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The Black Archive #34
Battlefield
- GenresDoctor WhoNonfiction
Paperback
First published April 1, 2019
1 person is currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Philip Purser-Hallard
44 books52 followersPhilip Purser-Hallard is a widely published and occasionally acclaimed author, editor and critic. He has written four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books, all favourably reviewed in Publishers Weekly, and the Devices trilogy of urban fantasy thrillers for Snowbooks, as well as a plethora of shorter fiction. He is a founding editor of and frequent contributor to the Black Archive, a series of critical monographs about individual Doctor Who stories.
From his webpage:
"In my writing I like to reimagine and question established cultural icons, hence my four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. Writing dialogue between Holmes and Lady Bracknell, from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the high point of my career. The Devices trilogy, published between 2013 and 2016, considers some of the icons of British mythology that I loved as a child, and how they relate to the political reality of Britain in the 21st century."
From his webpage:
"In my writing I like to reimagine and question established cultural icons, hence my four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. Writing dialogue between Holmes and Lady Bracknell, from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the high point of my career. The Devices trilogy, published between 2013 and 2016, considers some of the icons of British mythology that I loved as a child, and how they relate to the political reality of Britain in the 21st century."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 9, 2020
The sections on Arthurian legend outstrip the casual reader’s needs (Purser-Hallard is an authority). The remaining chapters delve astutely into Battlefield’s production-level evolution and aspirations, piecing together a cogent analysis of where this unheralded story succeeds and what it might have offered.
August 19, 2019
A terrific close reading of one of Doctor Who's more frustrating stories. Philip Purser-Hallard looks at the story's fascinating and often prescient ideas, as well as the reasons for its ultimate failure to articulate many of them.
Along the way you get an overview of some key points of Arthurian mythology, an elaboration of how the story's late 90s setting reflects the world politics of its late 80s production, and its enthusiastic but confused thoughts on diversity. There are also some very funny subheads ("Let's Kill Thatcher" indeed).
One minor quibble: I'd have loved a chapter on the novelisation. Purser-Hallard argues against its general relevance on the basis of its divergent authorial voice, but in its attempts to smooth out some of the televised story's inconsistencies and flaws, it does, for me, move closer towards the platonic ideal of "Battlefield" for which the author here yearns.
But that doesn't stop this being an insightful, knowledgeable and informative read. I need to dig deeper into the Black Archive.
Along the way you get an overview of some key points of Arthurian mythology, an elaboration of how the story's late 90s setting reflects the world politics of its late 80s production, and its enthusiastic but confused thoughts on diversity. There are also some very funny subheads ("Let's Kill Thatcher" indeed).
One minor quibble: I'd have loved a chapter on the novelisation. Purser-Hallard argues against its general relevance on the basis of its divergent authorial voice, but in its attempts to smooth out some of the televised story's inconsistencies and flaws, it does, for me, move closer towards the platonic ideal of "Battlefield" for which the author here yearns.
But that doesn't stop this being an insightful, knowledgeable and informative read. I need to dig deeper into the Black Archive.
August 11, 2019
I'll say it again: if you're a Doctor Who fan & you want to learn more about the stories you love then these Black Archives from Obverse Publishing are essential. I expect I'll be buying all of them as they come out now. They don't all have an identical approach and they're not trad 'making of' books. Their focus is often on the cultural influences on stories.
Philip Purser-Hallard's book on 'Battlefield', which he himself points out is one of Doctor Who's lesser liked stories, is great. I like 'Battlefield' but I suspect it would have been a better story if the BBC had the time and money to take more care of the look - and sound - of the story than they did. I once had a conversation with Ben Aaronovitch about 'Battlefield' when he was working in Waterstones, Covent Garden. (This was shortly before the publication of 'Rivers of London' in my memory, but who knows when it actually was. I can't anchor it to a specific date.) And his disappointment in how the story came out was palpable.
Purser-Hallard tells the story of Battlefield's development, changes to the script and the influences on the story. It analyses what the story was trying to say and makes some interesting judgements on whether it achieves what it was attempting to communicate. (Although sometimes I wonder how much critics can ever know about what writers were trying to say if they don't explicitly say it. On the other hand, someone once said that 'communication is the response you get' so perhaps an author's intentions are only a part of what matters. Not the be-all and end-all. I'm aware I've opened a can of worms in this brief bracketed thought so I'll stop now.)
Recommended.
