Line #64 Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\
2	'''Seventh Doctor Era'''\
3	'''Season 26:''' '''1''' \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E2GhostLight 2]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E3TheCurseOfFenric 3]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival 4]]\
4	'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks <<< Season 25]]''' \| '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie TV Movie >>>]]''']]-]]]
5	!Battlefield
6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bambara_9846.jpg]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:An incredible badass. [[BaitAndSwitch And her boyfriend.]]]]
8	->Written by Creator/BenAaronovitch\
9	Directed by Michael Kerrigan\
10	'''Production code:''' 7N\
11	'''Air dates:''' 6 - 27 September 1989\
12	'''Number of episodes:''' 4
13
14	->'''The Destroyer:''' Pitiful. Can this world do no better than you as their champion?\
15	'''Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart:''' Probably. I just do the best I can.
16
17	[[JustForFun/TheOneWith The last one with]] the Brig. Well, [[Recap/TheSarahJaneAdventuresS2E11E12EnemyOfTheBane in the main show, at least]].
18	----
19
20	Two great British institutions meet at last, as ''Series/DoctorWho'' delves into Myth/ArthurianLegend to begin the final classic season.
21
22	The Doctor and Ace follow a signal of some sort to arrive TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture (a ShoutOut to the tradition of having UNIT stories set in a non-specific near future). They land near an archaeological dig somewhere in England and try to hitch a ride to the dig -- the source of the signal -- from a UNIT convoy passing through with a nuke ([[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E2TheMindOfEvil Not ones to learn from experience, are they?]]), but are left in the dust.
23
24	Fortunately, archaeologist Peter Warmsly, the guy in charge of the dig, is nicer and ''does'' give them a lift. Though he's just as baffled as they are about the whole UNIT nuke thing. UNIT, led by new brigadier Winifred Bambera, is equally weirded out by the people claiming to be "the Doctor" and [[ContinuityNod "Liz Shaw" (the only other UNIT pass the Doctor could find in his clothes)]], and decides to recall Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart out of retirement and into active duty. The Brigadier's wife, Doris, is less than thrilled.
25
26	The Doctor, Ace and Warmsly repair to a [[MyLocal watering hole]]/hotel, where Warmsly bitches about the UNIT hardasses and Ace spends £10 on a lemonade. She also befriends a girl named Shou Yuing. Meanwhile, someone is performing a magic ritual of some sort that
27	# causes a sword scabbard to fly across the room and embed itself into the wall mere inches from Warmsly's alarmed face, and
28	# lets evil witch Morgaine (Creator/JeanMarsh), Battle Queen of the S'rax and Dominator of the Thirteen Worlds, enter our universe from a parallel dimension where the Arthurian legends turn out to be bit more real than in theirs.
29
30	Then Pat the innkeeper hears his microbrewery go boom, and the crew rushes to investigate, where they find... a knight in armour. Who looks up at the Doctor and goes "Merlin!"
31
32	As it turns out, the Doctor will become known as Merlin at some point in a future regeneration, and he'll have to pretty much wing this adventure -- as he has no clue yet how the first half of it will go. He does find a lot of notes, hints, contraptions and archaeological evidence left for him by his future self. Also, the Brigadier brought Bessie!
33
34	The next day, the Doctor and Ace dragoon Warmsly into taking them down to the dig. There, the Doctor quickly translates a mysterious inscription as "Dig hole here"; which, he says, he knows, because it's in his own handwriting. Then he tells Warmsly to stand guard while he and Ace investigate the hole, which leads to a tunnel, which leads to a spaceship under the lake. It houses Excalibur, which Ace promptly decides to guard.
35
36	While Bambera and the knight (Ancelyn) get into a fist fight and subsequently get their flirt on, the Doctor sets about convincing Morgaine to stop trying to nuke the planet. Things get a little bit complicated when Morgaine decides to summon an EldritchAbomination to help her out -- but luckily, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is willing to make a HeroicSacrifice and shoot it back to Hell. He survives, too, because the writers love him (we do too, so it's okay).
37
38	----
39	Episode 1 was the lowest-ever rated episode of ''Doctor Who'', with just 3.1 million viewers.
40
41	!!Tropes
42	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Mordred to the ill-fated Flight Lieutenant Lavel.
