The Gunfighters

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

The Gunfighters* (4 X 25mins B&W)
Written by Donald Cotton
Doctor Who Series three Serial seven

A Holiday for the Doctor transmitted BBC1 30 April 1966
Don't Shoot the Pianist transmitted BBC1 7 May 1966
Johnny Ringo transmitted BBC1 14 May 1966
The O.K. Corral transmitted BBC1 21 May 1966
* Note: until 1966 Doctor Who serials had no overall title, instead each episode had its own title.

Synopsis
The TARDIS lands in Tombstone 1881, and The Doctor, suffering from toothache, seeks the nearest dentist, Doc Holliday. Adopting Western costumes and names, Steven and Dodo are captured by either side of the Clanton/Earp feud. Can The Doctor save them before they're all caught in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?

Review
Although credited to the new team, this was in fact the last story commissioned and pre-produced by Wiles and Tosh. The only new input by Lloyd & Davis seems to be the use of a song, "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon", which necessitated rewrites. Certainly Tosh, who liked the original script with its darker tone, says in the DVD extra feature that he was surprised by the finished article, particularly  by the song and the flat comedy. It certainly seems to have had an adverse reaction by the audience. It's a myth that The Gunfighters had Who's lowest ratings, it averaged over 6million, except oddly the last episode with the famous shootout, which dropped to 5.7million. Three Who episodes previously had lower audience figures (the very first episode, The Sensorites episode 4, and The Ark episode1), but the last three episodes had the lowest Audience Appreciation Score, the final episode with only 30%. The audience thought the show had descended into childish silliness and weak plots.

Why did the story fare so badly? Firstly, I think audiences know this is not a historical story, but an attempt at a Hollywood Western on a British budget, which is in fact what it is, and therefore marked it down, as do I, compared to the template they're attempting to emulate. The British just can't do Westerns, The Prisoner episode excepted, and this is less like the movies, and more like the plethora of TV Westerns that clogged up the schedules in those days. Thus the appeal of the genre (the Wild West itself, the landscape) is replaced by the town, too many interior scenes, and action replaced by way too much dialogue. This serial falls flat on its BBC face when compared to the Hollywood classic Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Rex Tucker is no John Sturges, and Alderson and Jacobs are no Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglas.

The script is quite poor. Like many versions of this story (and this is a story, it has no real historical veracity), it must spend 90 minutes with the two sides already in town, but postponing the eventual shootout. Here, the writer does it by having Dodo and Steven captured by either sides of the feud, indeed this seems to be their only function in the story, a cause for hiatus. Their characters are poorly written here and, consequently, poorly acted. Not helped by the appalling Yankee accents they adopt, or the hideously inaccurate costumes they wear, more rodeo fashion of the commercialised Nashville scene than the actual clothes they would have worn. The dialogue is Hollywood cliché, the characters archetypal rather than individual, and if there were attempts at humour, they fall flat on their face (for example, the Doctor introduces himself as Doctor Caligari. "Doctor Who?" says Wyatt, "Quite" replies the Doctor). And why does the Doctor keep calling Wyatt Earp as Werp?

The acting, Alderson and Jacobs excepted, is as variable as the accents (only Canadian Shane Rimmer is really convincing), with the two TARDIS regulars particularly bad. Alderson is quite fine as the scripture quoting Wyatt, and Jacobs has  a certain style as Holliday, but too often the script has them going through the motions until 90 minutes are up and they can then fight. Laurence Payne, a fine actor, is average as Johnny Ringo, his strong sense of evil undermined by the pantomime villain dialogue he's given.

The production design is parsimonious. It's clearly not a Western town, too obvious cardboard frontage, the saloon is archetypal, the jail unconvincing, and the wooden stairs visibly move. The costumes by the TARDIS two are ridiculously bad, but otherwise the costumes are fine but dull. As the obligatory good time gal of this kind of tale, Sheena Marshe is stunningly gorgeous as Kate, but her part is pure cliché too, the tart with a heart. The picture quality is also quite poor, again showing up the difference between film and TV video.

But what really kills this story stone dead, apart from the awful clichéd inevitability of it all, is the music, particularly Tristram Cary's song "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" as sung by Lynda Baron. The music throughout is awful. Purves and Chaplet spend the last half of episode one 'singing' and playing piano. The song they choose is awful, and their singing even worse. But the ballad serves no function. It just goes on and on throughout all four episodes. It doesn't further the characters, or advance the plot, as all it does is repeat the events we've just seen. It's another delaying device, further slowing the pacing of the plot. It's also a very weak tune, and it begins to grate after it's opening refrain has been repeated at least four times in episode one alone. For the next three, whenever that joanna starts up, a visible groan can be heard from the audience, including myself. 

So in the end, this was a terrible idea, badly written, and very poorly executed, except for the closing shootout itself, which was well done. A complete nadir for Doctor Who, and it would herald low audience ratings for the remainder of Hartnell's reign as the First Doctor. Series 3 has so many missing serials, it's a real shame that this was one of those that survived. Watched in small chunks, it might be passably tolerable, but watched as a whole it's worse than toothache.

Not quite a nul pointer, but almost. It was also the last serial to have individual episode titles. [During reviewing this serial I learnt that Jackie Lane, who played Dodo, had passed away. RIP and condolences to her family].

TARDIS rating: 1/5

Credits

Dr. Who .................................................................................... WILLIAM HARTNELL
Dodo Chaplet ........................................................................... JACKIE LANE
Steven Taylor ........................................................................... PETER PURVES
Marshal Wyatt Earp ................................................................. JOHN ALDERSON
Warren Earp ............................................................................  MARTYN HUNTLEY
Virgil Earp ................................................................................ VICTOR CARIN
Bat Masterson .......................................................................... RICHARD BEALE
Doc Holliday ............................................................................. ANTHONY JACOBS
Pa Clanton ............................................................................... REED DE ROUEN
Ike Clanton ............................................................................... WILLIAM HURNDELL
Phineas Clanton ....................................................................... MAURICE GOOD
Billy Clanton ............................................................................. DAVID COLE

Kate .......................................................................................... SHEENA MARSHE

Johnny Ringo ............................................................................ LAURENCE PAYNE

Seth Harper .............................................................................. SHANE RIMMER

Charlie the Barkeep .................................................................. DAVID GRAHAM           

Title Music ........................... by RON GRAINER with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Ballad "The Last Chance Saloon" ......................................... by TRISTRAM CARY

                                                                                                sung by LYNDA BARON 
Film Cameraman ................................................................... KEN WESTBURY

Film Editor .............................................................................. LES NEWMAN

Story Editor ............................................................................ GERRY DAVIS
Designer ................................................................................. BARRY NEWBERY
Costumes ................................................................................DAPHNE DARE
Make-up ................................................................................. SONIA MARKHAM
Lighting ................................................................................... GEORGE SUMMERS
Sound ..................................................................................... COLIN DIXON
Producer ................................................................................. INNES LLOYD
Directed .................................................................................. by REX TUCKER

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