The War Games
Aliens manipulate history for conquest, but the Time Lords judge the Doctor’s meddling with an exile that lasts forever.
Few episodes carry the weight of The War Games. As the Second Doctor’s definitive swan song, it trades monster-of-the-week thrills for high-stakes political drama and cosmic horror, serving as a brutal finale to an era. In this sprawling narrative, the Doctor and his companions are stranded on a war-torn Earth where soldiers from different historical eras are forced to fight in a brutal, artificial conflict orchestrated by an unseen alien power.
This story transcends its era by shifting the series' focus toward complex political intrigue and irreversible consequences. It introduces the Time Lords not as benevolent guardians but as distant, bureaucratic judges who intervene only to save their own timeline. The result is the Doctor's exile to Earth and a permanent change to his character's freedom, marking the end of the wandering explorer.
- Doctor
- Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton)
- Companions
- Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot
- Primary Antagonists
- The War Lords
- Key New Species
- Time Lords (fully revealed)
- Setting
- Earth (various historical periods) & The War Lord Base
Lore & Background
The narrative explores a chilling concept where an alien race known as the War Lords abducts humans from various points in Earth's history, specifically selecting those with military experience. These individuals are placed into massive, simulated battlefields designed to look like their own eras, complete with period-accurate weapons and uniforms. The War Lords intend to use these soldiers to build a vast intergalactic army capable of conquering the universe, exploiting human aggression while keeping the populations unaware that they are merely pawns in a cosmic game.
The story also serves as the definitive introduction of the Time Lords, the Doctor's own people. Previously hinted at as mysterious figures from Gallifrey, they appear here as a cold, judicial body with absolute authority over time travel. They demonstrate that their society is built on non-interference, viewing the Doctor's meddling in human affairs as a criminal violation of natural law. This revelation recontextualizes the entire series up to this point, transforming the Doctor from an explorer into a fugitive who has been stripped of his TARDIS and forced to remain on Earth under their watch.
In Their Own Story
The mud tastes like iron and old rain as Jamie McCrimmon drags himself through the trench, his Scottish kilt torn and heavy with grime. Around him, men in World War I uniforms scream orders that clash with the distant rumble of Roman chariots and the crackle of Napoleonic muskets. It makes no sense, yet here they are, fighting a war that has no beginning and no end. The Doctor stands atop a ridge, his face pale beneath the grey sky, watching as a soldier from 1940 stares in horror at a gladiator from ancient Rome. "They aren't real," he realizes to his companions, his voice trembling with a terrible understanding of their situation. They are all just pieces on a board moved by hands they cannot see. Above them, invisible to the naked eye but heavy with dread, the War Lords watch their experiment unfold.
Reader's Guide
The story begins with the TARDIS landing in a World War I trench, where the Second Doctor and his companions Jamie and Zoe discover that soldiers from different time periods are fighting each other. Confusion turns to horror as they realize these combatants include Roman legionaries and Civil War troops alongside modern infantrymen. As the group investigates the anomaly, they uncover a larger conspiracy: an alien force is kidnapping humans across history to build a private army for galactic conquest.
Did You Know?
- This was the first story to feature the Time Lords as on-screen characters rather than just mentioned in dialogue.
- The episode count of ten makes it one of the longest serials produced during the classic series era.
- It established that the Doctor can be forced to regenerate by external authority, specifically as a punishment for violating Galactic Law.
- The War Lords were originally intended to be a new species, but their design was heavily influenced by the idea of war profiteers manipulating human history.