N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

No amount of ropey accents can make me dislike The Gunfighters. I’ve always enjoyed it, but coming as it does after the excruciating tedium of The Celestial Toymaker, it’s a particular joy.

“You can’t walk into the middle of a Western town and say that you’ve come from outer space.”

The Doctor, A Holiday for the Doctor

Things I love about The Gunfighters: how The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon narrates the action, how Steven and Dodo get to show off their comic and musical talents, how the Doctor being on “holiday” aids his being mistaken for Doc Holliday and perhaps most joyously the Doctor and Dodo sharing a celebratory glass of milk in the Last Chance Saloon. And is it just me or does the Doctor seem more “British” in this story?

You can tell they’re in bigger studios too. There’s real depth (and height) to some of the camera direction.

It’s also properly violent – both actual and threatened – in Tombstone, especially in the titular gunfight in The O.K. Corral. (But then of course, how could it be otherwise!)

Whilst The Gunfighters does benefit from having all of its episodes intact, in the archive and therefore able to be seen, it’s easily my favourite story of the third season.

It was also the last serial for thirty-nine years to have individual episode titles: I’m going to miss that. In season three alone, we’ve had a wonderful variety of titles: Small Prophet, Quick Return (witty), Coronas of the Sun (evocative) and Priest of Death (surely a Nicolas Cage movie), to name just three.

Still, next week I’m promised Dr Who and the Savages!