When the BBC aired a special, colorized edit of “The Daleks” to have a good time Physician Who‘s sixtieth anniversary final 12 months, other than the precise edit right down to a shortened runtime, the serial was largely left as-is, other than a cute trailer on the finish to tease the following 60 years of adventures in time and area. With its second take—this time on Patrick Troughton’s iconic exit because the Second Physician in “The War Games”—issues acquired very totally different. Very totally different.
Airing on BBC 4 within the UK earlier this week, the particular colorized TV film tackle Physician Who‘s closing black-and-white story—taking a four-hour saga and trimming it down to simply 90 minutes—took the chance to weave in solutions to questions Who followers have had for years at this level, creating one thing of an insane guidelines of pointed references and acknowledgements to the present’s future that at the moment are, in some methods, definitive elements of Physician Who‘s ever-evolving continuity. Right here’s three of the largest tweaks and modifications added to the proceedings.
The Battle Chief and the Grasp
Arguably the largest principle performed with, “The Battle Video games” in shade made specifically one connection between the unique story and Physician Who‘s quick future way more specific: that one of many serial’s main antagonists, the Battle Chief, was none apart from an incarnation of the Grasp himself. All through the Battle Chief’s appearances within the colorization, the newly up to date soundtrack included up to date Who composer Murray Gold’s iconic “Master Vainglorious” theme—and when the Battle Chief is executed by the Time Lords upon their arrival within the climax of “The Battle Video games,” you’ll be able to even briefly hear the telltale sound of Physician Who‘s trendy regeneration SFX as his physique is being dragged away.
Whereas it was all the time established within the authentic story that the Battle Chief was a renegade Time Lord, for years ancillary materials and novelizations have bandied forwards and backwards over the concept he’s an early incarnation of the Time Lord that may ultimately tackle the mantle of Grasp (the implication now being that he did so initially with Roger Delgado’s incarnation of the character). Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, who wrote “The Battle Video games,” went on to notice in their very own Physician Who Goal episode novelizations that the Grasp and the Physician have been the one renegade Time Lords to ever flee Gallifrey with their very own TARDIS, implying that the Battle Chief and the Grasp have been, certainly, one and the identical. However later authentic novels as a part of the Virgin New Adventures books would additionally deal with the Battle Chief as a definite character, one who survived the occasions of “The Battle Video games” and would ultimately regenerate into totally different incarnations, as would Large End audio dramas that established earlier incarnations of the Grasp separate from the Battle Chief.
The Trial and the Faces of the Physician
As soon as significantly random alteration within the climax of the story comes through the Time Lords’ trial of the Physician. After concluding in settlement with the Physician that there have been many perils throughout the universe value confronting despite their non-intervention insurance policies (embellished right here from the unique with further clips from different Physician Who tales), the Time Lords nonetheless select to punish the Physician with exile on Earth and a compelled regeneration, providing the Physician a number of decisions of potential visages. Nonetheless, within the colorization, these faces—all of which the Physician nonetheless refuses for numerous causes—are not simply random unknown identities. As an alternative, the Physician is obtainable the possibility to regenerate into the faces of a number of of their future incarnations past the third Physician, because the Time Lords undertaking photos that we know are actually the Twelfth (rejected as “too outdated”), Tenth (“too skinny”), Thirteenth (“too younger”), and Eleventh (merely described as “that received’t do in any respect!”) Medical doctors.
This one is a very bizarre addition, contemplating there wasn’t actually any significantly theorization or need that these faces had a selected connection to the Physician past the Time Lords providing them as much as him within the second. It’s not like Physician Who hasn’t explored the concept of the Physician having incarnations past ones we have been already accustomed to—we’ve had loads of examples from the notorious faces glimpsed in “The Brains of Morbius” to up to date Who‘s addition of incarnations like John Damage’s “Battle Physician” between the Eighth and Ninth Medical doctors, or Jo Martin’s “Fugitive Physician” and different incarnations previous to William Hartnell’s Physician. However it’s a humorous joke within the second that the Physician has little need to have any of a number of faces we all know they ultimately find yourself with afterward in life.
The Second Physician’s Regeneration (and UNIT Relationship)
“The Battle Video games” colorization climaxes with an nearly fully new addition, utilizing rotoscoped footage of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee’s Medical doctors to determine the precise second of the second Physician’s regeneration. Right here, after the trippy sequence of the Physician’s face contorting throughout a shadowy void from the unique serial, the motion cuts to contained in the TARDIS, the place, sitting in a chair as he hears flashes of his departed companions, the Physician braces himself as he glows with regenerative vitality, reworking into his subsequent incarnation. As we recently covered, the second Physician’s off-screen regeneration has been lined in different ancillary materials outdoors of the present itself (no Time Lord-sanctioned scarecrow execution squads this time, alas), however now the second itself has been introduced according to depictions of regeneration as seen in Physician Who‘s trendy period, for higher or worse.
However that canonization isn’t the one fannish nod the brand new scene makes. Because the newly regenerated Physician checks to see when precisely he’s landed—earlier than we lower to Pertwee’s first scene from “Spearhead From Area,” collapsing out of the TARDIS into the Oxley Woods—the TARDIS’ shows briefly flicker forwards and backwards between the years 1970 and 1980. This in and of itself is a nod in the direction of one other long-running Physician Who fan principle, the so-called “UNIT Relationship Controversy.” Though most of the Third Physician’s adventures look like up to date to their broadcast within the early Nineteen Seventies, two mentions of dates surrounding the profession of considered one of his closest allies, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart—the 1968 Second Physician story “The Invasion,” which establishes the existence of UNIT and promoted Lethbridge-Stewart to his well-known rank of Brigadier, which is about round 1979; and the 1983 Fifth Physician story “Mawdryn Undead,” which states that Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT in 1976—throw continuity into disarray.
There’s been a number of makes an attempt to not less than acknowledge, if not precisely repair, the perceived continuity error through the years throughout each the TV present itself in addition to different tie-in media (Physician Who on the time, for probably the most half, largely handled the Third Physician’s time on Earth as happening in an identical timeframe to its broadcast), so whereas this isn’t the primary time there’s been nods on-screen to the controversy, it’s the primary time shortly we’ve seen it explicitly addressed, even when the reply is, hilariously, to have the TARDIS throw its metaphorical arms up in confusion.
What Do These Modifications Imply for Physician Who?
At the very least within the case of each tales tailored thus far thus far, the colorizations should not the one strategy to expertise these serials—each the unique variations of “The Daleks” and “The Battle Video games” can be found on bodily media and streaming at this point, so regardless of the “confirmations” this newest colorization has introduced with it, anybody who desires to see the unique tales sans-embellishment can accomplish that.
Whereas on the floor a variety of these modifications and “retcons” are minor within the grand scheme of issues, the truth that the scope of those colorizations has rapidly grown between “The Daleks” and “The Battle Video games” past beauty embellishment and condensation paints an intriguing image for what future colorizations may tweak, as every new colorization brings with it an try and make much more connections throughout Physician Who‘s huge, and sometimes contradictory, continuity. Simply what tales may come subsequent—and what modifications may include them—stays to be seen. As all the time with Physician Who, time will inform.
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