Philip Purser-Hallard's book on 'Battlefield', which he himself points out is one of Doctor Who's lesser liked stories, is great. I like 'Battlefield' but I suspect it would have been a better story if the BBC had the time and money to take more care of the look - and sound - of the story than they did. I once had a conversation with Ben Aaronovitch about 'Battlefield' when he was working in Waterstones, Covent Garden. (This was shortly before the publication of 'Rivers of London' in my memory, but who knows when it actually was. I can't anchor it to a specific date.) And his disappointment in how the story came out was palpable.
Purser-Hallard tells the story of Battlefield's development, changes to the script and the influences on the story. It analyses what the story was trying to say and makes some interesting judgements on whether it achieves what it was attempting to communicate. (Although sometimes I wonder how much critics can ever know about what writers were trying to say if they don't explicitly say it. On the other hand, someone once said that 'communication is the response you get' so perhaps an author's intentions are only a part of what matters. Not the be-all and end-all. I'm aware I've opened a can of worms in this brief bracketed thought so I'll stop now.)
Recommended.
January 5, 2026
Often stories I’m less fond of seem to generate better black archives, and this is no exception. The author covers thd links to Arthurian legend well, and instead of defending the weaknesses, accepts them without needing yo dwell on them.
An intelligent and interesting read.
An intelligent and interesting read.
April 1, 2023
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/battlefield-by-philip-purser-hallard-and-ben-aaronovitch-and-marc-platt/
I was very curious as to how Philip Purser-Hallard would approach this story for the Black Archives. In his earlier monograph on Dark Water / Death in Heaven, he persuaded me of some of the redeeming features of a story that I still don’t like very much. Other Black Archive writers have tried the same – thinking here of L.M. Myles on The Ambassadors of Death. But there are other possibilities – James Cooray Smith, writing on The Ultimate Foe, my least favourite of all the stories so far covered by the Black Archive, analyses in forensic detail just how it came to be such a mess.
Purser-Hallard disarmingly admits in a prologue that many of the criticisms of Battlefield are valid, but “despite the story’s various missteps and mishaps, it succeeds in certain important respects, and it is this tension in which this book is most interested.”
The first chapter, “One Painstaking Layer at a Time”, looks at the first two versions of the storyline, both of which made better sense, and the changes made to the script at the last moment. He makes the point that the armour worn by Morgaine and her knights should have been obviously high-tech, as described in the script, and the decision to just use ordinary armour instead had a serious impact on the quality of the story as broadcast.
The second chapter, “Daleks, Master-Plans”, starts by comparing and contrasting Battlefield with Remembrance of the Daleks, and then looks at the Cartmel Master Plan, and the (slim) possibility that Bambera might have returned in future seasons if Old Who had not been cancelled.
The third chapter, “This Thing About King Arthur”, looks at sources for Arthuriana: Roger Lancelyn Green, Boorman’s Excalibur, The Mists of Avalon, the comic series Camelot 3000 and the BBC series Knights of God which starred Patrick Troughton but was not shown until after he had died. (I am surprised not to see T.H. White or Monty Python on that list.)
The fourth chapter, “The Legendary Arthur, Yes”, looks in detail at the Arthurian roots of various characters and concepts in Battlefield, running into problems with Bambera who is not a brilliant match for Guinevere. This chapter alone takes up a quarter of the book. I think this is trying a little too hard.
The fifth chapter, “Builder of Worlds”, points out that Battlefield is set not in 1989 when broadcast but in an unspecified near future where the UK has a king and various other things have happened. (God be with the days when you could get a vodka and coke, a lemonade and a glass of water for much less than a fiver.)
The sixth chapter, “Is This War?”, examines the story’s depiction of the military and the Doctor’s relationship with them, and the concepts of “honour” and “shame”, the latter of which is used euphemistically by Bambera as a swear word.
The seventh chapter, “Sufficiently Advanced Magic”, points out that the 1988 and 1989 stories had more overtly magical content, and that Morgaine’s witchcraft is in the end her undoing.
The eighth chapter, “Britishness, and Other Identities”, looks at how the story’s heterogenous concept of Britishness is developed further in Aaronovitch’s (excellent) Rivers of London books, and also looks at just why that last scene is so bad.
The ninth chapter, “It’s Only a Trap”, comes back to the Bambera/Guinevere question, and also looks at how future incarnations of the Doctor might appear in the current Doctor’s story. As noted above, Platt’s future Doctor in the novelisation has red hair.
