Synopsis:
Young Warren Earp has been gunned down by Billy Clanton, who has come to free brother Phineas from the jailhouse...
Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, meanwhile, are with the Doctor at the saloon, investigating the murder of Charlie the barman.
The Doctor is surprised to find himself being deputised, as the Clantons still think that he shot the gun from Seth Harper's hand.
Wyatt's brother Virgil then arrives, and they and Bat head back to the jailhouse - leaving the Doctor holding a gun once more.
The Clanton brothers arrive home and find their father waiting for them, accompanied by Johnny Ringo, Kate and Steven.
On hearing that his sons have killed an Earp, Pa Clanton states that war has now been declared and there is no going back.
Warren is still alive when found by his brothers and is able to tell them of what happened before he succumbs to his wounds. Virgil and Wyatt tell Masterson that they will step outside the law if necessary to bring the Clantons down.
Virgil rides out to the Clanton ranch to challenge them to a gunfight at Tombstone's O.K. Corral the next day. Steven hopes to return with him, but Pa Clanton refuses to let him go.
Ringo insists that he will accompany the Clantons. He has no intention of fighting fairly, planning on attacking the Earps from behind.
Back at the jailhouse, the Doctor is told of Steven's whereabouts. Holliday arrives and informs the Earps that he will be joining them the next day.
The Doctor wants a peaceful resolution, and is told that he can go alone to the Clanton ranch to try and talk them into surrendering.
When he arrives there he finds everyone but Pa and Steven gone. Pa is convinced that his sons will win with Ringo by their side - but is shocked to learn that Holliday is also going to be there with the Earps. Steven, meanwhile, manages to warn the Doctor that Ringo will be accompanying the Clantons.
When he returns to town he is able to pass this information onto the Earps and Holliday.
The following day, both parties converge on the Corral. Ringo seizes Dodo and tries to use her as a human shield, but he is shot dead by Holliday. The Earps kill Billy and Phineas - and they and Holliday together gun down Ike Clanton.
The following morning the Doctor and his companions are gathered by the TARDIS when Holliday and Kate arrive to say farewell. The dentist reveals that a reward has now been placed on his head, and he will have to move on. He gives the Doctor a copy of the wanted poster as a souvenir. After they have gone, the Doctor elects not to keep it. They enter the ship and depart.
A short time later, the TARDIS scanner shows them a bleak and uninviting rocky landscape. However, the Doctor announces that he knows exactly where they are - in a time of great peace and prosperity. As he prepares to explore, they fail to notice a fur-clad figure, armed with primitive weapons, observing the ship...
Next week: Doctor Who and the Savages
Written by: Donald Cotton
Recorded: Friday 6th May 1966 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 21st May, 1966
Ratings: 5.7 million / AI 30
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: Rex Tucker (but see below)
Additional cast: John Raven (man on scanner)
Critique:
The Gunfight at the OK Corral is one of the best known incidents in the history of the "Wild West". Like the Western genre of films and TV shows they inspired, most dealt with crime and criminals, and those who fought them, making legends of the likes of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Jesse James or Billy the Kid.
The story formed the backdrop to two major Hollywood movies: 1957's Gunfight at the OK Corral, which starred Burt Lancaster as Earp, and Kirk Douglas as Holliday; and 1946's My Darling Clementine, with Henry Fonda as Earp and Victor Mature as Holliday.
By now you will have read that events on the day of the gunfight did not match exactly with those depicted in this Doctor Who episode, and the nature of some of the characters was quite different.
As far as the lawmen were concerned, the lead was Virgil Earp. He was full-time Marshal of Tombstone. His brothers Wyatt and Morgan helped him as they were recruited as temporary assistant Marshals.
It was Virgil who decided to enforce the laws which the Clanton brothers - as members of the larger Cochise County Cowboys gang - were breaching. Rather than their cattle rustling, murders and stagecoach robberies, the tipping point was actually the carrying of weapons, prohibited by three separate local laws.
It was Virgil who therefore triggered the events at the O.K. Corral.
As a friend of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday joined the Earps in their decision to take action. All had long-standing grievances with members of the Cowboys, individually or as a group - so this was simply bringing long-simmering tensions to a head.
On the night before the gunfight, Ike Clanton and Holliday confronted each other in the Oriental Hotel and this lead to them challenging each other.
The following day - Wednesday 26th October 1881 - the rival groups formed up, intent on settling their differences. The Cowboy side comprised Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne.
The rivals met at the O.K.Corral, where Ike and Frank had stabled their horses that afternoon. Each side claimed the other fired first - either Billy Clanton or Wyatt Earp. Virgil targeted Frank McLaury first as he was the more formidable gunman and posed the greatest danger.
Ike Clanton was actually unarmed and ran off, along with Billy Claiborne, who also claimed to be unarmed.
The gunfight lasted only a minute or so, and by its end Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded. Holliday suffered only a minor injury.
All very different to the events of this episode, which features three Clantons who all die, with the "lawmen" all unscathed.
With so many rival survivors, varying records of what happened that day exist - depending on what side you were on. Nationally, the press was on the side of the Earps, but local sympathy was actually with the Clanton side. When the dead trio were posed in their coffins at the local undertakers, prior to burial in Boot Hill, a sign declared they had been murdered.
Ike Clanton initiated murder charges against Wyatt and Holliday, leading to a legal hearing on the case. The pair were acquitted of any crime.
Ike Clanton continued his life of crime in another part of Arizona, and was shot dead by a constable in an ambush in June 1887.
Brother Phineas survived to January 1906. Captured in the same action which saw Ike killed, he spent a short time in prison (only 18 months of a 10 year sentence). His eventual cause of death was pneumonia.
Doc Holliday died as a result of his TB just a few months after Ike Clanton, aged 36.
The real Kate died a week short of her 90th birthday, in 1940.
"Pa" Clanton - Newman Haynes Clanton - was actually dead by August 1881. He and four others were killed in an ambush by Mexican soldiers near the US-Mexican border.
Wyatt Earp ended his days in California, dying aged 80 in 1929. He earned a living mainly through gambling and sports promotion, especially from boxing and horse racing. He also became associated with the early days of Hollywood, making friends with screen cowboys Tom Mix and William S Hart, director John Ford, and advising on Western movies.
Badly injured in a failed assassination attempt a couple of months after the infamous gunfight - an act of revenge by associates of the Cowboys - Virgil Earp eventually died in 1905 after contracting pneumonia.
Brother Warren actually lived to the age of 45, dying in an ambush in 1900.
Like Warren, Bat Masterson never featured in the actual gunfight, being absent from Tombstone at the time. He eventually became a journalist, dying in New York in 1921.
The Gunfighters might not have been the final purely historical Doctor Who story, but it was the last to feature genuine historical figures combined with an actual historical event.
On the same day, Peter Purves and Jackie Lane were to be found in another sandpit, in Oxshott, filming scenes for The Savages.
There was a delay in recording on Friday 6th May, as the armourer turned up late. This was the second time this had happened, so Tucker lodged a formal complaint.
There was no reprise from the previous episode, the episode opening with a shot of the Doctor, Bat and Wyatt standing around the covered body of Charlie - concealed as an extra was being used to save hiring David Graham to play a corpse.
A large part of the episode was on film - the footage of the gunfight itself, recorded at Ealing between Tuesday 29th - Thursday 31st March.
The final recording break of the evening allowed Purves and Lane to change out of their cowboy / girl outfits. A small section of TARDIS console room was used.
Instead of the usual episode title being trailed on a caption at the end of the instalment, the following week's entire story title appeared. Innes Lloyd had decided to drop the individual episode titles and start using overall story ones - something which was being done behind the scenes anyway. Previous script editors had drawn up lists which gave such overall titles.
We won't see the return of individual episode titles until 2005, though the opening episode of Invasion of the Dinosaurs will feature a one-off amended name.
The end credits of The O.K. Corral are significant for another reason - the lack of any director credit.
Tucker had an argument with Lloyd over the editing of the episode. When overruled by the producer, he asked to have his name taken off the finished programme.
This was his final involvement with the show.
Trivia:
As you can see from the ratings, this episode saw a further fall in the number of viewers watching, and those who did watch clearly weren't enjoying what they saw.
Unfortunately, producer and script editor in interviews would misrepresent these figures to suggest that this was the least watched Doctor Who story to date, justifying their decision to discontinue the purely historical stories in favour of sci-fi adventures. This was taken up by certain influential fans in the late 1970's who continued to spread the misinformation - despite the ratings being available in the archives. These fans contributed to Doctor Who Weekly / Monthly, and so the error was perpetuated and spread further afield.
The viewing figures were undeniably poor - but not as bad as was being made out. The real problem was the Appreciation Index figure. A BBC studio-bound Western simply wasn't enjoyed.
The Gunfighters isn't the disaster it is often made out to be. It has some lovely comic performances, especially from Hartnell.
Since being released on VHS and then DVD, it has been reassessed in a more positive light - but still ranks low in polls of the Hartnell era. That annoying Ballad has to share much of the blame.
- The ratings continue their decline, now falling below the 6 million mark. Even worse, the audience appreciation figure falls to a new low of 30.
- This is the first time we see the story title structure Doctor Who and the... appear on screen. Often adopted by Radio Times, it had generally been used on scripts and production paperwork up until this point.
- Thursday 19th May saw the publication of a negative article by Bill Norris in the trade paper Television Today. The headline says it all:
- Sydney Newman wrote to Lloyd on Monday 23rd May - congratulating him for the production, but stating that he thought the whole idea of a Western had been misconceived in the first place. He particularly disliked the Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon.
- 192 viewers contributed to a BBC Audience Research Report on this closing episode. Only 11.4% of the potential TV audience had watched. The majority of respondents thought, like Newman, that even considering such a story had been a mistake in the first place. The script was described as dull, and there were complaints about the level of violence. The accents were once again criticised.
- There was one positive note in the Report, however - the performances by Hartnell and Anthony Jacobs were highlighted.
- The press and public response, and the Report in particular, prompted Lloyd and Gerry Davis to push ahead with phasing out the purely historical stories at the earliest opportunity - something both had been considering since they arrived.
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