Battlefield

Battlefield is a cracking, action-packed story. It has a strong cast of great characters and some lovely location shooting. The costumes and prosthetics also look really good. I found some elements of the plot a little unclear and I did feel that episode 4 began to loose its focus a bit, but, on the whole, I enjoyed this serial a lot.

I really enjoy a lot about this episode. Most of the ideas – the Doctor's future self having been a mythological figure in the past; the characters of Arthurian legend in modern-day England; Ace being able to lift Excalibur; the two Brigadiers – are solid. The setting is really nice too, and Shou Yuing is a great quasi-companion.

The effects, it must be said, are terrible, making "Time and the Rani" look good by comparison. Ironically, shoddier practical effects probably would have been more convincing than these then-state-of-the-art CGI effects. But my main frustration with the story is that it just doesn't make sense. Why is Morgaine trying to ... actually, what even is Morgaine trying to do? And why does she have the Destroyer around if she doesn't trust him?

So again, I arrive at three stars not in the sense of "mediocre", but in the sense of "parts of it are a solid four stars and parts of it are just scraping two".

Don't ever really hear this story spoken about that much and it's probably because it's a bit middling, not amazing but not terrible either. Compared some of the other McCoy serials I've been watching it felt a bit flat, although I do like the Arthurian lore. Always fun to see the Brigadier also and the monster at the end is genuinely probably the best looking creature the classic show ever did

A really exciting way to kick off Season 26. Battlefield is like a legacy sequel before legacy sequels were cool. It's one big throwback to the Pertwee era, with the original Brigadier, UNIT, and even Bessie. There's even the neat introduction of Brigadier Bambera, who is unbelievably cool, and feels ahead of her time, being a fearless black leader of a secret organisation during the late 80s, when there weren't as many prominent black female characters.

I love the idea of a future Doctor being Merlin, and the Arthurian legends adds an interesting mystical vibes to proceedings. Morgaine is an excellent one-off antagonist too; she feels like more than a match for the Doctor.

Battlefield is a pretty memorable episode of Doctor Who. It definitely has ideas that feel like the sort of thing Moffat would be exploring down the road, but with quite the distinct Seventh Doctor era and its style to the writing. The special effects are very messy and outright laughable at times, even by the standards of what I've seen of late era Classic Who. But otherwise I had a lot of fun with Battlefield. It kind of withers out near the end, going a little too abruptly for my taste and not really having all that satisfying of a pay-off.

Everything else is pretty great. Ace and the Doctor have some fun moments, the whole Camelot angle leads to a lot of creativity and I enjoyed those characters, including the knights and Morgaine. The Brigadier's return felt a little pointless but he's a welcome sight. On the whole, Battlefield is pretty great, even if clearly not perfect. There's a lot to enjoy from these episodes and I would heartily recommend it as a Doctor Who story.

Season 26: the final season, until it wasn’t. Much like the previous season Battlefield is not afraid to keep things challenging to follow, serious concentration is required. Thankfully though, this one is a lot of fun - and not just because of Bessie and a long overdue outing for the Brigadier, who gets some well earned hero moments. He will be sincerely missed, I only wish he’d had more stories with McCoy and Alfred - they’re an iconic team.

It’s a runaround, but an enjoyable romp with The Doctor and friends caught in between ancient Arthurian forces who are fighting it out. The dialogue from these otherworldly guest actors is probably the least enjoyable part of the serial - though top marks to The Destroyer’s prosthetic masks which looks straight out of a much more high budget (and more recent) production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The diversity of this era continues on a strong footing - long gone are the days of all actors onscreen being middle aged white guys and a lone young girl (for the dads).