Battlefield [TV/1989.9.6 ~ 9.27]

★★★☆☆

  Arthurian legend meets cosmic machination in a quiet English village, and you're saying there's no fun to be had in this serial? Get off your high horses -- Battlefield is overall such a fun experience. It's a good opener for Season 26 in that it dives straight into etching the Doctor into mythology as we know it and presenting more polished cinematography and sound design (the Keff McCulloch score here is superb, I must say). 

 

  The Doctor-Ace dynamic is a tried-and-true formula at this point, and both Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred seem utterly comfortable bouncing off of one another. I will say that McCoy suffers a bit when he's demanded by the script to be loud and commanding; he still hasn't quite gotten it yet, and it would only be around the time of The Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light (the latter of which, despite being the second serial of the season, was the last to be filmed) that he'd finally grasp his darker Seventh Doctor and make it magical. I say he's about 60% there at the moment, struggling with the more in-your-face anger but excelling at the quiet contemplation. Aldred, on the other hand, is riding high on her success and she's simply electrifying to watch. Nicholas Courtney's always a dependable screen presence, and his former The Daleks' Master Plan co-star Jean Marsh makes a striking turn as Morgaine. It's great that she's given quite a meaty villainous role to perform... shame about the Destroyer, though. The makeup is superb, but he's rather shunted off with little fanfare, isn't he?

  Best way to enjoy Battlefield, I suspect, is to really focus on suspending disbelief. You've got medieval knights from another dimension going to battle with swords and laser pistols in the middle of a small English village; that's about as much as you need to know in terms of credibility. Lay your questions to rest and what you end up with is an hour and thirty minutes of pure fun and energy. Andrew Cartmel really knew what he was doing, and his confidence bled into both the cast and crew. For its comic-book and undeniably almost-90s sensibility, I can never say no to a Season 26 adventure. The Doctor's slowly becoming more intertwined with the plot (he may or may not be Merlin and have caused all this in his relative future -- who knows?), and I love it.