14. The Crusade

The Crusade brings us our second celebrity historical of the season with real celebrities! Making their first appearances in Doctor Who are Julian Glover and Jean Marsh. Both went on to great fame outside of Doctor Who but but made some wonderful appearances in the 50 years of Who.

The reality of this story is that episodes 2 and 4 are missing, with only 1 and 3 still existing. I hope that the BBC in their wisdom decides to animate the missing episodes, like they have done for The Reign of Terror, so that the story can be seen in completion in some form.

As always, the BBC excels in historical costume dramas and the production qualities on this story of par excellence. Julian and Jean's caliber of acting just eats of the screen and their scenes together as King Richard and his sister Joanna are electric. It is no wonder that they brought Jean back as a companion for the Dalek Masterplan next season. And Julian returns in Tom Baker's City of Death as Scaroth.

From the two existing episodes, our TARDIS crew appears to be in top form. Vicki does a turn as a boy before becoming a hand maiden to Joanna. Barbara is kidnapped in the first 5 minutes and is dragged across 12th century Palestine. And Ian and the Doctor get in some quality sword fighting time. Good times!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crusade_(Doctor_Who)

Next exciting adventure: The Space Museum!!