Doctor Who, season 4 begins …

The Smugglers is another one of those early Doctor Who adventures that is missing from the BBC archives.

In order to watch the serial, I’ve discovered the “Loose Cannon” reconstructed version.  This version employs the audio of the story matched against telesnap (still images), descriptive text captions, existing footage where available, and sometimes a little added pieces of CGI/animation.

The Smugglers proves to be an excellent opening story to the fourth season.

Very little about it can be faulted.  Hartnell is on great form.  Ben & Polly slip seamlessly into the crew.  Some great characters and scenery.  Okay the story perhaps isn’t the most Earth-shattering, but it services the characters well.

Loved the way Polly kept being referred to as a “lad” along with Ben, helped further by them obtaining period clothes.  Even then, though, Polly was rather like that Blackadder quote – her skill at disguise is like a Giraffe in dark glasses trying to get into a ‘Polar Bears Only’ Golf club.  In short, it’d take a lot of short-sighted people to think Anneke Wills in her youth was a “lad”.

Hartnell has some commanding scenes here, and Michael Craze gets stuck into the action (helped by Polly on one occasion).  A story of pirates, smugglers, stolen loot, great treasure and, of course, an old pirate’s curse.

One thing you note in this adventures is that Doctor Who has really come of age with its set designs.  Don’t know where people get this “wobbly wall” idea nonsense from.

Next time … The Tenth Planet