The Warlords (The Crusade Episode 4)

The one where Barbara goes into hiding in a harem...

"I'm not afraid of you," retorts Barbara to the malignant El Akir. "Fear is nothing to do with contempt. Or disgust." Good old Babs, never letting her side down and always standing up to the bullies, like the best school teachers should. David Whitaker has always written Barbara well, and although the early episodes of The Crusade seemed to consist of her getting kidnapped and escaping, he makes up for it in the story's second half (even though Barbara escapes yet again here!).

However, the pinnacle Whitaker reached with episode 3 is not maintained here, because it feels to me quite rushed, as if he started out planning for a six-parter, but realised he only had four so just wrote an ending really quickly. It's not done too badly, but to me it's quite obvious that all of the delicate world-building, characterisation and subplots just collapse like a house of cards here.

The Wheel of Fortune (The Crusade Episode 3)

The one where Barbara is asked to murder a young girl in order to save her from marauders...

Wow. I really don't think there's been an episode of Doctor Who this good since Season 1, and even then I'd probably vote for this as the very best so far. Thank goodness we have the luxury of being able to sit and watch it because if this was just audio-only I don't think we'd be able to fully appreciate just how great it is.

Central to the entire episode is a guest actor called George Little, who plays Haroun. Little gives one of the most moving performances ever given to Doctor Who, enhanced by David Whitaker's sensitive writing and Dudley Simpson's beautiful music. Haroun is the man who grabs Barbara at the end of episode 2, but he is not the enemy (far from it). He is a sworn enemy of El Akir, but he's not your usual run-of-the-mill vengeful plot device. Haroun has a reason - several reasons - to want El Akir dead. In a beautiful monologue to camera, Jacqueline Hill looking sympathetically on, Haroun tells us that El Akir destroyed his happy home life by murdering his wife and son, and abducting his daughter Maimuna, then burning his house to the ground.

The Knight of Jaffa (The Crusade Episode 2)

The one where Ian is knighted by the King of England...

The Crusade is the only serial in Season 2 to have any episodes missing from the BBC Archive, but luckily fan David Holman recorded the soundtrack off-air so that we can at least hear the episode. In tandem with John Cura's legendary telesnaps, this is the best way we can currently experience The Knight of Jaffa.

It's a much stronger episode than The Lion, but still has its faults. For instance, Barbara is written as a run-of-the-mill damsel in distress for much of the time, David Whitaker not giving Jacqueline Hill much to do at all except get kidnapped and escape. By the end of The Knight of Jaffa, Barbara has been abducted or captured three times (twice by El Akir, and once more in this episode's cliffhanger), demonstrating very little imagination on Whitaker's part.

The Lion (The Crusade Episode 1)

The one where Barbara gets kidnapped within seconds of arriving...

The first five minutes of The Lion are among the most violent Doctor Who has ever been, certainly up to this stage. There's sword fights, fist fights, murders and an abduction in quick succession, and it all feels very full-on and quite jarring as we're not used to being thrown into quite so much action so soon after the titles have rolled.

The performances are very stagy and theatrical in the way many costume dramas of the period were. The actors are very capable and committed, but it instantly feels like you're watching a Shakespeare play on the TV. To some that might speak of quality drama, but to me it's all a bit po-faced and stiff. It's the style of the time, but by 1965 it was also quite old-fashioned, stemming right back to the advent of sound films. Although his performance forms the backbone of this, at least Julian Glover brings a good-humoured dimension to the proceedings.