The War Games is an episode of firsts and lasts.

It featured the last regular appearance by Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.  (Troughton would return for three guest appearances.)  Having played the role for three years, Troughton feared getting typecast and felt it was time to leave.  It was also the last episode to feature Frazer Hines (as Jamie) and Wendy Padbury (as Zoe) as companions.  (Hines holds the record for appearing in the most episodes as a companion.)  Finally, this episode was the last to be broadcast in black-and-white.

The War Games also featured a very important first.  This episode featured the first appearance of the Time Lords and the first trip to their home planet.  This was the first episode that showed the society that the Doctor fled when he stole his TARDIS and went to Earth.

At ten episodes, The War Games was either the second or third-longest serial in Doctor Who history, depending on whether or not you count The Trial of the Time Lord as just one long (and regrettable) serial.  The serial opens with the Doctor and his companions apparently landing in No Man’s Land during World War I.  As things progress, the Doctor notices anachronistic technology and Jamie is shocked when a redcoat shows up in a World War I prison.  The Doctor discovers that an alien known as The War Lord (Philip Madoc) has determined that humanity is the most bloodthirsty race in the universe and that he has abducted soldiers from Earth’s bloodiest wars.  They are fighting war games on The War Lord’s planet and the survivors will become the members of the War Lord’s army.  Helping the War Lord is the War Chief (Edward Brayshaw), a renegade Time Lord.

(Just as with The Time Meddler‘s Monk, there’s a fan theory that the War Chief was an early incarnation of The Master.  I don’t believe it, myself.  The Master was far more cunning than The War Chief.)

Despite running for four hours, The War Games is a rare Doctor Who serial that doesn’t have any slow spots and the scenes where the characters cross from war zone to war zone are creatively realized.  The serial starts out as if it’s going to be yet another dry historical episode and then it gradually reveals that all is not as it seems.  I especially liked the performance as Jane Sherwin as Lady Julia, an ambulance driver in the World War I zone.  (Jane Sherwin was also the wife of Doctor Who’s then-produccer Derek Sherwin.)

What really makes The War Games stand out is the final episode.

Having brought an end to the War Games, the Doctor is faced with the impossible prospect of returning the soldiers to their proper times.  He is forced to call upon The Time Lords for help.  Bernard Horsfall, Trevor Martin, and Clyde Pollitt appear as the Time Lords, who dematerialize the War Lord and send the soldiers back home with no memory of what happened.  Unfortunately, The Time Lords are not just going to let the Doctor off the hook for violating their police of non-interference.

First, Jamie and Zoe are sent back to their original times, both with no memory of their life on board the TARDIS.  The Doctor is then put on trial for having stolen his TARDIS and interfering in time and space.  The Doctor argues that he has been fighting evil.  The Time Lords accept his argument and then say that his punishment is to be sent to 20th Century Earth.  He’ll keep his TARDIS but he won’t be able to use it.  And, because the Doctor is well-known on Earth, he’ll have to regenerate.  He’s given five faces and told to pick one.  The Doctor refuses them all.  The Time Lords pick one.  “That’s the worst one!” the Doctor says before he finds himself spinning through space and time.

It’s a poignant ending to the Second Doctor’s adventures.  The Time Lords do not come across as being as bad as the Doctor often made them out to be but it is easy to see why an adventurer like the Doctor would feel constrained by their society.  That the Second Doctor called them for help despite knowing what the consequences would be not only shows how dangerous The War Lord’s plan was but also how the Doctor would always do the right thing even when it was dangerous for him to do so.  The Time Lords could have just as easily dematerialized The Doctor as punishment for stealing his TARDIS.  Jamie and Zoe are spared punishment but they lose their memories of the amazing adventures they shared.  And the Doctor changes once again.

For viewers like me, who got to know Doctor Who from the episodes that were broadcast late at night on PBS, The War Games is a bridge between “old” Doctor Who and the classic era of Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.  In America, we didn’t get to see much of Patrick Troughton’s Doctor but what we got established him as one of the best to ever play the role.