The Gunfighters - A Holiday for the Doctor

From the moment that the theme music ends I can feel my toe curling. The Gunfighters is when Doctor Who meets the Western genre. It's another instance if the shows ambitions hitting reality. Would the show be able to pull off a western stor on a tiny BBC budget? The story starts to go downhill when Steven and Dodo get into their Western gear. Purves feels the need to do a terrible accent. The first scene when they are dressed up its only saved by Wyatt Earp. It's surprising that Peter Purves does this as when he first appeared in The Chase he did a rather good American accent. When he has to sing he does it quite well though its slightly undermined by Jackie Lane's exaggerated piano playing.

Sadly when you try and get past the cringy singing and accents, there isnt a great deal that happens during this opening 25 minutes. Theres a lot of people waiting and then Dodo and Steven start singing and playing. The characters in this episode are the only thing worth watching as the Doctor spends most of the episode in pain and its not long before he gets confused for Doc Holiday. Doc Holiday is well played by Anthony Jacobs and the character is instantly likeable though he not meant to be likeable. 

I had hopes that after getting a new appreciation of The Ark and The Celestial Toymaker that I would see a new side to this story but sadly that isn't going to happen. Apart from John Alderson as Wyatt Earp and Anthony Jacobs as Doc Holiday, the story is excruciatingly bad and I'm trying to decide whether its so bad that its good. Only time will tell I suppose but I'm safe in thinking that the chances are slim that I will be seeing a new side to this story.