The Gunfighters (TV story)

The Gunfighters was the eighth story of Season 3 of Doctor Who. This was the last serial whose episodes had individual titles until the 2005 series.

Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives in the town of Tombstone in the Wild West and the Doctor, having hurt a tooth on one of Cyril's sweets, decides he must visit a dentist. The local dentist is Doc Holliday, currently engaged in a feud with the Clanton family. Lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson are meanwhile doing their best to keep the peace.

The Doctor, Steven and Dodo narrowly survive a lynch mob, the attentions of Holliday and Earp and various other dangers; they finally return to the TARDIS after witnessing the famous gunfight at the OK Corral, in which the young Clanton brothers and their gunman ally Johnny Ringo are all killed by Holliday, Earp and Earp's brother Virgil.

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * Doctor - William Hartnell
 * Steven Taylor - Peter Purves
 * Dodo Chaplet - Jackie Lane
 * Ike Clanton - William Hurndell
 * Phineas Clanton - Maurice Good
 * Billy Clanton - David Cole
 * Kate Fisher - Sheena Marshe
 * Seth Harper - Shane Rimmer
 * Charlie - David Graham
 * Wyatt Earp - John Alderson
 * Doc Holliday - Anthony Jacobs
 * Bat Masterson - Richard Beale
 * Pa Clanton - Reed De Rouen
 * Johnny Ringo - Laurence Payne
 * Warren Earp - Martyn Huntley
 * Virgil Earp - Victor Carin

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Tom O'Sullivan
 * Ballad Music - Tristram Cary
 * Costumes - Daphne Dare
 * Designer - Barry Newbury
 * Film Cameraman - Ken Westbury
 * Film Editor - Les Newman
 * Lyrics - Donald Cotton, Rex Tucker
 * Make-Up - Sonia Markham
 * Producer - Innes Lloyd
 * Production Assistant - Tristan de Vere Cole, Angela Gordon
 * Script Editor - Gerry Davis
 * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson
 * Studio Lighting - George Summers
 * Studio Sound - Colin Dixon
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer

Story Notes

 * This story had the working titles; The Gun-Fighters and The Gunslingers.
 * Thunderbirds voice artistes David 'Brains' Graham and Shane 'Scott Tracy' Rimmer appear as Charlie the barman and Seth Harper respectively. Graham had also provided Dalek voices for a number of earlier Doctor Who stories.
 * The caption at the end of the final episode reads Next Episode: Dr. Who and the Savages. The Gunfighters was the last story to have individual episode titles.
 * Patrick Troughton was one of the actors considered for the role of Johnny Ringo.
 * The plot is very similar to the Star Trek Original Series episode entitled "Spectre of the Gun". (Actually it's the other way around, as the "The Gunfighters" was made first. The chief difference is that the TARDIS crew are involved in the actual historical events, whilst the ST crew are involved in a re-creation.)
 * The serial features an original song, "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon", the last time an original song would be commissioned for the series until "Song for Ten" in The Christmas Invasion. "Ballad" is performed off-screen by Lynda Baron, who years later would appear in the serial Enlightenment.
 * Episode 1 carries the title "A Holiday for the Doctor", the first and only episode of the original series to incorporate the "correct" name of The Doctor (as opposed to an episode of The Chase called "The Death of Doctor Who" and the 1970 serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, both of which used the technically incorrect "Doctor Who"). The only other televised episode (to date) to include the name "The Doctor" in an episode title was the 2008 episode The Doctor's Daughter.

Ratings

 * A Holiday For The Doctor (30/04/1966 17:50) - 6.5 million viewers
 * Don't Shoot The Pianist (07/05/1966 17:50) - 6.6 million viewers
 * Johnny Ringo (14/05/1966 17:55) - 6.2 million viewers
 * The O.K. Corral (21/05/1966 17:50) - 5.7 million viewers

Myths

 * The Gunfighters was the lowest-rated Doctor Who story ever. (There were a number of stories with lower ratings, including The Savages, The War Machines and The Smugglers.)
 * Sheena Marshe, who played Kate Fisher, was director Rex Tucker's daughter. (She was unrelated to him; his daughter Jane Tucker, later to find fame as one third of the Rod, Jane and Freddy group of children's entertainers, did however appear as a walk-on in the story.)

Filming Locations
to be added

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * Episodes one and two have the world's quietest gunshots, and in episode four's climactic gunfight Earp and Masterson apparently walk through a withering barrage of fire unscathed.
 * In the ballad, 'earning your gunfighter's wings' is anachronistic, the phrase being coined in WWI. The actual line is 'gunfighter fee.'
 * The Clanton gang have amazing accents, Billy obviously having been to finishing school, and Johnny Ringo to the RSC.
 * Johnny Ringo, Kate and Steven arrive back in Tombstone before Doc Holliday and Dodo yet they departed first.

With Doctor Who, getting the right information about history is never totally correct as seen here.


 * Johnny Ringo did not fight in the OK Corral. Nor does he in this story: he is killed before the gunfight begins.


 * Pa Clanton died weeks before


 * There is no Reuben Clanton or Warren Earp


 * Ike Clanton survived


 * Phineas Clanton did not take part


 * At the end of the first episode, the Doctor is seen outside the Saloon yet Kate gets there before the Doctor and she left the dentist after the Doctor.

Continuity
Directly follows DW:The Celestial Toymaker. The Doctor is seeking a cure for the toothache he sustained at the end of that story.

DVD, Video and Other Releases

 * Video Release - Released as "Doctor Who: The Gunfighters"
 * UK Release: November 2002 / US Release: October 2003
 * PAL - BBC Video BBCV7277
 * NTSC - Warner Video
 * Released as part of The First Doctor Collection in the UK (BBCV 7268)
 * Released as part of The End of the Universe Collection in the US

Novelisation

 * Main article: The Gunfighters (novelisation)


 * Novelised as The Gunfighters in 1986 by Donald Cotton. Cotton's book contains many differences from the televised story, including a startling moment where the Doctor initially takes Doc Holliday's place in the gunfight, and actually triggers it by accidentially discharging his firearm and killing two men!