In the conclusion, Purser-Hallard rather disarmingly confesses that “for many years – 16, to be precise – [Battlefield] was my favourite story.” (Sixteen years from 1989 takes us to the dawn of New Who.) I’m really charmed that he managed to resist the temptation to go full-on apologetic for a youthful enthusiasm, and instead provided a thoughtful analysis.
But I still wonder about a few things, notably, why are the direction and the music so awful? It’s a book that answers a lot of questions, but not all of them are the ones I would have asked.
I was very curious as to how Philip Purser-Hallard would approach this story for the Black Archives. In his earlier monograph on Dark Water / Death in Heaven, he persuaded me of some of the redeeming features of a story that I still don’t like very much. Other Black Archive writers have tried the same – thinking here of L.M. Myles on The Ambassadors of Death. But there are other possibilities – James Cooray Smith, writing on The Ultimate Foe, my least favourite of all the stories so far covered by the Black Archive, analyses in forensic detail just how it came to be such a mess.
Purser-Hallard disarmingly admits in a prologue that many of the criticisms of Battlefield are valid, but “despite the story’s various missteps and mishaps, it succeeds in certain important respects, and it is this tension in which this book is most interested.”
The first chapter, “One Painstaking Layer at a Time”, looks at the first two versions of the storyline, both of which made better sense, and the changes made to the script at the last moment. He makes the point that the armour worn by Morgaine and her knights should have been obviously high-tech, as described in the script, and the decision to just use ordinary armour instead had a serious impact on the quality of the story as broadcast.
The second chapter, “Daleks, Master-Plans”, starts by comparing and contrasting Battlefield with Remembrance of the Daleks, and then looks at the Cartmel Master Plan, and the (slim) possibility that Bambera might have returned in future seasons if Old Who had not been cancelled.
The third chapter, “This Thing About King Arthur”, looks at sources for Arthuriana: Roger Lancelyn Green, Boorman’s Excalibur, The Mists of Avalon, the comic series Camelot 3000 and the BBC series Knights of God which starred Patrick Troughton but was not shown until after he had died. (I am surprised not to see T.H. White or Monty Python on that list.)
The fourth chapter, “The Legendary Arthur, Yes”, looks in detail at the Arthurian roots of various characters and concepts in Battlefield, running into problems with Bambera who is not a brilliant match for Guinevere. This chapter alone takes up a quarter of the book. I think this is trying a little too hard.
The fifth chapter, “Builder of Worlds”, points out that Battlefield is set not in 1989 when broadcast but in an unspecified near future where the UK has a king and various other things have happened. (God be with the days when you could get a vodka and coke, a lemonade and a glass of water for much less than a fiver.)
The sixth chapter, “Is This War?”, examines the story’s depiction of the military and the Doctor’s relationship with them, and the concepts of “honour” and “shame”, the latter of which is used euphemistically by Bambera as a swear word.
The seventh chapter, “Sufficiently Advanced Magic”, points out that the 1988 and 1989 stories had more overtly magical content, and that Morgaine’s witchcraft is in the end her undoing.
The eighth chapter, “Britishness, and Other Identities”, looks at how the story’s heterogenous concept of Britishness is developed further in Aaronovitch’s (excellent) Rivers of London books, and also looks at just why that last scene is so bad.
The ninth chapter, “It’s Only a Trap”, comes back to the Bambera/Guinevere question, and also looks at how future incarnations of the Doctor might appear in the current Doctor’s story. As noted above, Platt’s future Doctor in the novelisation has red hair.
In the conclusion, Purser-Hallard rather disarmingly confesses that “for many years – 16, to be precise – [Battlefield] was my favourite story.” (Sixteen years from 1989 takes us to the dawn of New Who.) I’m really charmed that he managed to resist the temptation to go full-on apologetic for a youthful enthusiasm, and instead provided a thoughtful analysis.
But I still wonder about a few things, notably, why are the direction and the music so awful? It’s a book that answers a lot of questions, but not all of them are the ones I would have asked.
December 17, 2019
A sensitive and redeeming examination of one of the most maligned Doctor Who stories of the late 1980s, explaining how its development created problems of narrative, structure and symbology while enhancing its reputation as a representative of Doctor Who's engagement with 1980s political concerns, the role of magic in the series at this time, Britishness, internationalism and what was not, I think, then called diversity, and just why this was the moment for Arthurian mythology to cross with that of Doctor Who.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews