Battlefield
Story 152, Episodes 682-685, Season 26 Episodes 1-4
Doctor: Seventh Doctor
Companions: The Brigadier, Ace McShane
Doctor Who meets Arthurian Legend as UNIT makes a very welcome appearance in a story that never lets up on the fun.
The Review
It has been a long time since we’ve gotten a proper UNIT story out of Doctor Who, and it delivers. Delightfully, UNIT actually has cultural diversity benefiting it being an arm of the United Nations, and we meet the current Brigadier: Winifred Bambera played quite successfully by Angela Bruce. The Brigadier feels better here than Mawdryn Undead, which makes sense as that part was originally for Ian. We see him married in retirement, but the moment he catches wind of the Doctor he has to go back to being a soldier. For his final appearance in the show proper, it’s a great farewell, as the Brigadier stares down the Destroyer (an evil blue demon who doesn’t actually do much destroying), he says he is likely not Earth’s best champion but he’ll try his best. The two Brigadiers are both respectful of one another, and it’s also fun to see women in UNIT! Ace also makes a friend in Shou Yuing, one of the few Asian women in the classic series.
In classic Doctor Who fashion, the villains are Morgaine and Mordred of legend, who are of course inter dimensional warriors tracking down the spaceship of Arthur stuck under an English lake. Even more delightfully, everyone immediately pegs the Doctor as Merlin, and it’s confirmed he will be Merlin in his future. The Doctor now has a brown coat which I love and is now one of my favorite Doctor outfits. It’s a fun little inversion to last season where the Doctor seemed to have a secret past we didn’t know about, here it’s a secret future leaving the Doctor confused. Morgaine plans to fire a nuke, but the Doctor talks her down by explaining how dishonorable that would be and she relents. Now, Battlefield can feel a bit sloppy at points, and the true nature of the Arthurians isn’t revealed, nor their fate (they just get locked up by UNIT forever?). Still, it’s a blast, and who can hate Ace emerging from a lake wielding Excalibur?
Battlefield gives us a classic UNIT romp that is pleasantly diverse, and puts the Seventh Doctor in more unusual positions. I only wish the Destroyer did some more, you know, destroying.
9/10 Not perfect, but a very fun outing
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