War Games 10

There's something delightfully appropriate about the Second Doctor, who more than anyone else was constantly fighting unambiguously evil monsters, meeting his end at the hands of a bunch of apathetic suits who care more about their vaunted godhood than actually using their power for good.

Which is not to say that it's the ending a hero deserves, but rather a wonderful storytelling twist, because of course Troughton's on his way out. What's more disturbing is the way Jamie and Zoe are disposed of. Their memories are wiped, and the Doctor doesn't seem overly concerned about the fact that the people he knew don't really exist anymore. Well, alien and so on.

So, what do I think of the last-ever black-and-white episode of Doctor Who, the episode that more than any other one before or since (The Armageddon Factor part Five notwithstanding) answered the question posed by the title? I found it very interesting that the Doctor wound up giving his life to aid the clean-up process, something the Nu Doctor never would (hell, "Bad Wolf," "The Christmas Invasion," and "The Stolen Earth" all deal with the Doctor's persistence on saving the day and then blowing out of town before anyone can hand him a shovel).

This is also the last episode where we see the real Second Doctor, and not a scene-stealing Victorian clown who can actually pilot the TARDIS and works for the Time Lords. Perhaps the fact that there are only 5 complete Troughton serials left is because subsequent producers didn't want us to see how far they'd strayed in the Second Doctor's character...

On a more serious note, the best and most heartwrenching moment of the episode was when Zoe returns home and says something along the lines of "I thought I'd forgotten something important, but it's nothing." We won't see the producers doing this sort of thing, this casual cruelty to genuninely beloved characters, until... um... Ace gets unceremoniously dropped off somewhere between Survival and Doctor Who? The best example I can think of comes, of course, from Buffy: what happens to Vamp Willow at the end of "Doppelgangland."