Battlefield

Destroyer: Pitiful. Can this world do no better than you as a champion?
Brigadier: Probably. I just do the best I can

Battlefield is the Doctor Who take on the King Arthur legend. I've not heard much about it other than it is generally considered the weakest of four stories that make up Season 26, even by those that despise Ghost Light. I also know that there was an issue with production where this story was expanded from it's intended three episodes to four which has rather baffled people as again, Ghost Light would have benefited from expansion probably more than this story.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Ace receive a distress call in the TARDIS and materialize on Earth a few years beyond when Ace left. They hitch a ride from an archeologist named Peter Warmsly, who is following a UNIT truck on his way to his dig site. At the dig site, from the Arthurian period, the Doctor finds a UNIT nuclear missile convoy with the new commander, Brigadier Winifred Bambera. Brigadier Bambera is dismissive of the Doctor, but is informed by her sergeant of the Doctor's status as UNIT's scientific adviser.

Bambera drives the Doctor and Ace to a local inn where Ace strikes up with a local named Shou Yuing, who shares her interest in explosives. The Doctor meanwhile examines a scabbard unearthed by Warmsly and hung on the wall. The wife of the proprietor, Mrs. Rawlinson, warns the Doctor that something is off about the scabbard. She is blind, but she can sense power from it. The Doctor notes that it feels hot to the touch and agrees with her.

Bambera drives back but stops on seeing the TARDIS, having been warned to be on the lookout for it. While examining it, she is caught in a firefight between an armored knight and his three armored pursuers. Both are using swords and laser weapons. Bambera shoots back but her gun has no effect. The lone knight retreats but one of them throws a grenade and launches him through the air and into the brewery building next to the inn.

Hearing the crash, the Doctor, Ace and Shou Yuing go to investigate. The find the knight alive, though knocked out briefly. The knight is Ancelyn and he recognizes the Doctor as Merlin, though with a different face. Bambera arrives and tries to arrest the lot but she is interrupted by the other knights. Their leader is Mordred who aims to kill them. However upon seeing the Doctor, whom he also recognizes as Merlin, he retreats, preferring to leave him to his mother Morgaine.

Mordred retreats to a sanctum established in a local castle and uses the power of his sword to open a porthole for his mother to pass through. She arrives during the night while the Doctor's group is hunkered down at the inn. The scabbard leaps off it's mounting and imbeds itself in a post, pulled toward the dig site.

During all this, retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is at his home with his wife Doris. He receives a call from Geneva and dismisses them at first but changes his mind when he hears the Doctor has come back. He is picked up via helicopter and flown to London to be briefed. He and Lt. Lavel then fly north to the site of the action. His helicopter is observed by Morgaine and she brings it down with a surge of power from her hand. The Brigadier and Lavel survive the crash but Lavel is injured. The Brigadier heads to town to get help.

In town he is confronted by Morgaine but she does not attack, seeing a fellow warrior. She had ordered her forces to stand down as they had arrived on a memorial to the World War I and II dead and sheading blood on a memorial for soldiers would be seen as dishonorable. She warns the Brigadier that she will kill him the next time they meet on the field of battle. The Brigadier continues and commandeers the car of Shou Yuing, forcing her into the passenger seat.

The Doctor and Ace return to the dig site with Warmsly where they uncover a stone with the Doctor's writing. He orders Ace to create a hole and she detonates an explosive there, revealing a concrete passage nearly 1300 years old. They enter the passage and then a buried spaceship. The Doctor triggers a door using his voice pattern, figuring that a future version of himself must have set all this in place.

They enter the chamber where a knight in suspended animation is slumped over an alter with a sword buried in it. Ace accidentally pulls the sword out, trigging a defensive system that attacks them. Ace runs back into a cubby which seals behind her and begins to fill with water. The Doctor triggers a button on a console which opens a hatch and shoots Ace to the surface like a torpedo where she swims to shore, gathered up by Warmsley and Ancelyn.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart arrives and upon hearing Ace's story, runs into the tunnel. He takes the control from the stunned Doctor and deactivates the security system. The two return to the surface and gather the whole party in two cars to head back to the inn. Most pile in the UNIT car but Brigadier Bambera and Ancelyn take Shou Yuing's car with Bambera a bit put out at Letbrigde-Stewart having taken over command.

Mordred arrives at the inn where he is confronted by Lieutenant Lavel. Morgaine also arrives and probes Lavel's mind, learning of the Brigadier's plans and arrival. She then kills Lavel, turning her body to ash. However, she also pays for the pint Mordred drank by restoring sight to Mrs. Rawlinson. Morgaine orders Mordred to lead the men to attack the UNIT forces while she goes after the Doctor and Excalibur.

Mordred's men ambush the two cars returning to the inn but Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's gets through. Brigadier Bambera and Ancelyn are run off the road and are forced to run back to the lake to regroup with other UNIT soldiers.

The other car arrives at the inn where another group of UNIT soldiers is unloading specially designed munitions for alien invaders. The Doctor puts in an order for silver bullets and then hypnotizes the Rawlinsons and Warmsley into evacuating. He leaves Excalibur with Ace and Shou Yuing and orders Ace that if things go funny to draw a circle with a piece of chalk he gives her and stay inside it.

The Doctor and the Brigadier drive back to the lake to see UNIT and Mordred's men engaged in combat. He runs in to stop the fighting but Mordred laughs at him, noting that this is just a feint. The Doctor realizes that the real attack is now against Ace.

Ace and Shou Yuing stay in the circle as darkness envelops the inn, though light remains in the circle. The two girls start fighting as they think they hear the other one insult them but they realize they are being tricked. Finally Morgaine herself appears with a demon called The Destroyer to recover Excalibur. However, she cannot penetrate the chalk circle. The Destroyer can but Morgaine refuses to unbind his silver chains to unleash his full power.

The Doctor calls out to Morgaine, threatening to kill Mordred but she dismisses him as bluffing. However, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart steps up, prepared to shoot Mordred and Morgaine knows he is not bluffing. She abandons Mordred and the Doctor and the Brigadier stuff him into Bessie and drive back to the inn. The Destroyer breaches the circle and he and Morgaine head back to the castle with Excalibur, destroying part of the inn in the process.

The Doctor and the Brigadier arrive with the real Excalibur to find Ace and Shou Yuing partially buried in the ruins but ok. They also notice the gateway used by Morgaine and the Destroyer is still open, being held open by the Destroyer. The Doctor and the Brigadier hurry through it. Ace follows a few moments later with two boxes of silver bullets. Mordred slips away from Bessie and runs back to the castle on foot.

In the castle, Morgaine uses Excalibur to try and reopen the portal to their own world. The Doctor, the Brigadier and Ace arrive to confront her. Threatened, Morgaine orders her men to attack UNIT and finally unbinds the Destroyer's chains, catching the Doctor off guard. Mordred reappears, catching his mother off guard as well. He is put out at her abandonment of him but the two vanish away from the castle as the Doctor steals Excalibur back from her.

The three retreat from the castle with the Doctor telling them that silver bullets are the only way to stop the Destroyer. He loads the Brigadier's gun with the bullets and prepares to go back in. However, the Brigadier knocks him out and takes the gun in himself. He confronts the Destroyer, shooting him and running as the demon explodes. The Doctor comes to as the castle explodes. He finds the Brigadier just outside the ruins of the castle, dirty and bloodied but alive. The three then head to the lake to stop Morgaine.

UNIT successfully defeats Morgaine's troops but Brigadier Bambera is captured by Mordred and taken to Morgaine, who probes her mind to discover how to activate the missile. The Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Ace return Excalibur to the ship and find that Arthur is actually dead, having died in battle 1,000 years ago. The Doctor finds a note left by his future self, warning of the armed missile and heads off to find Morgaine. Ace and the Brigadier are left with orders to destroy the ship, which Ace does with relish.

The Doctor finds Morgaine and confronts her with the reality that nuclear destruction is death without honor. She relents and deactivates the missile but demands to face Arthur in combat again. He reveals that Arthur died and she wilts with a lack of purpose, her thirst for revenge unfulfilled. He has Morgaine arrested, along with Mordred, whom he disarms just prior to killing Anselyn in single combat.

Victorious, the whole group returns to the Brigadier's estate where the ladies all take Bessie for a day in town, leaving the Brigadier, the Doctor and Anselyn to work the garden and prepare dinner.

Analysis

Battlefield is a story that probably had a significant amount of potential when it was first written, but the background folks let it down. It was padded which bloats the story and the acting took a hard turn into the scenery chewing vein and not in a good way.

The more stories I've seen, the more I like the Seventh Doctor and this story is no exception. The Doctor adapts rather well to the conditions shown him and unlike the other stories of this season where he is a bit too much in control, there is enough wrong-footedness to make his performance that much stronger. Being forced to adapt to things you haven't done yet puts the Doctor in the unique position of having to figure things out on the fly. Of course, it also gives an extra sense of boldness since the Doctor knows that he must survive in order to be Merlin in the future and set things in motion for his past self. But it still works.

It was nice to see the Brigadier again. I thought he did very well and in Episode Four he took Ace's position away as primary companion, to the point that he made a little joke of it. I liked the Brig in this one, especially as he fully gave way to the Doctor and was prepared for just about anything. I also appreciated his candor about the situation, knocking the Doctor out because he felt he was more expendable than the Doctor. In early drafts of the script, the Brigadier was supposed to die in the confrontation with the Destroyer. I'm glad he didn't but if that had been kept, it would have been a noble and fitting end for him.

I was a little disappointed by Ace in this story. Part of that comes from a sense of Sophie Aldred trying a bit too hard with the teenager bit in her scenes with Shou Yuing. Her nature works well in contrast with the Doctor and the Brigadier because she is so much younger than they are and the naivety plays more naturally. When she is with peers or even other people, it starts coming across that she is older than what she is trying to play and there is a sense of wrongness about it. It's not terrible, but it just rubs wrong during the story.

Where this story really starts to fall apart though is in the guest cast. Most of the ancillary characters are middling at best in their acting. A couple stand out as being a little better here and there but most aren't great. The three that really disappoint though are Brigadier Bambera, Mordred and Morgaine. Bambera is supposed to be this "tough as nails" sort of commander, but she comes across as more of a jerk than anything else. It's hard to imagine anyone with more of a "shoot first and ask questions later" person than Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but there she is. However, this does not enhance her character but instead makes her into a dumb hothead. She doesn't know the Doctor and constantly gets her foot into it. She is further diminished by playing up a comedy role for her as the object of Ancelyn's affection which is so cliché that it just doesn't work very well.

I didn't expect much out of Mordred so his turns to camp were not overly surprising, though no less painful. His scenery chewing, especially with Ancelyn made me just long for the Brigadier to pull the trigger on him when he is cornered at the beginning of Episode Four. But despite that, Morgaine was actually worse for me. I think this is due to the fact that Jean Marsh is a good actress and she has been shown to play her roles well, even in other Doctor Who stories. Here, she is incredibly over-the-top and scenery chewing and it goes to the point of being almost community theater level of portraying the bad guy.

While I was watching her performance, I found myself wondering why her performance was so painful to watch when Anthony Ainley's performances as the Master were probably just as campy but enjoyable. My speculation is that Ainley knew when to pull it back when he had to for dramatic purposes and that his camp was always layered in a sense of fun that the Master would have. Whatever the circumstances, the Master was enjoying himself and the whole plot was just a game. Here, Morgaine is set out with a mission to find and recover Excalibur and then defeat Arthur. There is nothing fun in that so her decent into camp feels exactly like an actor doing a bad job rather than playing up the mustache twirly-ness for comedic effect. I wouldn't have thought it bad, but it just didn't work for me.

As interesting as the idea was, there were also some problems with the writing. Some of this came to stringing out of the plot, which added scenes and expanded the scope, but that expansion also created extra threads which just left things dangling.

I genuinely did not understand what the whole bit with the nuclear missile had to do with anything. That was never made a focus of Morgaine's at any point. Her goal was always to recover Excalibur and then battle Arthur. Fleeing before the released Destroyer was one thing but the idea of setting off the nuclear missile out of effectively spite, only to be talked down because of a lack of honor in such a killing was just dumb. Had she taken over the missile and threatened to use it unless Arthur came to challenge her and then have her face the reality of Arthur's death would have played much better. It would have put the focus on her revenge rather than another anti-nuclear bit that was very common in the 80's.

In many ways, the inclusion of the Destroyer himself is rather pointless. He is introduced midway in Episode Three and then dispatched early in Episode Four. There is a lot of build up towards with the silver bullets but it's a bit too much for a simple dragon and it took the focus off Morgaine and she should have stayed the focus in my opinion. It feels like another instance of putting a monster in Doctor Who simply so there will be a monster.

One of the few good scenes that came out of the need to pad this story out to four episodes is a reunification between Nicholas Courtney and Jean Marsh. Jean Marsh made her Doctor Who debut in The Crusade but they were both featured prominently in Nicholas Courtney's first appearance in The Daleks' Master Plan where Jean Marsh's Sarah Kingdom shot and killed Nicholas Courtney's Bret Vyon. The characters show a great deal of respect for each other and you can't help but think that very little acting is actually going on as it is two distinguished actors giving each other respect. As an overall scene, it is completely pointless and puts a rather odd bit of honor in what is otherwise rather ruthless killing, but I still enjoyed seeing the two of them share the screen together.

Another thought that came to me while I was watching was how the story should have been tightened further in regard to the Brigadier. I'm not well versed in the Arthurian legend about his return, but it seemed pretty obvious to me that the Brigadier was playing the role of Arthur. He had retired to his own Avalon with Doris but is summoned back by Merlin (the Doctor). He leads his forces to victory over Morgaine and her dragon and in early drafts of the story, the Brigadier actually died which would have further played into the legend, given Arthur's own death against Mordred's forces. You even have the nice tie in with the actors having played brother and sister in a previous story. But it felt like the Arthurian bits got dropped by Episode Four, and it just didn't quite work after that. You had a tiny little revival when Morgaine effectively gives up after learning of Arthur's death (much like the legend) but since so little focus had been given on that part of Morgaine's desire, it didn't really go anywhere.

That little point also speaks to a larger problem with the ending. Mordred is disarmed and captured. Fine, that works. But Morgaine also gives up and yet she still has all her technology/magical powers that she had before. Are we to assume that she is going to meekly submit to spending the next few years sitting in a British prison and will be released at some future point? That makes absolutely no sense. If the story didn't want to kill the antagonists, fine. I can deal with that. But the Doctor should have arranged to have them detained in their own dimension or exiled to some other world as a prison there. These are not conventional criminals that you just toss in a cell. It's another aspect of the odd pacing that came about by the expansion.

I rather wonder if in the original story, Morgaine is killed or mortally wounded by the Destroyer and calls for Arthur to finish her off after the Brigadier defeats him. There the Doctor would have stood over her and told her that Arthur was dead and that her revenge was pointless. I would have been a bit of the dark Doctor showing up and fully closing Morgaine's story rather than just letting it dangle at the end.

The production values of this story aren't bad for the 80's. It is fairly well directed and there is some nice camera work. There are a number of visual effects which do look very fake, even for the time. In fact, just about everything the Destroyer does looks quite bad. Despite the fact that the Destroyer himself actually looks really good. I'm going to fault the times and the budget more than anything and compared to the other problems of this story, it's a minor thing.

This is a story that I can honestly say I wished I liked more. There is potential here both in plotline and the talent available. But it just turned into a steaming pile. There are too many groaner moments to outweigh the good moments, especially between the Doctor and the Brigadier. There are far better Seventh Doctor stories and I think the final ride of the Brigadier is the only reason to give this one a second time around.

Overall personal score: 1.5 out of 5