The Lion (The Crusade Episode 1)

The one where Barbara gets kidnapped within seconds of arriving...

The first five minutes of The Lion are among the most violent Doctor Who has ever been, certainly up to this stage. There's sword fights, fist fights, murders and an abduction in quick succession, and it all feels very full-on and quite jarring as we're not used to being thrown into quite so much action so soon after the titles have rolled.

The performances are very stagy and theatrical in the way many costume dramas of the period were. The actors are very capable and committed, but it instantly feels like you're watching a Shakespeare play on the TV. To some that might speak of quality drama, but to me it's all a bit po-faced and stiff. It's the style of the time, but by 1965 it was also quite old-fashioned, stemming right back to the advent of sound films. Although his performance forms the backbone of this, at least Julian Glover brings a good-humoured dimension to the proceedings.

Within seconds of arriving in this new time, Barbara is kidnapped, tied up and gagged, and whisked away to a Saracen encampment, without saying a single word! Both the Doctor and Ian get embroiled in fisticuffs and sword fights (it's a good job actors learnt their fencing craft at drama school in those days!) while Vicki looks on dressed in a truly awful black jumper and grey pleated skirt. The Doctor is gleefully quick to turn to violence, showing once again that the First Doctor is by far the most bloodthirsty of them all!

There's a delightful scene between the Doctor and market trader Ben Daheer where the Doctor rather cruelly steals clothes behind his back so that he, Vicki and Ian can blend in better. He says he's only "borrowing" them but I think we know poor old Ben isn't going to get his wares back. Reg Pritchard gives a lovely performance as the troubled trader and works well with a playful William Hartnell, but as a retread of similar routines in past stories (e.g. with the shopkeeper in A Change of Identity or Emperor Nero in The Romans), it lacks the same charm. I had to chuckle at the exchange about Genoa, though!

One thing's for sure, you definitely need to know your history with this serial. A strength of these early historicals (which can also be a weakness) is that they treated the viewer intelligently, assuming they had at least an understanding of the time and events taking place through their own education. Whether it was Revolutionary France, the Crusades or the Jacobite risings, Doctor Who wasted little time on telling, and concentrated more on showing, so to have some rudimentary foreknowledge is helpful. The passage of time and the nature of how history is taught in the 21st century means young viewers today might not know enough about what's going on to fully appreciate it, but back in 1965, the schoolchildren would have seen much more historical drama on their TVs in adventures serials like Robin Hood, Ivanhoe, Sir Lancelot and The Buccaneers.

It's a shame that another hallmark of 1960s TV drama - white actors blacking up - is prevalent here too. It was evident in Marco Polo (I talk about yellowface in my review of Rider from Shang-Tu) and continues to be the norm here, with Saracen El Akir played by South African Walter Randall, Egyptian Saladin played by Boltonian Bernard Kay, and his brother Saphadin played by County Durham-born Roger Avon. There are plenty of black actors in non-speaking, uncredited bit parts in the background, so with these 21st century eyes it's offensive to see white actors portraying non-white characters in this way. Randall aside, they don't even bother to put on convincing accents, and Kay in particular is phoning his performance in. He may be aiming for stillness, but it's coming across as apathy.

There's a beautifully directed shot where Saladin listens to his brother speak with El Akir, and we see his (blacked-up) face in shadowy repose behind a curtain of muslin. Douglas Camfield was one of Doctor Who's most talented directors, and this early example demonstrates his youthful enthusiasm for not settling for standard.

After the initial burst of action in the first five minutes, The Lion is all very talky, but the truth is there's a lot being said, but not very much being done. It's written eloquently and colourfully by former script editor David Whitaker, but it lacks the oomph an episode 1 needs (The Romans and The Reign of Terror suffered the same way). I'm not sure Barbara's helping herself an awful lot by telling Saladin that she has visited other times and places (a world ruled by insects, Nero's Rome, England in the far future) but luckily for her he mistakes her for a travelling player.

She is, however, as far as her friends the Doctor, Ian and Vicki are concerned, alone in this time and place, because Richard the Lionheart - all shouty tantrums and indignance - refuses to help them rescue her, and that closing line, while hardly a satisfying cliffhanger, leaves us in no doubt as to the King's position: "Understand this! This woman can rot in one of Saladin's prisons until her hair turns white before I'll trade with the man that killed my friends!"

That's that, then. And I always thought King Richard was a nice fella.

Side note: Boy, this is a poor quality print of The Lion, found in 1999 in the possession of a private collector in New Zealand. It's fantastic to have it in any quality of course, but the grainy picture and dancing tramlines really do make this one of the poorest quality surviving episodes of Doctor Who.

First broadcast: March 27th, 1965

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: It makes a refreshing change for there to be so much action at the very start of an episode, as soon as the TARDIS has arrived.
The Bad: It's all so stilted and stagy, like we're at the Old Vic rather than on BBC TV.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

NEXT TIME: The Knight of Jaffa...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Knight of Jaffa (episode 2); The Wheel of Fortune (episode 3); The Warlords (episode 4)

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-crusade.html

The Crusade's surviving episodes are available on the Lost in Time DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Lost-Time-DVD/dp/B0002XOZW4