday for me, and makes me more aware of the
passage of time than any abstract knowledge that Doctor Who is fifty this year. My memory is also not what it once was, so although I had heard this episode and The Knight of Jaffa when I first got the Lost in Time
set, it was as if I was coming to them completely fresh as part of my
marathon. Heck, I barely remembered the recovered episodes!
The epilogue in the TARDIS truly belongs to the next serial, so I'm
going to talk about it there. As it is, though, this has to be the
weirdest bridging sequence yet, dethroning the one at the end of The Sensorites where the Doctor suddenly decides to chuck Iananbarbara off the ship for no reason...
Broadcast:
Date: Saturday, 17th April 1965
Viewers: 9.5 million
Chart Position: 27
Appreciation Index: 49
Rating:
3/10, though it would be a bit higher if the sound quality were better - and visuals would make a greater difference!
Next Time:
Serial P as a whole.
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