Synopsis:
Hiding from El Akir's men in a narrow alleyway, Barbara is seized by a man who emerges from the shadows behind her...
He merely wishes to make sure that she does not cry out and alert the soldiers. Taking her to his nearby home, he tells her that his name is Haroun ed-Din, and he lives with his daughter Safiya. He informs Barbara of his history - of how El Akir coveted his elder daughter Maimuna, and of how he slew his wife and son and abducted her whilst he was away on business. Every waking hour is now spent in plotting revenge on the Emir and freeing Maimuna from his harem. Safiya is unaware of the fate that has befallen the rest of her family.
At Jaffa, King Richard informs the Doctor and his friend the Earl of Leicester of his plan to marry his sister to the brother of Saladin, and so make peace. The Doctor welcomes the proposal, but Leicester is furious. A hardened soldier, he scorns diplomacy and wants victory through force of arms. He and the Doctor argue. Richard is insistent his plan will go ahead, and commands that this be kept secret from Joanna for the present.
Haroun decides to go out into the streets to check on El Akir's men. He tells Barbara of a hiding place which she and Safiya must use if the soldiers turn up, and also gives her his knife. Rather than see her fall into the Emir's hands, he would rather Barbara killed his daughter.
Joanna overhears the Doctor and Vicki discussing the latter's disguise, and so learns of their deception. She is angry at first but accepts their explanation. She orders the Chamberlain to provide female garments for Vicki, then holds a conference with the Doctor. She is aware that her brother is plotting something which involves herself, and asks the Doctor to find out what it is and tell her.
He is upset to find that they have become entangled in court politics.
As Ian travels across the desert, he rests for a time at an oasis. He is attacked by bandits, who overpower him.
Saladin discusses Richard's marriage plan with Saphadin. He is happy to accept it, but doubts it will ever come to pass. Too many people on either side are set on a course for war.
At his court, Richard learns that Joanna has discovered his plan. She rages against him and refuses to agree to it, going so far as to appeal above his head to the Pope to put a stop to it.
The Doctor realises that it was Leicester who informed Joanna, to ensure there would be no peace treaty - though the King blames the Doctor for the breach of confidence.
El Akir's men find Haroun and knock him out. They recognise him and so go to search his home. Barbara and Safiya take refuge in a hidden chamber, but when she hears them talk of setting fire to the house, Barbara urges the girl to remain hidden whilst she attempts to lure them away. She is captured and taken before El Akir.
The evil Emir informs her that he will make her beg for death - but that will be a long time coming...
Next episode: The Warlords
Written by: David Whitaker
Recorded: Friday 19th March 1965 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:40pm, Saturday 10th April 1965
Ratings: 9 million / AI 49
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: Douglas Camfield
Additional cast: John Bay (Earl of Leicester), George Little (Haroun), Petra Markham (Safiya), David Brewster (Bandit)
For many years this was the only surviving instalment from this story, a 16mm film print having been retained by the BBC.
It was one of the first orphan episodes released on VHS, when it was included on The Hartnell Years tape. As such it gained the story a great reputation, with its Shakespearean style of dialogue - iambic pentameter - and the quality of performance on show. Leicester's speech - quoted below - is reminiscent of Henry Vth's rallying cry before Agincourt.
The story is structured rather oddly. Saladin and Saphadin disappear after this episode, and Jean Marsh is also absent from the rest of the story. The significant character of the Earl of Leicester only shows up here, halfway through the narrative.
David Whitaker had strong views on how History worked in Doctor Who - views which his successor Dennis Spooner didn't necessarily agree with. In his novelisation of The Crusade - Doctor Who and the Crusaders - Whitaker takes the time to explain his views in the opening TARDIS scene (added for the book as there's no such scene in the televised story). Earth's history is somehow immutable, always bending itself back to fit the pattern we are familiar with from the history books. The Doctor can tinker with things around the edges - affecting peripheral characters such as the fictitious El Akir or Haroun - but the big players like Richard and Saladin must stick to the script, as it were.
This poses a problem, dramatically.
It has to be said that the Doctor is given very little to do in this story, with Vicki getting nothing to do beyond dressing up as a medieval boy and then dressing up as a medieval girl. Richard and Joanna get on with delivering the factual historical matter, and the Doctor can only react to it. The Barbara / El Akir half of the story is entirely fictional, so Ian and they can get up to all sorts of adventures, without upsetting the history books.
This is a problem which has reared its head again more recently, with episodes like Rosa and Demons of the Punjab. The Doctor is totally redundant in these stories, stuck on the periphery of real life figures or events.
Spooner's view of history is best explained by events in his The Reign of Terror - namely the reactions of Ian and Barbara to Leon Colbert's death. Barbara - the history teacher - insists on stepping back and taking a balanced view of the socio-political events of the time. There is good and bad on both sides of the struggle. But Ian points out that sometimes you have to get involved. Sometimes you have to take sides.
I think we'd all agree that Ian's view is the one which works best for the programme. Stranding your key character(s) impotently on the periphery of history makes for poor drama generally, and dreadful Doctor Who in particular.
The Crusade only just manages to avoid this, thanks to those strengths of production values and performance mentioned above.
There are a number of memorable lines:
JOANNA (to the Doctor): "There is something new in you, yet something older than the sky itself".
SALADIN (to Saphadin): "So you write your letter, and I'll alert the armies. Then on either day - the day of blissful union or the day of awful battle - we will be prepared".
LEICESTER (to the Doctor): "A parley here, arrangements there, but when you men of eloquence have stunned each other with your words, we - the soldiers - have to face it out. On some half-started morning while you speakers lie abed, armies settle everything, giving sweat, sinewed bodies, aye, and life itself".
CHAMBERLAIN (of Vicki): "A girl? Dressed as a boy? Is nothing understandable these days?".
William Russell was on holiday this week, and his single brief scene had been pre-recorded at Ealing on Tuesday 16th February, on the first day of filming on this story. The bandit played by David Brewster features only in these pre-filmed scenes - he is absent from the material which picks up this plot strand in The Warlords. The apparent discontinuity is covered by having him address an unseen accomplice.
Barry Newbery was at this time the series' regular designer of the historical stories, alternating with Ray Cusick (mainly) on the science fiction material. For his research on The Crusade, Newbery used a book called Behind the Veil of Arabia, by Danish explorer Jorgen Busch, who had lived in the Middle East in the 1950's. For Richard's palace, Newbery referred to Norman architecture, with its distinctive rounded arches. Jaffa still contained buildings which dated to the time of the Crusader occupation.
- The ratings remain below double figures for the second consecutive week - though slightly up on the The Knight of Jaffa - and the appreciation figure has fallen below the 50 mark.
- This episode had the working title of "Changing Fortunes".
- The principal Saracen soldiers were played by Chris Konyils, Raymond Novak and Anthony Colby.
- Petra Markham was the sister of Sonia Markham, who was the Make-up Supervisor on this and much of the Hartnell era.
- Maureen O'Brien provided some of the background voices for the scenes of the soldiers searching the town.
- New series writer Gareth Roberts reused Joanna's line "The eye should have contentment where it rests" in the script for the "lost play" in his The Shakespeare Code.
- Critic John Holmstrom of The New Statesman magazine was not impressed by this story - or any of the historical ones, really. On Friday 16th April he wrote of the "wooden charmlessness of the adventures" with their "pasteboard Romans, Saracens or French Revolutionaries". Each to their own...
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