The Crusade

The First Doctor story 'The Crusade' has not survived whole: we now possess only the first episode and the third. The visual quality of these episdodes is variable, with the first being particularly bad, and the third marginally better. The soundtrack to both is good, as these things go. In addition to these episodes, there exist audio recordings (made during the original television broadcasts) of the second and fourth episodes. These are poor in quality, but they do at least provide us with evidence of the acting and music in the missing episodes. Enjoying 'The Crusade' is thus a struggle against problematic circumstances. Only if we had a complete recording of this thoroughly historical adventure would we be able to know properly what it is like. So any real enjoyment comes from individual scenes, performances, and other such elements, which allow us to see what the complete article may have been like.

One thing we do know would have been constant throughout is the look of 'The Crusades', and the design of sets and costumes, for example, does at least make looking at 'The Crusades' a pleasure. Little props that characters can fiddle with and small details in the background all contribute to a sense of time and history, although it has to be said that this is history as seen by 'Doctor Who', and there are doubtless inconsistencies and inaccuracies aplenty. The scale of television productions will always limit the scope and breadth of the visual environment, but the creative team get around this by using the compact nature of certain scenes to enhance tension and atmosphere. Lighting is used well, in small spaces, with flames and such things casting interesting shadows at all the right moments. And this is combined effectively with tight, controlled camera-work to create a Doctor Who story that looks, at moments, as though it had a far bigger budget than it did in fact have. There is nothing better on television than a really good close-up of someone looking angry combined with an anxious face filling the background; simple things, constructed with a little care, can have a huge effect. Sadly, it is not all this good, and there are frequently moments that jar with the professional look of certain scenes. The fight scene in episode one is one such jarring moment: a narrative muddle that is best completely forgotten about.

Although 'The Crusades' overall is not a marvel, some of the performances are positively cinematic. Some of the stuff on display here is not what you usually see on genre television. An exchange between Julian Glover and Jean Marsh in episode three is the best surving scene, in terms of writing, visual effect, and dramatic power. These two actors both appeared in Doctor Who again, but it is this scene in 'The Crusade' that I will now remember them for. Other actors, too numerous to name, also put in subtle and complex appearances, the weakest probably being (ironically) the show regular, Maureen O'Brien. It may be that Vicki is supposed to be fragile and delicate, but when set against the rest of the story, she just comes across as shallow and wet excuse for a character.

The Doctor, the most important regular of them all, is another kettle of fish. It is less that specific lines are delivered excellently, or that he is written for very well, and more that at specific and key dramatic moments Hartnell simply 'looks' just right. His facial expressions and body language convey a vast amount of information to the audience. Hartnell's Doctor is cunning without being devious, belligerent without being arrogant, and it is only a pity that he didn't have more to do, or that there wasn't more happening for him to react to.

And this is a problem, more generally, in 'The Crusades': very little seems to happen, from what I can gather from the surviving episodes and audio recordings. The first episode is poorly paced, and the second episode is full of ineffectual dialogue. The third episode feels more dramatic thanks to a couple of powerful scenes, but the story itself isn't compelling enough, and Barbara, a character full of potential, spends of lot of time apparently just looking on anxiously.

For the video release William Russell was filmed, in character as Ian, in three 'linking' segments. He looks back at his travels with the Doctor, as though reminiscing with a friend, and these little fillers, plugging the story's holes with little synopses, are pleasant to watch (if a tiny bit nostalgic in conception and a little shoddy in execution). Overall, however, 'The Crusades' suffers both for being incomplete, and for being far less entertaining than it might have been. Worth a watch, though, for the argument that links (through Glover and Marsh) 'City of Death' to 'Battlefield'.