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

It’s as if Doctor Who has arrived in the Swinging Sixties and simultaneously nicked one of the Third Doctor’s adventures.

“Doctor Who is required.”

WOTAN, The War Machines: Episode 1

Although Sir Charles Summer is a lot more co-operative and a good deal less obstinately dimwitted than some of the bureaucratic ‘old boys’ with whom the Third Doctor has to deal, this feels a bit like the prototype for many of those early 70’s serials – even down to it having a mind-controlling computer!

That said, for a supposedly omniscient computer, WOTAN isn’t that smart – he seems to think our protagonist is called Doctor Who! (I suppose it could be forgiven if it’s only seen the end credits.)

“Yeah, I know, but this bird saved my life, see.”

Ben, The War Machines: Episode 4

Poor Dodo doesn’t even get a proper goodbye, which is a shame given how well companions’ exits have been handled up until now, but it has to be said that the introduction of Polly and Ben is a genuine breath of (presumably heavy cigarette-smoke-filled) 60’s air. They also serve to remind us how up to this point rarely Doctor Who had encountered its contemporaneous culture.

After An Unearthly Child, apart from the miniature events of in Planet of Giants, the only glimpse we have had of 60’s Britain was Ian and Barbara’s return home.

If memory serves, a few more toes are dipped during the Second Doctor’s run, before it of course becomes the norm in the early 70’s, but in terms of what Doctor Who has served up for me so far, The War Machines is a first.