43	* ActorAllusion: Possibly. Morgaine threatens to kill the Brigadier next time she sees him. Waaaaay back in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E4TheDaleksMasterPlan The Daleks' Master Plan]]," set in the future, ''another'' character played by Jean Marsh ''did'' kill ''another'' character played by Nicholas Courtney.
44	* AffectionateGestureToTheNose: The Doctor boops Ace on the nose while leaving her in charge of protecting Excalibur, and again later when telling her that he's glad she didn't get killed to keep Morgaine from taking Excalibur.
45	* AffirmativeActionLegacy: Brigadier Bambera.
46	* AlternateUniverse: In which the Arthurian legends actually exist. Quite possibly [-IN SPACE!-] too, judging by the dialogue.
47	* AmazonChaser: Ancelyn.
48	-->'''Bambera:''' If you don't start running, I'll kill you myself. Now come on!
49	-->'''Ancelyn:''' Winifred?
50	-->'''Bambera:''' What?
51	-->'''Ancelyn:''' Art thou betrothed?
52	* AncientAstronauts: It's implied that a future regeneration of the Doctor was/will be Merlin and thus influence the development of England in the deep past.
53	* AuthorTract: The Doctor's spiel against nuclear weapons.
54	* BatmanGrabsAGun: The Doctor is perfectly willing to empty a clip of silver bullets into the Destroyer. And from his reaction post-sucker punch, this ''isn't'' a plot to get Lethbridge-Stewart to take the job instead.
55	* BattleCouple: Ancelyn and Brigadier Bambera develop into this pretty quickly.
56	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: A future incarnation of the Doctor ends up as the Merlin of an alternate universe.
57	* BellumInterruptum: The Doctor halts a battle by simply shouting "STOP!".
58	* BigBad: Morgaine.
59	* BlackBossLady: Bambera.
60	* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Morgaine, who is big on "honor" despite being a villain. Her big PetTheDog and KickTheDog moments occur back-to-back without her giving either a second thought. Specifically, she kills a woman by burning out her mind in order to extract all the knowledge she can find about the current situation, and then turns around and cures another woman's blindness in order to cover a bar tab.
61	* BorrowedCatchphrase: The Doctor utilises the phrase "When I say 'run,' run... run!" during his confrontation with the spaceship's defence system; this phrase was repeatedly used by his second incarnation as a response to danger.
62	* TheBusCameBack: The Brigadier returns for the first time since ''[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]'' six years prior. Thanks to the show being cancelled at the end of this season, this serial would mark his final appearance in the Classic Series (though he ''did'' get to show up in the non-canon charity special [[Recap/DoctorWho30thASDimensionsInTime "Dimensions in Time"]] and the DirectToVideo spinoff film ''Downtime'' during TheNineties).[[invoked]]
63	* CasualKink: Implied with Brigadier Bambera and Sir Ancelyn. Unless you think there's some other interpretation to be put on him asking if she's single the day after their first meeting involved her beating him up and manacling him.
64	* CallBack:
65	** The Brig mentions [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E3MawdrynUndead his teaching career]] and Sergeant Benton in his first scene.
66	** As a matter of tradition, the Brig offers to [[FiveRoundsRapid call in an airstrike]] and wipe the Destroyer out. When informed that "conventional weapons" are useless, he sighs, "No, I didn't think so."
67	** Doris was first mentioned way back in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders Planet of the Spiders]]''.
68	** Mordred uses the Doctor's own words from ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E2TheHappinessPatrol The Happiness Patrol]]'' against him. ''"Look me in the eye, end my life."''
69	** When UNIT doesn't recognize the Doctor, he says "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E5TheWebOfFear Yeti]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E1SpearheadFromSpace Autons]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E1DayOfTheDaleks Daleks]]! [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion Cybermen]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS7E2DoctorWhoAndTheSilurians Silurians]]!"
70	* CharacterFilibuster: Averted. The Doctor's anti-nuke speech originally ran for ''much'' longer and was wisely cut down.
71	* TheChessmaster: Played with. When the Doctor confronts Morgaine, she remarks that she could always beat him at chess when he was Merlin. He replies that he's not playing chess, but poker, and plays his Ace.
