The Gunfighters marks a return to comedy for Doctor Who. Unlike the silliness of the past two stories, it presents real humour, though it's nowhere near as great as The Romans, for example.
After the TARDIS crew arrives in Tombstone, Dodo runs off with a shady dentist, Steven reveals his macho singing abilities and the Doctor renames himself the Deputy Sheriff(literally).
William Hartnell is great fun, trying to tell heroes and villains alike that he's a pacifist as they keep smuggling revolvers into his pocket. I loved that he actually tried to do his job instead of taking it as a joke like all his other selves(except maybe Eighth) would have done.
Dodo is fine most of the time, but she seems totally out of reality at times. When she protested "But I started to like it!" after playing the piano at gunpoint, she deserved a smack.
Steven displays the skill we've come to expect from Peter Purves. He's a little sidelined this time, but there's a large cast anyway so no harm done. His highlight was nearly getting lynched by the crowd. In children's television, of course. I wish M. Whitehouse would've seen that. Hilarious, isn't it? It's a big shame Steven is leaving in the next story, he's such a strong character by now and has been the show's support since Vicki left.
And with him gone, the show's last tie to its' original cast will be gone... well, second-to-last, but we all know what's coming...
The story was accompanied by a recurring ballad. It was great in the first two episodes, but in the later ones, they really overused it. It came in after like, every other scene. Still, it provided a lot of atmosphere and never took you out of the story. A plus.
Of the guest characters, the funniest by far was Doc Holiday. He looked and sounded like the biggest liar and thief ya ever saw, but in the end, proved himself to be a more Robin Hood kinda figure.
So overall, The Gunfighters has great set design and costuming, mostly decent acting, brilliant writing, great camera work, flawed, but awesome gunfight and never tried to take itself seriously(*cough* A Town Called Mercy *cough*)
It's simply a story where you turn your brain off and enjoy the ride.
*tips hat*
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