s02 e14: The Crusade

In which some Arabs and some Christians get really pissed off at one another and the TARDIS crew gets caught in the middle.

Review: 

Honestly, I'm getting pretty tired of stories in which much of the plot revolves around Barbara being abducted as a sex slave.

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• Whoah.  For some reason this copy beings with a segment wherein 85 year-old William Russel (aka Ian Chesterton) recalls the event of the episode IN CHARACTER.  It's actually incredibly cute.
• Now for the real episode.
• Oooh, 12th-century Palestine!
• I hate historicals.
• No sound effect on the TARDIS materializing.  This happens a lot in early episodes.  Only dematerialization is consistent. 
• Oooh.  I like when they have establishing shot showing people in trouble before the Doctor arrive.  Although I sure as hell can't tell what the heck they're talking about.
• Some evil-looking Arabs stalk some Christians.
• An Arab attacks Ian, but the Doctor distracts him by being a doddering old man.
• Barbara is hogtied by Christians. 
• Everyone is separated at 1:23.  New record?
• Two of these four segments are lost.  Originally, all four were lost, but the third segment had been backed up in the BBC film library.  The first episode was later found in the private colleciton of a New Zealand film collector in 1999, making it (I think) the second most recent Doctor Who segments to be recovered.  
• By the way, if any of you happen to have copies of lost Doctor Who episodes, you get a full-sized Dalek model for their safe return.  Check your parents' home videos.  Maybe an episode of Doctor Who is playing in the background.  No sound is necessary to win the Dalek, since soundtracks already exist.
• By the way, the film collector who had the missing segment 4 once pretended to be the Sultan of a fabricated nation called the Utopian Sultanate State of Oecussi-Ambendo.
• Apparently the President of Zimbabwe is suspected to own copies of some missing episodes, but he refuses to give them up.  If there was ever a good reason to start a war, this is it. 
• If he's sitting on a copy of the fourth segment of "The Tenth Planet," then I'll fly over there and kick him in the nuts myself.
• Oh the episode is still playing.
• Ian swordfights with an Arab for some reason.  Of course, being a science teacher, he is a master swordsman.
• Barbara get abducted, as usual.
• It's actually the most well-choreographed and least awkward fight scene in the series thus far, though.
• The Doctor cons an Arab by pretending to be gay so that he can steal a bunch of clothing.  Or something.
• Hagrid arrives and is not pleased.
• Oh great.  Barbara gets sold as a concubine to some Arab king.  She is developing quite the track record.
• Barbara tells the Arab king about her recent adventures on an alien world ruled by insects, in Rome at the time of Emperor Nero and in England in the far future.  It's farely rare for the travelers to discuss previous adventures like this.
• He insists she entertain him with more stories, under penalty of death if he is not amused, a la Shahrazad.
• Vicki wears a stupid hat.
• There's an Arab named Luigi.
• Oh my God it's Wyett Earp.
• Luigi abducts Barbara.  Of course.
• Ian gets knighted because he swordfought so many Arabs.
• The Doctor comments that he hopes he gets knighted some day.
• Vicki scoffs "That'll be the day!"
• The joke's on her, since the Doctor gets knighted not once but twice in future episodes (Fifth and Tenth Doctors).
• Ooh, turns out that Hagrid is a NICE Arab.
• Vicki has to pretend to be a boy.  She doesn't like it. "Why can't I be a girl again!" she whines.
• The queen says to the Doctor "There's something new in you, yet something older than the sky itself."  
• Luigi discovers Vicki's ruse.  "A girl? Dressed as a boy??? Is nothing understandable these days?"
• Vicki worries that she is becoming trouble for the Doctor and that he might leave her behind. 
• The Doctor comforts her.
• aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!
• Hagrid tells a really sad story about his children and wife being killed.  Unfortunately I can't take him seriously since his accent is basically that of Apu from the Simpsons.
• Also, he looks like Hagrid. 
• 20 minutes of boring political intrigue.
• I hate historicals.
• Every once in a while, a date and a time flash on the screen in the third segment, making it obvious that it was recovered from someone's old home recording.
• Richard the Lionheart ants to marry his sister to an Arab.  She threatens to tattle on him to the Pope.  This goes over like a load of bricks. 
• In the end, the Doctor is to be executed, but as his last wish asks to step inside his blue box one last time.
• PUNKED!
• A lame update for a lame episode. Sorry. Fortunately, next episode is better than sex.