Daleks on Kembel suddenly give way to the plains of Asia Minor as the TARDIS crew return to the show and we find ourselves meeting mythical heroes such as Achilles and Odysseus. Troy is under siege and the question on everyone’s lips is, Is there a Doctor in the Horse?
All four episode of this story are missing but the soundtrack is available as are various fan reconstructions online.
Rate and review below:
A story I have an odd relationship with. The Loose Cannon reconstruction was amazing the first time I watched it, but since then I’ve grown more and more bored by the story. I don’t think it’s funny in the slightest. I really want to like this one but it just hasn’t been working for me.
It’s been a few months since I watched this. I rather enjoyed it, even it the recon was a bit “meh”. It was nice having Vicki be the centre of attention, but her exit from the series is rather abrupt.
Overall, I remember enjoying it, but the details escape me. 3.5/5
One of the quintessential and unique things in the Hartnell era is the comedy historical, and The Myth Makers is of course a textbook example. This one is very funny from pretty much all the characters, especially the Doctor pretending to be Zeus and trying to do everything in his power to not do the Trojan Horse, but ends up doing it anyway. The sort of “origin of the myth” bit they’re doing with all the characters rather different to how you’d read about them in the myth, as if the story got exaggerated and changed as the it got passed down, was a neat idea, especially considering actual record of the Trojan War is unreliable. It’s of course hurt by its completely missing status, and because of John Wiles in his infinite wisdom not commissioning Cura to do telesnaps giving us very little visual record to work with. Loose Cannon did quite a good job considering the situation, including I believe getting access to the original horse prop to get shots of. It’s just a very fun story I think, and a sort of calm (well, aside from the end where basically all the Trojans die, Donald Cotton loves ending his comedies with death) before the storm that is The Daleks’ Master Plan. An 8/10 from me.
Oh. And they shouldn’t have vetoed the pun titles like “Zeus Ex Machina” and “Is There a Doctor in the Horse?”
As I said earlier, wasn’t too fond of Vicki exiting, even if having a companion fall in love and leave wasn’t the cliche it is these days.
I’ll admit a fair bit of comedy didn’t land for me as well, and I’m not really the biggest on historicals, especially comedy historicals. (In Doctor Who, anyways. I do love things like Robin Hood: Men In Tights.)
Was a shame about Cyclops dying. Alright, given one of the other characters is Odysseus, I should’ve seen that coming…
Reconstructions always do suffer a fair bit for me by not having the actual footage, too, and I end up not being as focused on the episode while watching as I’d like. It’s quite possible I’d like this one more if I could see the actual acting.
(It may very well suffer from the fact that I’m now in a spot where all the Doctor Who serials I watch are mostly reconstructions or animated, too. That’s the trouble with leaving a lot of those for last.)
Didn’t see much of Katarina, either, and when you’ve barely heard from someone and you have the foreknowledge that they die in the next serial, it’s hard to get attached.
A shame you’re not a fan of the comedy historicals. Romans, Myth Makers, and Gunfighters are all up there in my favorite Hartnells. It helps that the Hartnell era never misses with historicals, they’re all good. Add comedy to them and it just makes it that much more fun. Honestly surprised the prevailing thoughts in this thread are that this one isn’t that funny.
I imagine I’ll revisit them at some point, maybe as a book or audio, and see if they hit me differently at that point. I do feel like being a recon doesn’t help this one for me, too.
Humor is very subjective anyways, though. Sometimes I’ll find things funny that misses a lot of other people, and sometimes it’s the reverse.
I’m also pretty much trying to get through the remainder of classic episodes I haven’t seen, and I’ve got so few left that there are usually reasons I haven’t watched them…
True about the subjectivity of comedy. For example, the late 4th Doctor, Graham Williams era, Tom Baker out of control, no one taking the story seriously kind of humor mostly doesn’t work for me in the slightest, though many enjoy it.
It’s weird, for me, because I adore The Romans and think it is hilarious but find The Myth Makers to be completely mirthless. They both have very different types of humour though and as humour is very subjective that’s probably why some of these stories don’t hit for everyone.
The comedy in this one is, for want of a better word, quite intellectual in contrast to the Romans which is basically a farce. Elements of Myth Makers might manage to raise a wry smile from me because of clever word play or some such but The Romans has the belly laughs.
Also, I find the sharp turn into a bloody massacre just doesn’t land for me - and The Gunfighters has a similar issue for me.
Understandable
One where I often switch my Opinion on it, my first real Recon for any Doctor Who Story I believe (I don’t even remembered why this one, I guess I wanted to go through this one quicker because I heard the Audio is the worst out of the missing ones, which unfortunately is true, but it’s really not that bad as many people made it out to be).
I always love my pure historicals, I think they are some of the best things Who has to offer and especially that’s true for the Hartnell Years, big Reason why I do like Season 3 so much despite it being a messy Season at times Quality wise.
I am not too fond of Vicki exiting (since I adored her) and I am always a bit left puzzled with the cliché of a companion leaving because they felt in love. (The worst offender is leela, just what.) But here it works pretty fine I find, at least they did try to put some work into it, so it’s believable that both would develop some feelings for each other. Dare I say it’s a more respectful exit than Susan got, for example (even if the “One day” Speech is still superb).
I do love how you can tell that despite the Doctor feeling hurt that yet another Companion, but letting her go without much fuss (unlike what he did towards Ian and Barbara) is great Character Stuff.
The same goes for most of his Part in that Story, him trying his best not to build the horse, him pretending to be Zeus and I especially love this line:
“I am not a doc, and I am not a god”.
