Tuesday, June 07, 2022

Battlefield Part Two


The one where the Doctor finds a spaceship at the bottom of the lake...

The space knight threatening to kill everybody turns out to be called Mordred, and when he lifts his visor he's revealed to be just as ruggedly handsome as his arch-enemy, blond Ancelyn. It seems Ancelyn is general of Arthur's army, while Mordred is the son of Arthur's enemy, Morgaine. I love how Ben Aaronovitch is tinkering with Arthurian legend, just as Sir Thomas Malory tinkered with the works of Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth. There is no definitive version of the mythology, so why not play with it a bit more? I was so inspired by all of this as a 13-year-old that I went to my local library to research the legends of King Arthur (when we had books instead of Google), demonstrating how, even 26 years on, Doctor Who was still educating as well as entertaining.

Mordred says that 12 centuries ago, Morgaine bound the Doctor (ie Merlin) and sealed him in ice caves for all eternity, but the Doctor - at least, the Doctor in his seventh body - knows nothing of this. He blags his way through the conversation, pretending he's Merlin and that he wields "mighty arts", but once Mordred and his tin men have gone, he admits he has no idea who any of them are. For once, the Doctor is on the back foot, and others know more than he does.

There's then a rather childish fight between moody Bambera and noble Ancelyn which might have seemed amusing when they filmed it, but it's just silly, and not becoming of the rank of Brigadier or Knight General. Can you imagine Nicholas Courtney rolling around playing fisticuffs with Roger Delgado back in the day?

Incidentally, Ancelyn's full name is Ancelyn ap Gwalchmai. "Ap" in Welsh means "son of", and Gwalchmei was a Welsh hero who became the Gawain of Arthurian legend, making Ancelyn Gawain's son (at least this sideways dimension version). Gawain does not have a child named Ancelyn in Arthurian mythology, but coincidentally does have a son named Lovell (Lavel?). Furthermore, Ancelin is a French girl's name meaning "handmaiden", which tells us a little about how Aaronovitch sees the dynamic between Ancelyn and Bambera (who are obviously hot for one another, despite the aggression).

All this takes place in the daytime, but the next thing we know night has fallen. Mordred sets to work summoning his mother from another universe, while those holed up in the Gore Crow experience a thunderstorm. Clearly some time has passed between everybody leaving the brewery, and the scene in the pub, but what's everybody been doing all day? What doesn't work is that Bambera and Ancelyn enter apparently having concluded their wrestling match outside, the knight having been "vanquished" by Winifred. Were they fighting for several hours?

Morgaine's arrival in this reality is heralded in a maelstrom of thunder and lightning, her son Mordred laughing his head off like a demented hyena in a scene which plunders new depths of awfulness. Was Christopher Bowen told to laugh until he heard someone call "cut", but everybody forgot to say "cut"? Or did director Michael Kerrigan really want Mordred to come across as a complete and utter lunatic? Either way, Bowen suffers because it's impossible to sustain that amount of hilarity and be taken seriously.

Morgaine is played by the wonderful Jean Marsh, making her third appearance in Doctor Who after debuting as Princess Joanna in The Crusade, then playing ill-fated ersatz companion Sara Kingdom in The Daleks' Master Plan. Marsh specialised in evil witches around this time, having played Mombi in 1985's Return to Oz and Bavmorda in 1988's Willow, and would go on to play the similar role of Morgana in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1989). She was wise casting for this part, and she plays it with aplomb. She knows what's needed of her, but brings a femininity to the part absent from most of her other witchy turns.

What I'm not quite grasping is why these knights and witches are pouring through into this dimension. What's here for them? And if Morgaine can step through a curtain between realities, why did the space knights arrive like rockets from outer space? It turns out there's a spaceship at the bottom of Lake Vortigern with Excalibur and a dead Arthur inside, but how did they get there from the other dimension? And why?

Morgaine promises the Doctor/ Merlin that this shall be their last battlefield, suggesting again that they have fought before. Is this a case of a character knowing more about the Doctor because they're from his future? It's an intriguing Moffatism decades ahead of River Song, and it's refreshing to have this smug Seventh Doctor on the back foot somewhat.

But despite this gap in his knowledge, the Doctor doesn't seem at all surprised to find an ancient carving in Warmsley's archaeological dig saying "dig hole here" in his own handwriting (how did he know to go and look there?). He asks Ace to blow a hole in the dig, which is surely out of character for him, and neither is he surprised to find a spaceship at the end of a tunnel beneath the lake. Come on Mr Aaronovitch, either the Doctor knows what's going on or he doesn't, make your mind up!

Meanwhile, the Brigadier's taking part in a completely separate adventure with Flight Lieutenant Lavel, taking an absolute age to reach Carbury after a stop-off in London. The Brig's adventure consists mainly of whizzing around in a helicopter, and dealing with red tape, and by the end of the second episode he still hasn't got properly involved in the story (or met the Doctor).

He's not been idle though, having to deal with an exploding chopper and then meeting Morgaine, the sun killer, dominator of the thirteen worlds and battle queen of the S'Rax. This meeting has a double significance in that Courtney and Marsh had played siblings in The Daleks' Master Plan all those years ago (she cold-bloodedly murdering him into the bargain). I like the dialogue between them, with Morgaine asking how his day's been, and the Brig wearily replying: "I've had better."

Thoughts:
  • Morgaine says that Merlin has "worn many faces", suggesting she doesn't know just one version of the Doctor, but several. As the Seventh Doctor isn't aware of any of this, it's either an alt-Doctor, or several of his future selves. I'd put my money on the Twelfth Doctor making a fine Merlin, and maybe the Eleventh too.
  • Morgaine banishes Mordred when she finds out he's been fighting the people of this world on their soil without proper respect for their dead. They find themselves in a churchyard, surrounded by memorials and gravestones, but Mordred hasn't been fighting there, so why is Morgaine so pissed off? It doesn't seem very fair for her to banish him when she's just zapped a passing helicopter with a laser bolt, potentially killing those inside. Morgaine then insists on holding a remembrance service for the war dead, observing a ceasefire "for the duration of said ceremony" (no wonder Morgaine says the Brig's words are strange!). Why is she doing this, why is she wasting time with all this when she could be getting on with things?
  • I like the scene where dawn breaks over Carbury and the Doctor's seen gathering up various military paraphernalia, then wakes up the slumbering Bambera and Ancelyn by popping a crisp packet. That is very Seventh Doctor, playful but with an edge!
  • Yet again this is a very choppy episode. Take, for example, the way Kerrigan mixes up what's happening with the Doctor and Ace trying to get into the spaceship with the exchange between the Brig and Morgaine. There's no thematic reason to intertwine these scenes, they would run much better as longer, separate scenes. Instead, it's a bit disorientating, not to mention annoying, to keep flipping from place to place.
  • Of all the vehicles the Brigadier could have commandeered, he takes Shou Yuing's powder blue Citroen 2CV. Is that supposed to be amusing, or is it just stupid?
Part 2 has a better cliffhanger than part 1, with the Doctor and Ace menaced by rather poorly realised computer graphics in the shape of fanged snakes. They are a defence system triggered when Ace removes Excalibur from its "stone", but rather more dangerous is the fact she gets stuck in an airlock as it fills with water. Knocked unconscious by the wispy green worms, the Doctor is incapable of rescuing her.

We're halfway through the story and I'm still not convinced it's got going properly yet. Lots of characters, lots to look at, but little actually coming together. Where is all this heading?

First broadcast: September 13th, 1989

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The use of a real helicopter helps sell the Brig's arrival, and the exploding chopper carcass is impressive.
The Bad: Mordred's incessant laughter.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆


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