Battlefield

The TARDIS is drawn to Earth in the mid 90's by a strange signal that is causing widespread radio interferance through the Carbury area. Upon arrival, the Doctor and Ace encounter a UNIT missile convoy that has run off the road, and opposing parties of warring knights in armour - armed with laser weapons and grenades. The Doctor's presence brings Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart out of retirement, but also draws the sorceress Morgaine in her quest to posess the mythical sword Excalibur and lead the war against King Arthur. The Doctor realizes that the knights and Morgaine have come through from another dimension where the Arthurian legend and its players are very much real people, and their presence here now jeopardizes the safety of the planet, for Morgaine has brought with her the Destroyer, the Eater of Worlds.

A good start to season 26, although compared to the rest of the scripts that would make up the final televised season of the classic era it is pretty simple and straightforward, and full of things blowing up. Oh yes, there are fights galore in this one, a reminder of the days when the UNIT action was performed by the stunt crew HAVOC, although here the action is not as limited by the size of the studios; the location work beside a lake and the surrounding forest is perfect for this scale of combat. Too bad the sword fighting isn't top notch - Jay and I were perplexed that for a production company where mideval action should be their forte, the BBC and its actors really lack the finesse to fight with swords.

It's good to see the Brigadier back with the Doctor, and for the first time he meets the seventh incarnation. The Brig is older now; as his own continuity goes this is set after the sixth Doctor audio The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, but that audio manages to blow the gaffe about the Brigadier's marriage to Doris, the girlfriend alluded to in 1973's Planet of the Spiders. Doris is a nice lady, and obviously wealthy as there was no way the Brigadier could have afforded the huge house they live in off his UNIT pension and whatever he made as a teacher at Brendan School. UNIT has moved on over the years as well and the new head honcho is Brigadier Winnifred Bambera (whose presence on the UNIT roster was retconned in the novelized version of Downtime), pulling UNIT out of the days past where women were either ditzy spy-wannabes like Jo Grant or they simply answered the phone and made coffee like Corporal Bell. Bambera's quick move from tough military woman to love interest of blond hunk knight general Ancelyn is a little hard to swallow though. Jay and I both thought she looked like a man. Maybe Ancelyn did too, he is kinda pretty.

The Doctor undergoes a bit of a character change here. In the previous season there were hints at his darker nature, but here he is really going new places. His costume has changed for starters; the jacket is now dark brown, the bandana around his hat and his scarf are darker colours as well. But there's this air about him now that wasn't there before. It doesn't exactly fly when Sylvester McCoy takes it too far and snarls through his teeth at times, but you forget about that when everyone starts to call the Doctor by another name: Merlin. Given that a lot of the cast have come from some parallel dimension, it is quite possible that the Doctor settled down for a time as Arthur's magic advisor, much like he did when exiled by the Time Lords and landed in the company of UNIT in the early 70's. The fact that Morgaine defeated him by sealing him in an ice cave, though, is a bit unsettling.

Battlefield has a lot of other interesting things going for it. Notice that in the beginning of episode 1 the TARDIS console room is deliberately shot in the dark to hide the fact that the walls are not there. The set was only going to be used once for the whole season - much as how it was only used for The Greatest Show in the Galaxy previously - and reportedly the walls were starting to wear a bit thin, so rather than rebuild it there were some hasty bits of wall thrown together (they actually look like curtains) and circles cut out, the then the lights dimmed to hide the fine details. Ace looks different too with her hair grown a bit longer and her clothes a bit more mature than before, and this time there is no mention of her backstory; there is just too much going on in the script to throw more of her into it, but this is the only time this season that it happens. The Destroyer is a pretty good monster although he salivates way too much. He's played by Marek Anton, who will appear later in the season as a Russian soldier. In interviews Anton says that they were sunning themselves on the beach between takes on that story and producer John Nathan-Turner noticed his physique and offered him the part of the Destroyer. Yeah. Casting couch. And they said it was all an ugly rumour.

So one down, three to go and we're done the longest stretch of the show. Not that I am excited about this - Jay and I are left wondering what we'll do in a few weeks when we're out of episodes, although the next season of the current show is about to start so we will talk about that. Not on here, though; not yet.

NEXT EPISODE : GHOST LIGHT