"Doctor Who" The Smugglers: Episode 3 (TV Episode 1966) Poster

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6/10
Fare ye well Jamaica.
Sleepin_Dragon18 March 2021
The Doctor, Ben and Polly have the opportunity to flee, but never one to shirk his duty, The Doctor decides to hunt for Avery's gold.

It's wonderfully colourful in terms of its characters, and dialogue, I feel the cast elevate what is, in truth, a very average story. I like it, but compared to the episodes around it, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

The Captain is a pretty big character, and has a very vivid turn of phrase. Anyone that's watched programmes about the missing episodes will have seen the sequence featuring Jamaica's fate.

Jamaica hasn't been the best of characters, when I say that, I mean it's not of the actor's doing, but the writer's.

It's interesting, but not one I engage with too frequently. 6/10.
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7/10
The Doctor and his companions entertain in a Jamaica Inn type adventure
A_Kind_Of_CineMagic21 August 2014
Review of all 4 parts:

This 4 part adventure on the coast of 17th Century Cornwall takes Doctor Who into a Jamaica Inn type world with a tale of smuggling and hidden treasure.

It could easily be a reasonable quality 1960s BBC production of that kind of period drama but with the interesting addition of the Doctor and his new companions. These new companions (Ben and Polly) perform well providing exactly what is required from companions creating added drama, action scenes and nice dialogue between them and the Doctor. William Hartnell, in his penultimate story before being retired off and replaced with Patrick Troughton, is still on good form.

All the acting, the direction and the general values on show from Brian Hayles' story and its presentation are of a fair standard but are not great and unlike many historical adventures the TARDIS crew's presence is not interacting with events in an intriguing way they are just caught up in events without any great importance. Basically it is just a fairly entertaining romp with some colourful characters. A solid effort but an unexceptional adventure in which the time travel element is too unimportant.

My Ratings: Episode 1 - 6.5/10, Episode 2 - 6/10, Episode 3 - 6.5/10, Episode 4 - 6/10

Overall: 6.25/10
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