DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Michael Kerrigan
Starring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Jean Marsh, Nicholas Courtney, Angela Bruce
Release date 29 December 2008

The Doctor and Ace confront knights from an alternative dimension in a tale inspired by Arthurian legend…

Battlefield is an incoherent mess, both in its original four-part broadcast version and the new, movie-length re-edited ‘special edition’ included on this DVD. It’s clear there is simply no saving this story.

Opening the original Doctor Who’s final season, Battlefield’s first episode has the ignominious distinction of being the lowest rated episode of all time, with just over three million bothering to tune in. From a poor start (a couple of pensioners chatting in a garden centre), Battlefield plunges downhill as a handful of knights drop to Earth from space and begin fighting, while a new, female Brigadier (Angela Bruce) fails to get to grips with swearing properly (“shame”, indeed). None of it makes the slightest bit of sense and no amount of new laser effects can hide that fact.

Writer Ben Aaronovitch’s concepts are fine (if a little difficult to realise on a BBC budget): a war fought across dimensions, with the Doctor having been (or fated to become) Merlin, and its effect on a near-future England, complete with £5 coins and voice-operated phones. However, 1980s Doctor Who is just not up to the job of realising this adequately on screen and (in one of the DVD extras) Aaronovitch himself seems to realise this (even as everyone else is still gamely talking up the production). Aaronovitch admits the story “falls apart” and dubs Battlefield “my first failure.”

There are structural problems (and they’re not solved by the movie re-edit, unfortunately, as they’re built into the writing, as Aaronovitch now realises). This story sees the return of Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier (in the ‘future’ when we have a ‘King’ — curiously, he’s 20 years younger than his contemporary 2008 appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures!). He spends the first three episodes shopping, gardening and flying around in a helicopter before he joins the action, saves the day and singularly fails to die as the narrative demands he should.

Despite the ‘starry’ cast, there is not a single good performance in Battlefield, and that includes the leads. Everyone is uniformly dreadful. Additionally, it’s amazing that Michael Kerrigan was allowed anywhere near a camera ever again, given the lamentable, incoherent nature of his direction here. Perhaps he was just as lost as the viewer is?

Script editor Andrew Cartmel shoehorns in an anti-nuclear weapon polemic at the climax, which is so right-on 1980s, it hurts. However, it was the kind of writing and the kind of sentiment that would go on to heavily inform the New Adventures novels after Doctor Who’s deserved cancellation at the end of this season.

Despite all this, Battlefield has a couple of good moments. Amid all the mayhem, mummy’s boy Mordred stops in the pub for a pint, and the appearance of the Destroyer at the episode three cliffhanger is great. Unfortunately, the great big blue dolt then proceeds to stand around for the next 15 minutes doing nothing. What a waste! Mark James

VERDICT: 3/10
It’s tempting to condemn Battlefield by calling it ‘kids' telly’, but that’d be unfairly insulting to kids. It’s just rubbish.