When the TARDIS materialises north of Stalingrad in 1942, the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly are captured by the Night Witches, an all-female unit of flyers tasked with disrupting the German forces nearing Moscow.
They suspect that the travellers are spies – part of the Germans’ Operation Barbarossa. Despite their pleas they are locked up while it is decided what to do with them.
Polly, however, is receiving strange looks from the pilots and clearly unnerving them. When the TARDIS crew discover why this is, it becomes clear that they’re about to get far more involved in the war than they could possibly have imagined.
THE EARLY ADVENTURES: THE NIGHT WITCHES
We’re into a fourth series of Early Adventures, and while I’m still surprised that they haven’t expanded this range to release every month, the first story, Roland Moore’s “The Night Witches,” demonstrates that they certainly wouldn’t have enough ideas to support a monthly schedule.
It’s a historical story, set in Soviet Russia in the run-up to the battle of Stalingrad. While the German tanks approach, the Soviets deploy air force units crewed entirely by women and flying strategically obsolete planes to destroy the encroaching forces. These women, and their planes, are nicknamed the Night Witches by the Germans due to their attacks under cover of darkness and the sounds of their aircraft. It’s a fascinating bit of history, one ripe for exploration – but unfortunately, Moore’s script does nothing interesting with the material.
This is a difficult review to write because there is so little to talk about. The story features very little incident and very little character development. The TARDIS lands, the Doctor and his companions are captured, and they spend four episodes escaping capture and being captured again until they finally escape in the TARDIS having resolved nothing. The plot, such as it is, revolves around the very 1960s idea that Polly, by complete coincidence, is an exact double of one of the Soviet pilots best known to the Germans. Not only that, the doppelganger Tatiana (Anjella Mackintosh) can do a perfect impression of Polly’s voice, so much so that Anneke Wills plays her when she is doing so. Naturally, the story doesn’t even attempt to provide an explanation for this.
Moore tries to give Ben and Polly the biggest roles in the story. Ben, with his military background, is helpful to the Soviets, while Polly is caught up in a plot to fake Tatiana’s death and make the Germans think she has supernatural powers. The Doctor is “off camera” for basically an entire episode and keeps to the background the rest of the time, and Jamie has almost nothing to do. Still, there’s opportunity for Ben and Polly, but we don’t get anything beyond anguish. Ben is in the Royal Navy, after all, and now he finds himself in the middle of a war whose consequences are still being felt in his own time – and all we get is tortured refusal to tell the Soviets how the war ends. Has Ben seen combat like this before? In either case, how does he respond to finding himself in a war zone? These are opportunities to learn more about one of the least explored Doctor Who companions and yet the story doesn’t engage with them. As for Polly, she gets a great moment at the end where she selflessly protects Tatiana at the possible expense of her own life, but “willing to die to protect others” is Companion 101 – it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know.
Helen Goldwyn directs a solid production, with capable sound design from Toby Hrycek-Robinson. In the end, it’s not that there’s anything particularly bad about “The Night Witches” – it’s just that there isn’t enough story here for a Companion Chronicle, never mind a two-hour production.
Entertaining enough but disposable.
5/10