72	* ContinuityNod: The Doctor gives Ace an ID card. Ace: "Who's Elizabeth Shaw?"
73	* CoolCar: Bessie, as always.
74	* CrazyPrepared: UNIT packs all sorts of ammunition due to their encounters with strange things -- high explosives for Yetis, armour piercing for robots, even gold-tipped bullets for "you-know-what". When the Doctor asks if they have silver bullets "just in case" (possibly recalling Mags the werewolf), the Brigadier asks his personnel about that, too. They certainly do, and it ends up saving the day.
75	* CuttingTheKnot: When the Doctor is being menaced by a [[BuffySpeak alien snake hologram thing]], the Brigadier just steps on its control unit and destroys it.
76	* {{Demythification}}: An alternate-universe Camelot appears to run on {{Magitek}}, and Merlin was actually the SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Doctor. Merlin "living backwards" is revealed to be the Doctor's overuse of RetroactivePreparation, to the point that his final confrontation with Morgaine in this story occurs before he ever travels to Camelot in the first place.
77	* DestroyerDeity: Morgaine summons a demon called the Destroyer, which seeks to devour the world.
78	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: The Brigadier kills [[EldritchAbomination the Destroyer]] by shooting it.
79	* DoingInTheWizard: The Doctor admits that Morgaine's powers are magic, however, and gives Ace an inverse of Clarke's Law. "Any advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from technology." The in-episode explanation is that Morgaine comes from an alternate universe with different physical laws, and apparently magic — or something that we might as well call magic — actually works there.
80	* DrowningPit: Inside the spaceship holding Arthur's body, Ace triggers a defence mechanism. When she enters an alcove, a door closes, and the alcove starts to fill with water.
81	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Morgaine is genuinely guilt-stricken when she discovers her knights have been fighting UNIT next to a war memorial, and calls a truce to pay respect to the dead.
82	* EvilLaugh: Mordred.
83	* ExcaliburInTheStone: When the Doctor and Ace find Excalibur, it's set in a block of stone. Ace jokingly tries to pull it out (thinking that, as in the legend, it'll refuse to move for anyone other than Arthur). Instead, it practically ''jumps'' out, sending her tumbling (and setting off an intruder alarm).
84	* FailedFutureForecast: The serial is set in the near future (i.e. the early '90s) and offhandedly mentions a king on the throne in Buckingham Palace. While UsefulNotes/CharlesIII did indeed ascend to the throne as UsefulNotes/ElizabethII's successor, this didn't happen until 2022, 33 years after the serial's airing (well past the near future).
85	* FiveRoundsRapid: Averted. UNIT has invested in specialized rounds for different alien threats, which work just fine. The new series adds 'rad-steel' rounds for counteracting anti-bullet fields. It's probably a subversion in the sense that said bullets are only deployed after normal bullets fail. On top of that, guess who gets to put the fatal Five Rounds into the Destroyer?.
86	* FlashedBadgeHijack: The Brig.
87	* {{Flynning}}: Oh dear god, yes.
88	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Doctor notes that the Brigadier was supposed to die in bed, a fate that would eventually transpire in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong "The Wedding of River Song"]].
89	* GirlOfTheWeek: Shou Yuing for Ace.
90	* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Queen Morgaine, naturally.
91	* GoshDangItToHeck: Brigadier Bambera's habit of saying "Oh, sh... ame" could arguably count as this. See also the CasualKink example above. However, WordOfGod is that "Oh shame" is a common exclamation among people of Caribbean origin, which didn't work when a black British actress was cast instead.[[invoked]]
92	* HatePlague: Morgaine casts a spell on Ace and Shou Yuing to make them argue while they're in the protective circle in hopes that they'll break it. However, Ace realises what's happening when she indulges in racial slurs, something that she would not do due to racism being her BerserkButton, and they both snap out of it and huddle closer instead.
93	* HaveWeMetYet: Morgaine has met the Doctor before, but this is the first time the Doctor has met Morgaine. That goes double for Ancelyn.
94	* HeroicSelfDeprecation:
95	-->'''The Destroyer''': Can your world do no better than you as its champion?
96	-->'''The Brigadier''': [[HumbleHero Probably. I just do the best I can.]]
