This week over on the forum, the featured story is The Gunfighters. Come on over and give us your thoughts and opinions on this classic First Doctor adventure from 1966.
Arriving in the town of Tombstone, the First Doctor finds himself involved with gunmen, out to kill Doc Holliday...
The Gunfighters was the eighth story of Season 3 of Doctor Who. Its final episode, "The O. K. Corral", was the last individually-titled episode until The Five Doctors, the ninety-minute 20th Anniversary special.
This story saw Doctor Who's take on the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. William Hartnell would later claim that the Wild West setting was his idea, a statement which was confirmed on the DVD bonus features. The director, Rex Tucker, was originally chosen to direct An Unearthly Child but filming interfered with a holiday he had booked. This was Tucker's only Who credit.
The Gunfighters was the only serial to have a song written especially for it until The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, decades later. "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" was sung off screen by Lynda Baron who would later appear in Enlightenment and Closing Time.
The role of Johnny Ringo was offered to veteran actor Patrick Troughton, but he was too busy. Troughton would later be asked back, and won the role of the Second Doctor. The actor playing Doc Holliday, Anthony Jacobs, brought his son, Matthew Jacobs onto the set. Matthew would later write the telemovie.
The poor AI ratings received by The Gunfighters strengthened Donald Cotton's argument that historical stories should be axed.
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