Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 714: Battlefield, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’ve never noticed before just how neatly the final two seasons of the ‘classic’ run bring back all of the programme’s icons for one last outing before the end. Of course, the Daleks and the Cybermen turn up in Season Twenty-Five (they had to, somewhere in this era), but then you’ve got the return of the Brigadier here for the first time since The Five Doctors, UNIT back for the first time - really - since The Seeds of Doom, even Bessie is back out of mothballs, and the Master will put in an appearance before the year is out, having become such a regular part of the show for a few seasons before taking some time out.

Sadly, the appearance of Nicholas Courtney here as the Brigadier doesn’t quite have the same impact it did when he turned up in Mawdryn Undead, and it may all be down to the way that he’s introduced to us. In that story, we’ve watched two boys crash an antique car, and witnessed deals with the ‘devil’ before a figure turns around and it’s the Brigadier that we’ve not seen for ages. This time around we meet him - indeed, we join the entire story - in a garden centre. Where we then get some quite forced in dialogue to remind us who he is. Oh dear. I think the fact that the seasons have been so short lately means that even though it’s been six years since we last saw him (in The Five Doctors), it’s not been all that long for me. Between Terror of the Zygons and Mawdryn Undead, there were loads of adventures for the Doctor and his companions. This time around, it just doesn’t feel like that long since the Brig was last in the show (it’s not that long - he was in Silver Nemesis last season!)

I’ve also got major issues with the way that the Doctor is being dealt with here, which I’ve never actually noticed before. When he arrives at UNIT early on, Brigadier Bambara doesn’t have a clue who he is (even allowing for the change of face), and has to be told by one of her officers who served under Lethbridge-Stewart (when he was about eight years old, by the look of him!) that there was a man called the Doctor, who had occasionally changed his face. He goes on to say that the rumour was that he changed everything about himself, as if he’s not entirely sure. I can almost buy that the Doctor’s involvement with UNIT is so top secret that he’s effectively been struck from the official records, and the cases that relate to him have been conveniently ‘lost’, perhaps, so Bambera - even as head of UNIT in the UK - may not know all the precise details about him… but if there’s people still serving with UNIT at this point who were around when the Doctor was, then surely she’d have at least heard of him? A scientific adviser who used to work for them, was friends (sometimes) with their head of operations, and changed appearance from time to time? Even if the official story is that different people took over the role under the codename of ‘the Doctor’, there’s clearly rumours about this shape-shifting scientific advisor - because Zbrigniev knows about it! Can you tell, this wound me up a little while watching…

Oh, but it’s nothing compared to a few scenes later, when Geneva phones for the Brigadier. There’s something quite lovely about the idea that the Brig doesn’t care who it is on the phone, he’s retired and he’s doing his gardening. There’s also something really lovely about the fact that as soon as the Doctor is mentioned, he’ll drop everything to be there. It’s a beautiful kind of loyalty to the man, and it works really nicely. But then the Brigadier’s wife has to ask who the Doctor is?!?! I’ll accept that they’ve possibly not been married for long - although Doris was mentioned back in the day, she certainly didn’t seem to be on the scene when we last caught up with the Brigadier in 1983 (and I’m sure I’ll need to touch on the dating of this story at some point in the next couple of days…) - but good grief! She knows about his soldier days to some extent, because she brings it up at the garden centre, and the Brig can make a joke about Sergeant Benton, and yet he’s never told her about the Doctor? Really?

I’m willing to suspend my belief pretty far when watching Doctor Who - it’s a programme about an alien who travels through time in a phone box, after all - but this pushes me just that bit too far. It doesn’t feel consistent within the show’s own continuity that the Brigadier wouldn’t have brought this man up at all over the years, considering how close they were during lots of the Pertwee era, and it feels wrong that UNIT don’t even remember who he is, either. It’s convenient for story reasons, to build up a little bit of mystery around the character, which fits in well with the themes of the programme at the moment, but it took me right out of the narrative on more than one occasion.

All that said, I’ve still somehow managed to rather enjoy this one. Battlefield is a story I first watched on VHS years ago, and I don’t really have any strong feelings one way or the other about it. Over the years, it’s managed to build up a bit of a poor reputation, but I don’t particularly recall not liking it. I’m sure I’ll be going in to more detail over the next few days about where things work for me, but I’m hoping that now everyone’s up to speed with who the Doctor is, I can stop worrying a bit, and just enjoy the action…