DOCTOR WHO, SEASON 2 SERIAL 6:

THE CRUSADE

Doctor: First (William Hartnell)

Companions: Ian, Barbara, Vicki

April 2023

Well that was an episode.

The Crusade is a weird one. It’s a historical story, a format that was left on the cutting room floor in a year or two’s time, practically never to return: the only supernatural or sci-fi element in it is the TARDIS. It’s the fifth pure historical that’s appeared on the show (after Marco Polo, The Aztecs, The Romans, and The Reign of Terror) and continues a loose pattern of not being all that special and having some serious flaws with regard to its actual historical portrayals. While The Romans was by and large exempt from this, The Crusade is...not.

Nevertheless, this is probably one of the smoother historical episodes. Which is a tragedy, because despite having some great moments (Ian gets knighted! Vicki pretends to be a boy! Richard the Lionheart is there!), this is a story I categorically cannot recommend to any modern audience because it contains several instances of blackface.

Two of the four parts are missing (#2 and #4), which I viewed via audio & still image reconstruction, which works okay. It’s the only story with missing parts from Season 2. This actually does it a sort of service here because it means that there’s just that much less time that we have to look at white actors portraying the Saracens.

I really wish I could like The Crusade. Like I said, there are some great moments, including the ending sequence (even audio only!) where Ian pretends to be a noble knight bringing in the “treacherous” Doctor in order to escape to the TARDIS: it works because all this has been set up: Ian really is Sir Ian of Jaffa, and the Doctor has done some underhanded things in the story today. Unfortunately even the rest of the story’s high points (largely the bits with the Crusaders) aren’t high enough to consider watching it even for them. While some of the Saracens (namely Saladin and Saphadin) are portrayed as reasonable and intelligent leaders who want an end to this war (a far cry from the portrayals of the priests in The Aztecs), not only are they played by Roger Avon and Bernard Kay, two very white men, but they are not the only Saracens in the story. The main villain is El-Akir, who fulfills the trope of the evil Arabic man to a tee (and is played by Walter Randall). Even outside of that, the whole plot doesn’t really hang together, feeling more like a series of events. In a better-produced version, Ian and Barbara’s story would be more compelling and expanded, but in a better-produced version, maybe we could interrogate the idea of the Third Crusade being portrayed as anything other than a religious invasion? Just a thought. Also, Barbara spends basically the entire serial either captured or attempting to escape capture, which isn’t a great look.

Overall Thoughts:

The Crusade is easily the worst of Season 2’s offerings so far, sliding far past the bottom of the rankings with The Web Planet: at least that story didn’t have half the cast in blackface. If you want a classic First Doctor historical with this crew, I would recommend The Romans. Only watch this if you’re being upsettingly completionist, I guess.

Next up: The Space Museum! I’m excited for this one, because I know basically nothing about it. But I think it has Daleks? We’ll see!