97	* IHaveManyNames: From deleted scene:
98	-->'''Ancelyn''': My lord Merlin.
99	-->'''The Brigadier''': Merlin?
100	-->'''Ancelyn''': Oh, he has many names.
101	* ImmuneToBullets: UNIT has been working on this and has realised that, just because alien menaces are usually immune to our usual bullets, it doesn't mean that they won't succumb to more unusual types.
102	* ImprobableWeaponUser: Twice, the Doctor manages to pin Mordred's arm with the crook of his umbrella. The first time, he even uses it to threaten Mordred with his own sword.
103	* IronicEcho: "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E2TheHappinessPatrol The Happiness Patrol]]" has a famous scene where the Doctor talks a sniper out of shooting him by saying "Look me in the eye. Pull the trigger. End my life." This is repeated almost word for word, only this time it's the Doctor being spoken to.
104	* JediMindTrick: Used by the Doctor to get civilians out of the danger area.
105	-->'''Doctor:''' You're very angry.
106	-->'''Pat:''' Of course we're angry.
107	-->'''Doctor:''' And you want to leave.
108	-->'''Warmsly:''' No, we do ''not'' want to leave!
109	-->'''Doctor:''' Of course you want to leave ''[Gives Pat a Look]''.
110	-->'''Pat:''' Of course we do.
111	-->'''Doctor:''' I wouldn't stand for any nonsense, if I were you.
112	-->'''Warmsly:''' Look, Doctor, the situation is perfectly simple. We are very angry and we... ''[The Doctor gives him a Look]'' ...want to leave.
113	* JumpedAtTheCall: The Brigadier seems to be happily retired... until his wife tells him that the Secretary General "said something about the Doctor being back", and he realises that he's going to be needed and seizes the chance to help.
114	* KingInTheMountain: Subverted. Arthur is believed by the Arthurian characters to be in suspended animation in the mainstream Whoniverse, but it turns out he's just dead and the claims that he'd return were propaganda.
115	* LamePunReaction: Ace is not impressed by the Doctor's joke about having "an Ace up my sleeve".
116	* LargeHam:
117	** Pretty much everybody from the Arthurian universe, especially Mordred.
118	** One of Creator/SylvesterMcCoy's greatest moments:
119	-->'''STOOOOOOOP!''' I '''COMMAND''' IT! THERE. WILL. BE. NO. BATTLE. '''HERE!!!'''
120	* LikeADuckTakesToWater: Ancelyn manages to hook up with Bambera, and get a job as a gardener for then-retired Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
121	* LookBehindYou: When the Doctor was preparing to face the Destroyer (who would very likely kill him), the Brigadier suddenly shouts, "Good lord, is that a spaceship?" When the Doctor turns to look, the Brigadier punches him out, then says, "Sorry, Doctor, but I'm MoreExpendableThanYou now!"
122	* MeaningfulName: "Ancelyn" is the original, Celtic version of "Lancelot". "Winifred" is a Germanified version of "Guinevere".
123	* TheMissusAndTheEx: Neither one is anything close to a love interest, but a couple of deleted scenes from provide an example of the companion not warming up to an older one right away: TheBrigadier manages to offend Ace by referring to her as "the latest one," and a line about how looking after the Professor is her job reveals that she may feel a bit threatened by his presence. By the end of the serial the Brig has managed to prove that he can be trusted to take care of the Doctor and the two bond over a nice big explosion. In the Brig's case, at least, it's less "mutual hostility" on his part and more "well-meaning but slightly oblivious, old-fashioned and stuffy social awkwardness":
124	--->(''after Ace has stormed off in a huff'')\
125	'''The Brigadier:''' Oh dear. Women, not really my field, Doctor.\
126	'''The Doctor:''' Don't worry, Brigadier; [[DeadpanSnarker people will be shooting at you soon]].
127	* MistakenForQuake: Morgaine's arrival in our universe.
128	* MoreExpendableThanYou: TheBrigadier says this word for word when he takes the Doctor's weapon by force and goes to face the EldritchAbomination.
129	* NamesToRunAwayFrom: Morgaine.
