Johnny Ringo

The feeling of toothache remains, as The Doctor and co. hang around the last chance saloon, where manner of nasties show up and try and take over the town. In this one, Johnny Ringo turns up, and poor Charlie the Barman gets, shot, that is basically all that happens, it's corny, it's twee, it's enormously irritating with that horrendous music appearing constantly. Even the cast of regulars somehow look miserable. I admire fans that love this one, I just wish I could see the appeal, hate to say it, but I loathe it. 2/10

Review of all 4 parts:

The Gunfighters

This is one of my less favourite Hartnell stories but it is not his worst. While it has some problematic aspects I am not keen on it is quite fun in the early parts especially and has some definite highlights.

It is a 4 part story beginning with A Holiday For The Doctor. It is set around the lead up to the gunfight at the OK Corral in the wild west town of Tombstone 1881.

The story is a mostly comedic escapade for the TARDIS crew in the wild west. The comedy works well at times but not very well quite a lot of the time for my taste. The drama also works well at times but not so well at others, with a various scenes not being very successfully executed.

The biggest plus is that William Hartnell is very good in this story. He is a funny, sparkling and magnetic personality. A far cry from his original detached persona.

Peter Purves is also mostly strong but the negatives are that most other performances are pretty weak and overall the story is unsuccessful in its writing (Donald Cotton's script becomes mostly silly) and disappointing in its on screen production values (the accents and linking 'ballad' are mostly cringeworthy).

There are scenes that can feel to me like an embarrassment, particularly in the pretty poor third episode, with silly scenarios and dodgy accents.

Back to the positives though, parts 1 and 2 are fun in many ways and not at all boring. If the whole thing was like Parts 1 and 2 and if it didn't have the ballad it would be an enjoyable adventure because it really isn't bad up until half way through.

This is an interesting attempt to do something different and deserves credit for that. It has been reported by researchers that it was let down by producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Gerry Davis lack of interest in it due to their dislike of historical stories. They did a lot of great scifi stories after this but certainly did not like history based stories. I do think it was not very well executed in the last couple of episodes especially and it didn't reach its potential with some weak guest cast.

It is a reasonably entertaining romp early on at least. A lot better than the weakest Doctor Who stories.

My Ratings: Episodes 1 & 2 - 6/10, Episode 3 - 4/10, Episode 4 - 5/10. Overall - 5.25/10.