ZZ3 - The War Games 3

The War Chief makes his first appearance in this episode, and we also get our first real look at the headquarters of those behind the war games. The sets seen in this episode are terrific. The eyeglasses that all the non-essential employees wear are a little less so. How anyone can see through the tiny crosses in the glasses is beyond me. And what's the separation in rank that has some workers wear glasses with several vertical slits? They seem to be able to see more than those who have to wear the other glasses, but they have a lower rank. Hmm...

The War Chief is a brilliant creation. It's made clear that he isn't one of the beings who run the war games, but he's there as a freelancer. After hearing of The Doctor (not by name) and that he and his friends claim to be time travelers, he wonders to himself (in a rare instance on Doctor Who of a voiceover to represent inner monologue) who they could be. Each of the first two episodes had a "hook" to keep the viewer riveted to the story. The mystery of the War Chief and his possible connection with time travel is this episode's hook.

There's not a great deal of incident in this episode, although The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe are captured for a brief time by the Germans. Though there are a lot of capture/escape/recapture sequences thus far in The War Games, each instance, at least, has something interesting come about because of it.