130	* NextSundayAD: The story takes place some time in Ace's near future, probably the mid to late 90s. Amusingly, [[FailedFutureForecast the mention of the "King" would be dead wrong]], with UsefulNotes/ElizabethII remaining on the throne all the way until her death in 2022, 33 years after this serial's airing.
131	* {{Not H\|imself}}erself: Under Morgaine's HatePlague spell, Ace, who's been previously established to hate racists, actually spews a racial slur. That is how she realizes she and her friend are being played against each other.
132	* NoNameGiven: We never hear Shou Yuing's family name.
133	* OneWordTitle: "Battlefield".
134	* OpenSesame: After encountering a locked door in a spaceship dating from the time of King Arthur, the Doctor tries ordering it to open up, on the off-chance that it will recognise him as Merlin too. It works.
135	* OutsideContextProblem: Knights and magic from another universe? Bit outside UNIT's usual purview.
136	* PaperBagPopping: How the Doctor wakes Ancelyn and Bambera from their SleepCute.
137	* PercussivePrevention: The Brigadier one-punches the Doctor and faces the Destroyer on his own.
138	* PetTheDog: Morgaine cures Elizabeth's blindness. Admittedly it was because Mordred had all but drunk the bar dry and she felt obligated to pay them ''somehow'', but restoring someone's sight is a lot better than ''some'' of the ways you could repay them when you're an evil witch.
139	** On the other hand, it comes right after a KickTheDog moment where Morgaine kills and disintegrates Lt. Lavel (who was already badly hurt in the helicopter crash), just so that she can absorb Lavel's mind and find out more about the situation. Given she later pulls the same mind trick on Bambera and she recovers, it would seem the disintegrating of Lavel was just ForTheEvulz.
140	** The MoodWhiplash is such that we go from Pat expressing horror at Lavel's death to Elizabeth joyfully sobbing "I can see!" within seconds.
141	* PinPullingTeeth: One of Morgaine's knights.
142	* PublicDomainArtefact: Excalibur turns up in a spaceship, under the lake, [[ExcaliburInTheStone in a stone]].
143	* PunctuatedForEmphasis: [[LargeHam "THERE. WILL. BE. NO BATTLE HERE!!!"]]
144	* ReCut: The Special Edition adds a lot of unbroadcast scenes.
145	* RememberTheNewGuy: Zbrigniev, the UNIT soldier who shows up purely to verify the Doctor's identity to Bambera, was a former soldier under Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
146	* RevolversAreJustBetter: Even though he carried a Browning Hi-Power as his sidearm for most of his time as commander of UNIT, when the Brig comes out of retirement to go to the Doctor's aid, he takes a Webly MK IV out of its case and employs it to great effect against Morgaine's forces: finally shooting the EldritchAbomination while proclaiming "Get off my world!", causing it to explode.
147	* RidiculousFutureInflation: A round consisting of a vodka and coke, a glass of water and a lemonade costs £5.
148	* RummageFail: The Doctor pulls all kinds of ridiculous things out of his pockets while looking for his old UNIT pass.
149	* RunningGag: As in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS25E1RemembranceOfTheDaleks "Remembrance of the Daleks,"]] Ace overestimates the fuse time of her nitro-nine.
150	* SceneryPorn: With frequent backdrops of woods, moorland and old buildings, the serial is visually sumptuous.
151	* SlapSlapKiss: Ancelyn and Brigadier Bambera's relationship.
152	* SleepCute: The Doctor comes in to find Brigadier Bambera and Sir Ancelyn — last seen having a knock-down drag-out brawl — leaning on each other, fast asleep.
153	* SpikesOfVillainy: The evil knights have spiky decorations on their armour; the heroic Ancelyn doesn't. (This does help in keeping track of who's who when they're fighting with their visors down.)
154	* SwordOverHead: The two knights the Doctor interrupts by [[ATruceWhileWeGawk strolling through the battle]] stop in this pose.
155	* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: The Doctor convinces Morgaine to surrender instead of using the nuclear weapons through a speech about how there's no honor in the horrors of atomic war.
156	* TakeTheWheel: Bambera is driving, with Ancelyn as her passenger, when they're attacked by Morgaine's forces. Bambera tells Ancelyn to take the steering wheel so that she can return fire.
