Doctor Who: The Crusade

The Doctor and his companions spend some time in the 1100s with Richard the Lionheart.

I remember reading about the Crusades in school. That's not to say I retained any of the information I was given about the Crusades, only that I know they were discussed in a history book that was in my possession at one time. As for how much I actually remembered about the Crusades all these years later... well, I'll admit that I had a Wikipedia page on the Third Crusade open to help me understand what was going on in the Doctor Who serial that's set during that time period. The plan with Doctor Who was that it would provide viewers with both sci-fi adventures and educational historical stories; that's why the vehicle the Doctor and his companions get around in, the TARDIS, travels through both time and space.

So what you should know about the Third Crusade before diving into this serial is that King Richard I of England, the King you hear referred to as Richard the Lionheart, was fighting to recapture the Holy Land from a ruler named Saladin. The Crusade would end when Richard and Saladin signed the Treaty of Jaffa in 1192, but at the time when the TARDIS materializes in Jaffa they are not at peace with each other - in fact, as soon as the alien Doctor and his companions Ian and Barbara (school teachers from 1960s England) and Vicki (a spacefaring orphan from the 25th century) step out of the TARDIS, they find themselves in the middle of a battle between Richard and Saladin's soldiers.

Barbara is quickly captured and soon finds herself face-to-face with Saladin, and the travellers have to try to deal with Richard to find a way to get her released. Barbara's situation is made even more dangerous when she ends up on the bad side of one of Saladin's associates, El Akir, who wants to make her his personal property. That brings her into contact with a man named Haroun, who is seeking vengeance after his family was destroyed by El Akir. 

The Crusade gets off to a promising start with that battle sequence, stirring up the hope that this serial is going to be quite action packed. If you hold on to that hope, you're probably going to be disappointed by this one, because there's not much in the way of action after that fight - which is probably for the best, since The Crusade is one of the Doctor Who serials where there are still episodes that are completely missing. Since this show was made in the days before home video, the BBC would regularly toss out the archive materials, so there are 97 episodes of Doctor Who that are missing. However, the audio from those episodes is still available because fans recorded the audio as the show aired. It's mind-blowing to think the fans actually did that much audio recording and preserving, but it's a fact - you can't watch every episode of Doctor Who, but you can listen to every one of them.

This serial consists of four episodes: The Lion, The Knight of Jaffa, The Wheel of Fortune, and The Warlords. The Knight of Jaffa and The Warlords are the missing ones, and since they only exist in audio form it's a good thing that they're primarily made up of characters talking to each other, rather than taking part in action sequences we can't see.

Even with the lack of action and the missing visuals, I found this to be a decent serial that went by rather quickly. There's not a whole lot to it, but what it does provide is some great acting from the likes of Julian Glover (who would go on to count James Bond and Indiana Jones movies among his many credits) as Richard; John Bay as Richard's associate Earl of Leicester; Jean Marsh as Richard's sister Joanna, who is not pleased to hear that her brother is considering giving her to Saladin's brother Saphadin as a peace offering; and Bernard Kay and Roger Avon as Saladin and Saphadin. Unfortunately, Kay and Avon give their performances while wearing blackface makeup.

There are also memorable moments like Ian being officially knighted, Joanna telling the Doctor there's "something new in you, yet something older than the sky itself", and Haroun asking Barbara to watch his daughter Safiya while he goes after El Akir - giving Barbara a knife and telling her to kill Safiya and herself if El Akir's soldiers came after them.

The Crusade is an easy-to-watch, middle-of-the-road serial. I don't feel like I received much of an education on the Third Crusade, but I enjoyed it.