OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 065
STORY NUMBER: 014
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 03 April 1965
WRITER: David Whitaker
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield
SCRIPT EDITOR: Dennis Spooner
PRODUCER: Verity Lambert
RATINGS: 8.5 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Collection: (1964-1965) No. 1
TELESNAPS: The Crusade Episode 2: The Knight of Jaffa
"In the name of God, Saint Michael, and Saint George, we dub you Sir Ian, Knight of Jaffa. Arise Sir Ian, and be valiant."
William de Tornebu persuades the King to rescue Barbara coming up with a plot to humiliate Saladin. The travellers meet the real Joanna, the King's sister. El Akir seeks Barbara, feeling humiliated by her & des Preaux. Barbara is tipped off she's in danger and tries to escape, assisted by the merchant Luigi Ferrigo who betrays her & delivers her to El Akir. Ian is equipped with armour and sword for his journey to Saladin. Richard plans to marry his sister Joanna to Saladin's brother Saphadin.
Ian is knighted and sent on his journey, but when he leaves the Doctor and Vicki are accused of thieving by both the market trader Ben Daheer and Richard's Chamberlain who had the garments stolen from him initially. The Doctor sorts the situation out with some fast talking and exposes the man who stole from the Chamberlain. Ian reaches Saladin's camp and finds Barbara missing. William des Preaux tells him what happened. Barbara has escaped from el Akir but fails to find help and in the darkness is grabbed by an assailant.
Again another historical episode that just doesn't do anything for me. Sorry. Lots of intrigue but no action and very little humour save for the Doctor's wrangling with the Chamberlain and Ben Daheer.
This isn't the only time that William Russel, the actor that plays Ian Chesterton, has been a knight. He played the lead role in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot from 1956 to 1957. If you'd like to see some of it then the complete series is available on DVD.
This story sees a couple of famous guest stars. The first is Jean Marsh, playing Joanna, many years before finding fame as Rose Buck in Upstairs Downstairs, a series that she co-created. She was the first Mrs Jon Pertwee from 1955-1960 and would return to Doctor Who twice: first in the likewise Douglas Camfield directed Dalek Masterplan as Sara Kingdom, where she appears in episodes 5-12, and then many years later as Morgaine in Battlefield.
By an odd coincidence her co-star Julian Glover, playing Richard the Lionheart, was married at the time to his first wife Eileen Atkins who is the other creator of Upstairs Downstairs! His second wife Isla Blair later appeared in Doctor Who: King's Demons as Isabella Fitzwilliam while their son Jamie appeared in "An Adventure In Space and Time" as William Russel! Glover is probably the most famous actor to have appeared in Doctor Who to this point and would return years later as Count Scarlioni/Scaroth in the City of Death. He's on the commentaries for both The Crusade episode 3 "The Wheel of Fortune" (from the Doctor Who - Lost In Time DVD set) and City of Death. Other roles you may have seen him in include Col Breen in Quatermass & The Pit, General Veers in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Professor Kayn in the Blake's 7 first series episode Breakdown, the villainous Aris Kristatos in the James' Bond film For Your Eyes Only, the Nazi sympathiser Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, Sir Martin Lacey in By The Sword Divided and many, MANY more. He celebrated his 80th Birthday last Friday on the 50th anniversary of the broadcast of episode one of this serial.
Richard's enemy Saladin is played by Bernard Kay, who sadly died during the Christmas holiday this year. Kay previously appeared in The Dalek Invasion of Earth as Tyler, and later reappears in The Faceless Ones as Inspector Crossland and Colony in Space as Caldwell. You can hear him interviewed on Toby Hadoke's Who Round #018 and #101.
By an odd coincidence Tony Caunter, who plays the thieving Thatcher in the first two episodes of this story also returns in Colony in Space where he plays Morgan. He later returns as seaman Jackson in Enlightenment before finding fame as Roy Evans in Eastenders.
Two more Marco Polo Polo returnees show up in this episode:
Zohra Segal, who was Ping Cho's attendant in the first three episodes of the earlier story, appears here as the servant Sheyrah who refuses to be bribed by El Akir. She was the first credited actor from Doctor Who to reach the age of one hundred on 27th April 2012 but since we talked about Marco Polo she sadly dies, on 10th July 2014 at the age of 102. The title of Doctor Who's oldest surviving credited actor has now passed to Olaf Pooley, who turned 100 on 13th March 2014.
The other actor who appeared in Marco Polo was Gábor Baraker who here plays Geonese merchant Luigi Ferrigo in a very similar style to the camp Wang-Lo in episodes 5 & 6, Rider from Shang-Tu & Mighty Kublai Khan (1964) in the earlier story.
Do I even need to remind you that the Assistant Floor Manager on Marco Polo was Douglas Camfield, director of this story?
Two more of the actors in this episode return in later days: John Flint, who plays the captured William des Preaux, is in Time-Flight: Part One as Captain Urquhart while Chris Konyils, the Saracen Warrior/Guard seen in the closing moments of this episode and returns, uncredited, in both The Tenth Planet as an African ISC Officer and The Wheel in Space: Episode 1 as a Wheel Crewmember
For the first time this season we're listening on CD: The Crusade is the only story in the Second Season of Doctor Who to be missing episodes with both it's second and fourth (last) episode absent from the archives. The CD release of this story contains the episode with narration by William Russel, but un-narrated versions are included on the Doctor Who - Lost In Time DVD set. Most of the stories in this set are just one episode of a story but both The Crusade and The Moonbase have two of their four episodes in existence so to bridge the gaps the soundtracks of the remaining episodes are included. There are Three episodes of the Dalek Masterplan in the box and two of the Faceless ones but since they respectively are missing NINE & FOUR episodes filling in the gaps there with Soundtracks would use up a large amount of disc space!
However the last time I blogged about this story I didn't know that the Telesnaps for it, and several other 60s stories, were tucked away in the old and much missed BBC Cult website. Since then they have also been published in the first of three Doctor Who magazine Telesnaps specials. If you're a fan of the 60s episodes of the series these three publications are essential reading so go track them down on eBay or at sci-fi specialist shops. So while listening to the Soundtrack off the Lost In Time DVD I've been following the photos along at home. With two episodes existing and a complete set of Telesnaps this makes the story a prime candidate for a DVD release with a photo reconstruction of the missing episodes with the telesnaps married to the soundtrack. As yet this hasn't happened, I wonder why ....
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