157	-->'''Bambera:''' You're from an alternative dimension?\
158	'''Ancelyn:''' Yes.\
159	'''Bambera:''' Good. Don't have cars there?\
160	'''Ancelyn:''' No.\
161	'''Bambera:''' Good. Hold onto this wheel.
162	* TemptingFate: In the first scene, the retired Brig assures his wife that he doesn't miss his UNIT days at all. "My blood-and-thunder days are long past." Cue plot.
163	* ThermalDissonance: The Doctor touches Excalibur's scabbard twice in quick succession. The first time it's unusually hot; the second time it's cold.
164	* ThisIsNoTimeToPanic: The Doctor, at the end of Episode 2. A few seconds later, he adds: "''Now'' we panic!"
165	* ThrowingOffTheDisability: Elizabeth is blind until she meets Morgaine.
166	* TimeyWimeyBall: One of the few instances in the classic series where the plot reaches Creator/StevenMoffat levels of time travel confusion. A future regeneration of the Doctor has already done the first half of the plot, and Seven has to rely on clues from his future self to complete the second half. Every single character from the other dimension has already met the Doctor, but he's got no idea what he's done (er, going to do) to provoke them.
167	* TitleDrop: "Then, Merlin...let this be our last battlefield!"
168	* ATruceWhileWeGawk: There's a moment in Mordred and Ancelyn's final duel where they break apart for a moment -- and the Doctor walks right between them, casually tipping his hat as he passes, on his way to his own final confrontation with Morgaine. Mordred and Ancelyn stare after him in utter bemusement for a moment, before remembering that they were in the middle of fighting to the death.
169	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: This story is set at an unspecified point in the near future, when the UK has a King as monarch and the five pound note has been replaced by a coin, the latter of which has not actually happened yet, and the former of which did not happen until 2022 at minimum. [[note]]While [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_pounds_%28British_coin%29 officially minted £5 coins]] do exist, they're collectors' pieces not intended for general circulation. A column in ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' that answered reader questions once semi-jokingly suggested that the Brigadier might have been referring to Elvis or just speaking rhetorically, given the context in which he refers to the King. The actual line, on being told it was the Secretary General on the phone is "I don't care if it was the king!"[[/note]]
170	* UncoveringRelationshipStatus: Ancelyn blurting out "Art thou betrothed?" to Bambera.
171	* VanityNumberPlate: Bessie now has WHO 7 numberplates.
172	* VillainRespect: Morgaine reacts this way when -- her having earlier dismissed them as mere children - Ace and Shou Yuing manage to fight off her attempts to turn them against each other with magic;
173	-->'''Morgaine:''' Ah, they breed their children ''strong'' on this world.
174	* VolleyingInsults: Ancelyn and Mordred:
175	-->'''Ancelyn:''' Is your ''army'' not enough to give you ''courage''?
176	-->'''Mordred:''' Courage? To face you, Ancelyn, who fled the field at Camlann? Ancelyn the ''Craven'' I call you!
177	-->'''Ancelyn:''' What care I for the words of a ''half-man'', who ''cowers'' at a woman's wrath?
178	* VulnerableConvoy: [=UNIT=]'s nuke.
179	* WarMemorial: Carbury has a memorial to the townspeople killed in the World Wars. When Morgaine and her men encounter it, they stop to pay tribute to the warrior dead, and Morgaine gives Mordred a dressing-down for having assumed their opponents to be savages with no concept of honour.
180	* WeirdCurrency: When the Doctor tips out a handful of change, there's a Franchise/{{Zoid\|s}} in among it [[note]]specifically, a modified Saicurtis/Scarab with part of its head and two legs removed, along with having its wings glued down and being painted a solid black.[[/note]], which he describes as "a very valuable piece of coinage".
181	* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Ace and Shou Yuing's initial reaction to Bessie. As per the trope, they change their tune once they see what it can do.
182	* WriteBackToTheFuture: The Doctor finds a note in his own handwriting with the body of King Arthur, a message from his future self.
183	* WorldOfHam: Creator/SylvesterMcCoy and Creator/NicholasCourtney meet an army of medieval knights.
184	* YouWillBeBeethoven: The Doctor discovers that he will, in his own future, become Merlin.

Context Recap / DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield