The Crusade

I am Sir Ian, Knight of Jaffa

The Crusade is a bit of a mixed bag for me as the acting is very good, but the storyline gets a bit bogged down.

Plot Summary

The First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki land in a wood outside of Jaffa where King Richard is hawking. A band of Saracens ambush them. Richard escapes and takes the Doctor, Ian and Vicki with them. Barbara and a knight are taken captive by the Muslims. Barbara and the knight pretend to be Richard and his sister Joanna but were found out by Saladin's brother, who desired Joanna for his wife. Barbara is then kidnapped by El Akir, the emir who captured her originally, desiring her and revenge on her for humiliating him in the eyes of Saladin.

Meanwhile, Ian is knighted by Richard and sent as an envoy to Saladin, proposing marriage between Joanna and Saladin's brother to seal a peace treaty. Saladin agrees but Joanna balks and threatens to go to the pope. This interplay catches the Doctor and Vicki in intercourt politics and the Doctor gets leave from Richard to go to Acre, but instead he heads towards Jaffa and the TARDIS.

Barbara escapes El Akir's palace and finds refuge with a man named Haroun, who had sworn revenge on El Akir for murdering his wife and taking his eldest daughter into his harem. Barbara later is recaptured trying to save Horoun's younger daughter but escapes again into the harem. She is betrayed by one of the women, but El Akir is killed by Haroun who has snuck into the palace. Ian also arrives shortly afterwards after escaping torture from a thief named Ibrahim. They return to the woods and rescue the Doctor from an English knight who followed him thinking him a traitor. They then disappear in the TARDIS.

Analysis

For a four part story, this is incredibly complex. It doesn't help that episodes two and four are only available as recons. But the acting is very good throughout. It is rather a pity that there are no shared scenes between Richard (Julian Glover) and Saladin (Bernard Kay) as I can imagine that these two actors would have been very impressive. In fact, nearly all the actors are very good. Some of the minor roles are less than stellar, but they are quickly overlooked. In fact, the only performance I had any problem with was with the thief Ibrahim and that was only due to the fact that the sniveling accent he was using made him a bit difficult to understand.

The downside of this story (aside from two episodes being missing) is the complexity of the plot. There are little side plots going on with the Doctor designed to highlight the court politics, but they are a bit rushed and add very little. They really seem to be more additions to keep the Doctor in the story as the bulk of the action revolves around Barbara. Barbara is the only member of the crew, aside for Ian in a few scenes at the end, that has any interaction with the Muslims and yet that is where the bulk of the action takes place.

The Doctor and Vicki spend episodes one and two dealing with a clothing merchant who is selling goods stolen from the palace. Things are resolved in their favor but even while it is going on, it feels like the story is spinning it's wheels with things that don't matter much. Vicki's posing as a boy and then discovery to be a girl also is more of a vehicle to give the Doctor a few lines and to give Joanna more of a presence in the story since the peace proposal revolves around her. It's a mild glimpse into court politics, but given how heavy the end of the story is, it feels like a bit of a waste of story space.

The whole of episode four has a bit of a rushed feel. It requires the Doctor and Vicki to leave Richard's palace and get back to the wood, for Ian to escape Ibrahim's clutches and get to Barbara, for Barbara to escape El Akir and help Haroun's daughter to escape, and then for Ian and Barbara to get back to the TARDIS. That's a lot of action to contain in one episode. Ian and Haroun's rescue of Barbara and the harem feel very last second rescue with neither of them having any trouble getting into El Akir's palace and getting the drop on him and his two guards. That makes the rescue feel a bit unsatisfying to me, which is a shame as the characters (even Ibrahim) had a bit of depth to them that would have been interesting to explore more.

Because of the quality of acting, I want to like this story more than it deserves. But it is hard to deny that the multitude of plots, especially those involving the court politics, bog the story down. If you streamlined it to mostly the adventures of Barbara, this would be a top tier story. But the rest drags it down. If they find the rest, I'll be interested to watch it again, but I probably won't seek this out for an immediate rewatch.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5