Katarina doesn’t really get to introduce her at all and just kinda gets thrown in, I will talk more about her and some stuff relating to her, when we finally reach Daleks Masterplan.
Steven has some fun bits, especially when he tries to get capture.
I do think the Setting is well-chosen and used as well as you possibly could, and most of the side characters are memorable.
When it comes to the Comedy, I am a bit unsure, some scenes work great isolated but overall? Yeah, there is something to be desired, although the humor is more dialogue based which is good due to its missing status (I don’t want to imagine how some comedic bits would just fell flat if the romans were missing, since that one is more so visual humor in my eyes). But I’d have to rewatch it to know if the humor would hit for me more, it’s been a while.
Overall, when it comes to that Story, I usually see two massive Statements to be made about it “doesn’t work for me” or “adore it”, which is interesting since I would have expected this Story to be seen less in those “extremes”. But it’s an intriguing observation to make (even if it’s of course more complex than that, but I think most will get the point I am trying to make).
I think anything that could be said about this has been now said, although the Music at the Beginning of Episode 1 is horrendous in my eyes.
Can’t say I agree with your assessment comparing (spoilering since you did too) Vicki’s and Susan’s exits. I think Susan’s was better developed over the course of that story and her run overall. Vicki’s felt rather more forced to me, especially factoring in how they just decided they’d call her Cressida seemingly only for the purpose of making it obvious how it was going to turn out for her. I also find it very contrary to the very “the past is boring, what is there for me?” type of person Vicki was as we saw in The Romans. Vicki’s exit is probably my main criticism of this one honestly, but even worse is how Wiles just gave O’Brien the script like, “oh and by the way, you’re done after this one,” but hey, at least she didn’t end up staying on one more story and having the same fate as Katarina…
That’s honestly valid. I do definitely see that point,
and I’d agree the Treatment of Wiles towards O’Brien was awful. There is definitely a point to be made that her leaving in this Story is a bit odd all things considered, maybe I am misremembering some parts of it, it’s been a bit of a while since I watched both of these, I still think we come to the bond between Vicki and her Love Interest, it felt more build up, although I do have to watch it again and maybe pay some closer attention to it, when I get around to rewatching either of them.
And massive agree when it comes to her avoiding the fate that Katarina would later have, admittedly potentially I am more so in a favor of this exit, since I do be rather terrible sad if we saw her get this rather gruesome and cruel death in DMP. But either way, certainly can see your points about it! I didn’t like the whole “Cressida” part either, I must admit.
I’ve not rewatched it yet, I am working through Doctor Who in chronological order (by the Doctor’s point of view) right now so I will drop the review here when I revisit it.
My opinion have somewhat changed since, but I was furious with Vicki departure when I first watched this story. Susan wasn’t great, but you could tell since An Unearthly Child she was searching for something she couldn’t have while travelling with her grandfather; settling with David makes some sense. Vicki loves travelling. She was extremely close to the Doctor and there was no indicative whatosever that she wanted to leave. And she would never, ever do it for a man, sorry.
That still makes me angry, but nowadays I aprpeciate the story itself and see more than just a horrible departure for a beloved (by me) companion.
They did some interesting stuff with older Vicki, but I can’t help but wonder what could’ve been. I loved her too much to truly mean this, but I think it would perhaps be a better choice to have her die in Katarina’s place.
Anyway, I have a headcanon the TARDIS brought her somewhere she would like to stay so she wouldn’t be there for The Daleks’ Master Plan.
I’ve just realised I have an as-yet-not-listened-to audio version of this story, read by Stephen Thorne. It’s a reading of the Target novelisation so I understand that there will be some differences from the BBC recording, but I can see that it does indeed have one chapter titled Doctor in the Horse!
It also has a chapter called “Zeus ex Machina” 
I really like that novelisation 
I’m working my way through the novelisation as we speak! It’s a delightful and different take on the story from a surprising POV and with a tongue-in-cheek style. And those chapter titles! Zeus ex Machina actually made me giggle! And Temple Fugit is another fun chapter title.
And the fact is, it was forced. Vicki’s exit came as a surprise to everyone, even to Maureen herself, who returned from her week off to learn that she would be filming her final episode. John Wiles simply decided that she had stayed on for long enough and didn’t even bother informing her beforehand.
Yes, exactly
I dug out an old review of this story and updated it a bit - I also listened to the BBC soundtrack release. The Loose Cannon reconstruction is a 6/10, and the BBC soundtrack is a 5/10. This is a very talky and slow historical story so you need a visual element to make it work. This also goes for some of the action scenes present in the story, especially in the last episode, which is the strongest of the lot.
There’s a Spooner-esque comedy tone to this, but it’s not as effective as The Romans. I also like the quite dramatic turn it takes in the back half, as it fits well with the general atmosphere of this season. It’s pretty horrid to think that the Doctor technically gave the idea for the Trojan Horse, which led to the slaughter of a lot of people.
This has a great opening scene and a lovely closing scene. William Hartnell is on a roll. Peter Purves is fine and has great chemistry with Maureen. Vicki’s exit is sloppily handled, and Katarina is simply shoehorned in as the new companion last minute.
I find it funny how Agamemnon is played by the same actor who was the creepy Vasor in The Keys of Marinus.
By the way, I love the title “Small Prophet, Quick Return”.
I’ve started listening this afternoon and I’m loving Homer’s humour. I thought his more modern language and take on things would grate, but I’m finding it really effective.
And I’m wondering if Homer is going to turn out to be someone quite different from the classical Greek writer he claims to be. His mention of more future meetings with the Doctor and his apparent invisibility to everyone else is making me wonder. I’m only nine chapters in though so this might be my imagination running away with me 