“The Smugglers” is a lost story in
more ways than one. Its episodes are missing from the BBC, so all that survives
are the soundtrack, some insanely brief clips, a few 8mm movies of the
production (also agonizingly short) and the telesnaps. More than just the
physical media, though, “The Smugglers” feels lost in the run of stories which
surrounds it. It’s an historical which were being phased out by now – this is
the penultimate one - bookended by two pure sci-fi stories. It’s also much more
violent than normal, both in what is represented on screen and what is only
alluded to. Finally, it’s also not the best performance from William Hartnell.
After his rather amazing turn in “The War Machines”, and coming just before his
swansong, Hartnell kind of falters a bit here. Whether it was due to illness I
can’t say, but the revitalized Doctor from “The War Machines” isn’t really in
evidence here.
This isn’t to say that the story is
bad. It’s perfectly serviceable, which is damning with faint praise, I agree.
But I think serviceable was the best the production team could hope for at this
point. The script by Brian Hayles has every pirate cliché one could want,
without doing anything frightfully original with them. Michael Craze and Anneke
Wills in their first story as “official” companions spend a lot of time locked
up, and in Polly’s case, sent back to the TARDIS. (Just an aside here. I
absolutely understand the need for Polly to be disguised as a “lad”. Women didn’t
fare well with pirates really. But did anybody think that just some male
clothing would make Anneke Wills a convincing boy? I just didn’t believe that
the other characters believed it.)
It may be a downfall of watching a
reconstruction, but there seemed to be a lot of characters introduced at the
last minute, with the sole intention of killing them off. There’s always going
to be cannon fodder, but people would call someone by name, and then minutes
later, that new guy is dead. The prime example of this is Jamaica. My notes as
I watched it have the line “Jamaica is a troublesome character” because of the
racism in his character. Before I could dwell further on it, I have “Aaaand,
Jamaica is dead.” Uncomfortable racism aside, he could have been a more
memorable character instead of just ending up knifed.
One thing that I can’t fault in this story
is the location work. Evident even in still photographs, the Cornish setting is
wonderfully photographed. The beach and cliffs in particular look impressive
and couldn’t in actuality be reproduced in a studio with any sort of
believability. The indoor sets, particularly the crypt, are also quite well
done. It’s been said countless time before, but if there’s one thing the BBC can
do consistently well, it’s costume drama.
“The Smugglers” is, at best, a
placeholder story. It helps Ben and Polly establish their characters a little
further, and helps four episodes pass by relatively harmlessly. The Doctor’s
character isn’t as strong as he has been, but at this point in his tenure, I’ll
give William Hartnell a pass on just about anything. (He does have a line fluff
here that is now one of my favorites: “You see that scanner? That’s what I call
‘the scanner’.”) I’d love to see these four episodes returned to the archive
just for a look at the location footage alone. Otherwise, it’s a story that isn’t
the worst of Doctor Who by a long
shot, but is, sadly rather forgettable.
NEXT EPISODE: The
Tenth Planet
"The Smugglers"
novelization cover, courtesy The TARDIS Data Core at tardis.wikia.com
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