YMMV / Doctor Who S26 E1 "Battlefield"

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite only appearing in this one televised story, Brigadier Winifred Bambera is very popular among the fandom due to Angela Bruce's portrayal of a capable, tough, no-nonsense, authoratative black female high-ranking military officer at a time when such roles were extremely rare. So much so that she would ultimately be brought back by Big Finish decades later for some audio dramas.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The Doctor, distraught over the apparent death of the Brigadier, tells him "You should have died in bed!" Fast forward to "The Wedding of River Song"...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ace shouts, "Geronimo" as a battle cry. This would be a catchphrase of the Eleventh Doctor.
  • The Brigadier scoffs at the idea of ever needing silver bullets, while the Doctor replies with 'you never know'. Not only would the 7th Doctor himself eventually face vampires, but come "Tooth And Claw"...
• Les Yay: Ace and Shou Yuing bond over a shared love of explosives and at one point are huddled inside a chalk circle clutching a sword.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • The TARDIS "set" is a curtain with yellow circles painted on, as the walls of the usual set had been badly damaged in storage between seasons; the lighting is very low in order to disguise this, with an explanation written into the script that there's a power drain. Fortunately all the other stories in Season 26 had been written without any scenes set in the ship anyway (making this the only appearance of the console room during the final season of the Classic series).
  • Ben Aaronovitch cringes at the shot of the Brigadier being blown through the window, as the debris spray didn't happen.
  • The serpent attacking the Doctor is partially represented by shots of the camera being bumped into him.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The Destroyer is one of the best looking monsters of the Classic Series.

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