2x06. The Crusade
Writer: David Whitaker
Director: Douglas Camfield
Script Editor: Dennis Spooner
Producer: Verity Lambert
Synopsis: The TARDIS
materializes in the Middle East during the 12th century, where the
forces of King Richard the Lionheart are at war with the Saracens.
Richard wants to make peace by arranging a marriage between his sister
and Saladin's brother Saphadin, but she refuses, and meanwhile the
TARDIS crew are split up and try to avoid incurring the hostility of
either side.
Review: With the exception of
"The Dalek Invasion of Earth," the second season had been a mostly
pedestrian effort so far, offering three mildly inventive but somewhat
superficial sci-fi/adventure plots and one poorly conceived attempt at
comedy. Fortunately, the series bounces back with "The Crusade," a
nicely written piece of human drama and a refreshing sign of life for
the historical format after the misfire of "The Romans."
The Doctor and his companions play something of a
secondary role in terms of moving the plot forward: they're not
protagonists so much as tour guides to the world of the 12th century.
This turns out not to be a problem, however, because writer David
Whitaker's guest characters are drawn well enough that I was content to
sit back and watch their story unfold. The dialogue and performances
are uniformly first-rate, and the production team has done a nice job
of capturing the look and feel of another time and place on their
limited budget. And I should emphasize that the TARDIS crew aren't
completely upstaged: Barbara, in particular, shows real bravery and
heroism, especially when she allows herself to be captured by the
vicious El Akir rather than risk letting him discover Safiya in her
hiding place.
I was somewhat worried when I sat down to watch "The Crusade" that it
would show us uncompromisingly brave and noble Englishmen pitted
against savage bloodthirsty Arabs, but Whitaker gives us a nicely
balanced picture of the two sides. The leaders on both sides -- Richard
for the English, and Saladin and Saphadin for the Saracens -- are
growing weary of war and are open to the possibility of peace by way of
an arranged marriage for Saphadin and Richard's sister Joanna. And
while El Akir is certainly the villain of the piece, we see that the
English are capable of warmongering and superstition (Leicester is
decidedly cool to the prospect of peace and believes that the Doctor is
a sorcerer), and Joanna's refusal of a marriage to a "dog" and an
"infidel" is an honest portrayal of the prejudices of the medieval era.
In the end, the attempts at peace are unsuccessful: there is a tragic
air to Richard's reluctant resolve to try once again to take Jerusalem,
a quest that we (and the Doctor) know will fail. As for El Akir, we see
that his own subjects fear and despise him just as much as his English
enemies, which both strengthens him as a villain and adds to the
balanced portrayal of the two sides.
While "The Aztecs" used the historical format to explore the issue of
interaction between two vastly different cultures, "The Crusade"
tackles the slightly less nuanced but nevertheless compelling theme of
the hard choices of war. Whitaker's script gives us leaders who, we
sense, do not really want to be fighting each other, but find
themselves doing so nonetheless, with no solution in sight that modern
audiences would see as completely acceptable: we're likely to approve
of Richard's desire for peace but not his attempt to coerce his sister,
and we're similarly likely to approve of Joanna's resistance to the
arranged marriage but not of the bigotry that leads her to refuse. Even
Leicester, who is distinguished by his ardor for religious conquest and
his hostility to the Doctor, comes off not so much as a villain but
rather as a product of his times. The same goes for Saladin and
Saphadin: they're eager for an agreement that might end the fighting
and they treat Barbara well when she's in their custody, but they seem
prepared to kill her if she proves not to be useful.
The restoration of "The Crusade" offers about all a Doctor Who fan
could ask for: we get the two intact episodes, an introductory segment
and narration to fill in the missing pieces by William Russell, in
character as an elderly Ian Chesterton looking back on his adventures
with the Doctor, and a soundtrack CD of the two missing episodes. (I'd
advise having this detailed plot summary from the Doctor Who Reference
Guide in front of you while you listen.) It's not quite the same as
having the complete serial, but it's still enough for me to rank "The
Crusade" alongside "The Aztecs" and "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" as
one of the series' early standouts.
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
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