While a brand new episode of ‘Doctor Who’ went out tonight, I was spread a bit *too* thin on the ground to be able to really take it in. So I settled for a HELL of a christmas gift from the beeb in the form of ‘The War Games: in Colour’ a modernisation/redux of the 1969 epic that saw the final outing for Patrick Troughtons incarnation of the doctor.

To get it out of the way up front, Troughton is my favourite incarnation of the doctor, and my biggest critique of ‘The War Games’ as a Swan song is, while it’s nice to see this doctor out with a 4-5 hour epic that’s probably one of the cruellest regenerations in the shows history, and the story that formally introduces ‘The Time Lords’ as a concept. It is a little overlong.

8 episodes would have more than sufficed, 6 episodes? Plenty. 10 is stretching resource and patience a bit thin. I also find it a real shame that this version of the time Lords is the first and last time the omnipotent ‘god’ timelords would appear. With all other appearnecs relegating them to essentially librarian beuracrat bores in silly hats. 5th doctor era timelords will bill you for jaywalking. 2nd doctor timelords will ‘unexist’ you from the timeline.

As such, I found this redux, which reduces the runtime to 90 minutes, enhances some of the older visual effects, extends the ending to make it lead directly into the 3rd doctors first story AND fully recolourizes the adventure for the first time, wonderfully refreshing.

This feels much more light weight, easier to digest and much more accessible. And while I WILL say it does cut this thing right down to the bone, sometimes to it’s own detriment. I feel it flows significantly better than their first attempt at this with ‘The Daleks: In Colour’ and the new score really helps refresh this classic.

I’ve only ever seen ‘The war games’ in full about 3 times…purely because its basically a full day commitment to watch it. As such it kind of puts me off…

Im firmly in the camp that believes that this version doesnt replace the original, but is a compliment to it…and with that in mind, with this redux, I think I’ll watch the war games a HELL of a lot more now.

What a fab Christmas gift. And if you haven’t seen it, I recommend it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/doctor-who-the-war-games-in-colour/