Battlefield

I like the plot of ‘Battlefield’. I know this because I have read Marc Platt’s novelisation of the story, and I like the blend of science fiction and fantasy and the idea of other-dimensional knights and sorceresses who inspired the legend of King Arthur, equipped with pneumatic armour. I also like the idea of the Doctor running into trouble caused by his future self, the first time the series ever really explored the idea, which seems perfectly in keeping with a series concerned with time travel. Unfortunately, what we get on screen is nowhere near as interesting, due to a combination of bad acting, bad direction and generally poor production values, which at times becomes so dire that it makes it easy to understand why Season Twenty-Six would be the final season of Doctor Who. 

There are nevertheless aspects of ‘Battlefield’ that I like. The final television appearance to date of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is handled well, with a more dignified portrayal of the character that is a million miles away from the buffoon of ‘The Three Doctors’ and ‘Planet of the Spiders’. Nicholas Courtney returns to the role with his usual ease, helped in large part by some well-scripted scenes such as his early scenes with Doris, during which he discusses his reasons for returning to duty one more time once he learns that the Doctor is involved. Despite Doris’ pleading with him, he remains adamant that he must do his duty, and bids her a fond farewell, promising to return later. His defeat of the Destroyer is also well handled; he knocks the Doctor out once he knows how to dispatch the demon, telling him, “Sorry Doctor, but I think I’m rather more expendable than you are”, and just before he pulls the trigger in the subsequent scene, when the Destroyer asks him if he is the best champion that his world can muster, he coolly replies “I just do the best I can”, which in many ways sums up all of the best aspects of the character. Writer Ben Aaronovitch also includes some friction between the Brigadier and Ace, largely in additional scenes added to the video release, as she bristles at being describes as the latest companion and generally gets rather jealous that the Doctor and the Brigadier are old friends. Unfortunately however, it is obvious that Aaronovitch originally intended to kill the Brigadier off in this story, and the change of mind that prevented this has a result on the dramatic impetus of the Brigadier’s scenes. Much as I like the character and don’t especially want to see him dead, the aforementioned scenes with Doris are clearly structured to facilitate a more tragic ending, which never materialises, rendering much of the dialogue rather redundant. 

I also quite like Morgaine. Former companion Jean Marsh seems to relish her role, and although villains with a sense of honour are now thoroughly clichéd, they can be used effectively. Morgaine has such a sense of honour, evident from her first scene with the Brigadier as she recognizes him as an enemy warrior, but suggests a ceasefire whilst she and her men hold a remembrance ceremony to honour the dead, having been accidentally misled into defiling a graveyard by Mordred. Morgaine also tells the Brigadier, “I wish you know that I bear you no malice… but when next we meet I shall kill you” and later asks, “What is victory without honour?” She also pays for Mordred’s drinks at the local pub by restoring Elizabeth’s sight. But despite this sense of honour, Morgaine is also terribly dangerous; she can knock helicopters out of the sky, she wipes the mind of Lavel and then reduces her to ashes, and is so obsessed with defeating “Merlin” and Arthur that she unleashes the Destroyer, which we are told is capable of destroying the world. This gives the character an unpredictable edge that makes her an effective villain, one striking example of her ruthlessness being when the Brigadier threatens to kill Mordred unless she releases Ace and Shou Yuing; her response is, “Die well, my son”. Nevertheless, her concern for honour is crucial to the story’s finale, as she prepares to detonate a nuclear missile but is talked out of it by the Doctor, who rapidly reveals the truth about nuclear weapons with a terse speech about their effects, including the line “A child looks up at the sky – his eyes turn to cinders”. Morgaine relents, and lets him abort the missile, and her subsequent grief over Arthur’s death also shows her human side, as her real motivation is revealed. Except that this scene, which I superficially enjoy, is utter bollocks. I can buy the fact that Morgaine thinks a weapon that rains down fire from the sky indiscriminately is dishonourable, but only a short time before, she released a being capable of consuming the whole world. 

And this is the problem with ‘Battlefield’; the script and production promise much, but then end up buggering up the delivery. Having previously written ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ and later writing the controversial but impressive ‘Transit’ and what is, to date, my favourite Doctor Who novel in the majestic form of ‘The Also People’, I find it extremely disappointing that so much of Aaronovitch’s script here feels like the scribbling of a sixth form student with pretensions that exceed his talent. The cod-Shakespearean dialogue is awful, although this is partly because with the exception of Jean Marsh, none of the relevant actors can deliver it remotely convincingly; this is especially obvious with Ancelyn, actor Marcus Gilbert struggling throughout. He gets a number of lines that are clearly meant to provide comic relief, but which actually don’t; his banter with Bambera is merely irritating, and lines like “I am the best knight in the world” merely detract from the potential drama of the piece. Another shortcoming of Aaronovitch’s script is the characterisation of Bambera, who he seems to have tried to write as a strong female role, but he has apparently confused strong and capable with stroppy and bad-tempered. Her dialogue is dreadful, from her pointless catchphrase of “Shame” to lines like “You’re under arrest, you and the rest of your freaky friends”. As for her relationship with Ancelyn, the argumentative odd couple that fall in love is such a hoary old cliché that can work, but doesn’t here due to its sheer tokenism. Aaronovitch also includes a scene half-way through Episode Three in which the Doctor hypnotizes the locals to make them cooperate with the UNIT evacuation; it is considerably more impressive than the hypnotism scene in ‘Silver Nemesis’, but it is still a blatant plot device for disposing of extraneous characters mid-way through the story. 

These problems with the script however pale into insignificance compared to some of the failings of the production. For one thing, there is some awful acting on display. Despite decent performances from veteran actors James Ellis, Noel Collins and June Bland as Peter Warmsly, and Pat and Elizabeth Rowlinson, the story is rather hamstrung by awkward and stilted performances from Angela Bruce as Bambera and Marcus Gilbert as Ancelyn, and most painfully of all by an excruciatingly bad performance from Christopher Bowen as Mordred. Bowen is embarrassingly bad at various points throughout, but the absolute nadir comes as he summons Morgaine and laughs maniacally for almost thirty seconds. And by laughs maniacally, I mean that he shouts “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” in a way that would make Stephen Thorne proud. This I quite bad, but what is far worse is the performances that we get from the regulars. I’ve discussed the limitations of McCoy’s acting in previous reviews, but here he seems to be exceeding these limitations at every turn, in a performance that makes me fully understand his detractors. He gurns almost constantly, as he tries to convey anger or strong emotion, and especial low-points include “If they’re dead…”, “Stop! There will be no battle here!”, and “Go, before I unleash a terrible something on you!” He’s also excruciatingly unconvincing during the scene in which he threatens to kill Mordred if Morgaine doesn’t release Ace and Shou Yuing, which is particularly disappointing as I rather like the fact that the script turns the “Look me in the eye… end my life” scene from ‘The Happiness Patrol’ back on him and makes the Brigadier rather grim and menacing. There is also a scene in Episode Two in which Morgaine contacts the Doctor via sorcery and commands, “Merlin! Hear me!” The Doctor responds with “I hear you”, a straightforward piece of dialogue the delivery of which somehow makes McCoy look and sound constipated. 

Sophie Aldred is even worse. The script doesn’t help; returning to a less pleasant character aspect from ‘Dragonfire’, we once more get to hear Ace boasting about how she vandalized her local school with explosives and destroyed the pottery pigs of some small children as though this is a big and clever thing to do. Ace is also paired with Shou Yuing, which causes two problems; firstly she is almost as irritating as Ace, and secondly actress Ling Tai plays her which is a problem in that she turns out to be visibly more talented than Sophie Aldred. This is particularly noticeable when they start fighting in the chalk circle in Episode Three, and Tai conveys convincing emotion whilst Aldred just scowls and shouts “Toe-face!” (which I’ll concede is the fault of the script, as is the line “Geronimo!” later on). Having said that, Tai fares just as badly as Aldred during the infamous “Boom!” scene, which brings me neatly on to the direction.

Michael Kerrigan’s direction is simply dire. A story with the title ‘Battlefield’ might be reasonably expected to have some fight scenes in it, but although I suspect that they are present in the script, they seem to have been replaced in the broadcast story with scenes of incompetent extras in cardboard “armour” pissing about in the mud whilst cheap fireworks are set off at random around them. Except in the case of the badly choreographed fight between Bambera and Ancelyn in Episode Two, which instead consists of a sequence of extravagant pratfalls instead. The gun/sword fight in Episode One is particularly badly staged and tacky, especially when two knights run into each other. Basically, everything is either cack-handed or badly misjudged; the script calls for an ancient lake surrounded by a forest, so the production team visit an obviously man-made lake with a few recently planted saplings nearby. And the incidental score is utter shite; guess who composed it? The BBC may have canceled my favourite television series at the end of this season, but every cloud has a silver lining and in this case it’s the fact that Deaf McCulloch never got to work on it again. Did I type Deaf? I meant Keff. 

I’ve been rather harsh, I know; there are one or two other things about ‘Battlefield’ that I enjoy, such as the attempt to show a multi-national UNIT force. It’s also interesting to see the increasingly manipulative Doctor trying to second-guess his future self, and although it is enormously self-indulgent, the scene with Bessie raises a smile. But whereas some stories are simply bad, I can’t help feeling that ‘Battlefield’ had the potential to be really good, instead of a tacky runaround with a twee ending. It’s a terrible start to the final season; fortunately, things would get much better before the end…