Production Code Z

First Transmitted:
1-30/04/1966 17:50
2-07/05/1966 17:50
3-14/05/1966 17:55
4-21/05/1966 17:50

Cast
John Alderson : Wyatt Earp
Richard Beale : Bat Masterson
Victor Carin : Virgil Earp
David Cole : Billy Clanton
Maurice Good : Phineas Clanton
David Graham : Charlie
William Hartnell : The Doctor
Martyn Huntley : Warren Earp
William Hurndall : Ike Clanton
Anthony Jacobs : Doc Holliday
Jackie Lane : Dodo
Sheena Marshe : Kate
Laurence Payne : Johnny Ringo
Peter Purves : Steven Taylor
Shane Rimmer : Seth Harper
Reed de Rouen : Pa Clanton

Crew
Tristram Cary : Ballad Music
lyrics by Donald Cotton and Rex Tucker, played by Tom McCall (In Don't Shoot the Pianist only, Winifred Taylor rather than Tom McCall
played the piano accompaniment for the studio scenes in which the Ballad was played in the Last Chance Saloon.), sung by Lynda Baron.
Donald Cotton : Writer
Daphne Dare : Costumes
Gerry Davis : Story Editor
Colin Dixon : Studio Sound
Angela Gordon : Production Assistant
Ron Grainer : Title Music
and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, arranged by Delia Derbyshire
Brian Hodgson : Special Sounds
Innes Lloyd : Producer
Sonia Markham : Make-Up
Barry Newbery : Designer
Les Newman : Film Editor
Tom O'Sullivan : Assistant Floor Manager
George Summers : Studio Lighting
Rex Tucker : Director
Ken Westbury : Film Cameraman
Tristan de Vere Cole : Production Assistant

Plot Outline from Wikipedia

It is 1881 in the frontier town of Tombstone, Arizona and the troublesome Clanton brothers, Ike, Phineas and Billy, are in town in search of Doc Holliday to settle an old score over the death of another brother called Reuben. They meet up with their hired hand Seth Harper at the Last Chance Saloon. He knows what Holliday looks like and describes his coat and demeanour. This is overheard by bar singer Kate, who lets her paramour Holliday know he is in danger.

The TARDIS has arrived in a nearby stable, with the First Doctor in agony from toothache. He and his companions Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet, dressed as cowboys, soon encounter local marshal Wyatt Earp, who offers them his protection and warns them to keep their counsel. The Doctor finds the dentist – Holliday himself - while Dodo and Steven head to book into the local hotel. There they are mocked by the Clantons, who suspect the Doctor they refer to is Holliday himself. Seth Harper is sent to the dentist’s surgery and invites the Doctor, tooth removed, to the hotel in five minutes to meet his friends. Holliday is initially happy to let him be shot in his place, allowing the real Doc to disappear, but Kate intervenes to ensure the Doctor survives. This buys some time until Holliday relents and hides in an upstairs chamber of the hotel, firing his gun at appropriate moments to con the Clantons into thinking the Doctor is indeed Holliday the sharpshooter. Soon afterward Wyatt Earp and Sheriff Bat Masterson arrive and break up the fracas, taking the Doctor into custody for his own protection.

Steven now becomes embroiled in a plot to smuggle the Doctor a gun to help free from the jailhouse, but the Doctor refuses to be armed. Steven is shortly afterward confronted by a rabble wound up by the Clantons, who are intent on lynching him as an associate of the disreputable Holliday. One more it is Earp and Masterson who diffuse the situation, taking Phin Clanton into custody too to ensure the co-operation of his brothers. The Doctor and Steven are freed and told to leave town as soon as possible.

Dodo has meanwhile fallen in with Kate and Doc, who both plan to leave town and take her with them. When Seth Harper stumbles across their escape plans, Holliday kills him, and the trio then depart. His role as aide to the Clantons is soon replaced by a new arrival, Johnny Ringo, who shoots local barman Charlie by way of an introduction to the town of Tombstone. The Doctor and Steven return to the Last Chance Saloon in search of Dodo and encounter the dangerous Ringo.

Wyatt Earp’s brothers Warren and Virgil have meanwhile arrived at Tombstone to help him enforce the law. The Doctor soon tells them that Ringo is in town. Events take a harsh turn when the other Clanton brothers visit the jail to free Phin, killing Warren Earp in the process.

Meanwhile Steven heads out of town to look for Dodo with Ringo in tow in search of Holliday. Steven and Kate end up being taken by Ringo to the Clanton ranch where the Clantons recamp and tell their father, Pa Clanton, that they have killed an Earp. This will obviously increase the tension in the town. Indeed, Wyatt Earp swears vengeance and starts to build a posse of lawmen to deal with the Clantons once and for all. Doc Holliday returns to Tombstone with Dodo, and offers his services to his old friend Earp too. Attempts by the Doctor to defuse the situation amount to little: there will be a Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. On the one side are the three Clanton brothers and Johnny Ringo; on the other, the two Earps and Doc Holliday. At the end of the gunfight Ringo and the three Clantons are shot dead. A little later in the same day, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo are able to slip away.

 

Analysis by Cuisle

Don't ask! Just don't ask. If The Long Game was the least favourite episode of the 2005 series, this comes up in any vote for the least favourite ever. Although it seems to have a lot more going for it than The Web Planet, which makes the Clangers look like social realism, and although it was well enough made, it just never clicked with the viewers. Curious, since westerns were regular fare on TV in the 1960s, they just couldn't reconcil a western adventure for their sci-fi heroes.

Commentators looking back at it have had this to say about this episode:-

'Despite the sorry lessons of The Romans and The Myth Makers that comedy as such wouldn't work in Doctor Who, this was yet another [story in that vein]. Full of embarrassing lines... intended to spoof the popular Western craze of the day, it simply turned into a sorry mess. Thunderbirds voices Shane Rimmer and David Graham turned up in person, adding a little extra humour, but even they couldn't
save such a story.'


and:-

'This story, in short, should never have been made, and will forever remain a true embarrassment to Doctor Who.'

Personally, I don't think it could be as embarassing as the Bassett's Allsorts ripoff Kandyman in The Happiness Patrol. The problem really just seems to be that the science fiction and western mix just jarred with the public. It is a strange enough mix, after all. The only time it ever seemed to succeed was in the third Back To The Future film. And even that didn't go down well with everyone.


 

<< < <<