Script to Screen: Battlefield

In early 1987, when he was looking to work for the BBC, Ben Aaronovitch submitted material to various script editors in the corporation. He met with Andrew Cartmel on the strength of a sample science fiction script called Nightfall. From this Aaronovitch was asked to work on some new ideas for Season 25. He came up with two but both were abandoned when he was commissioned to write Remembrance of the Daleks later in the year. One of the abandoned ideas was later reworked into his New Adventures novel Transit. The other, a three-part, all-location story called Storm over Avallion, was later expanded into Battlefield.

Aaronovitch's final scripts for Battlefield were over-length and had to be severely cut under Cartmel's guidance before production started. Several lines were cut, including one in which the Brigadier, shortly after he is reunited with the Doctor, says, 'Excuse me, I seem to have stepped into something nasty,' to which the Doctor responds, 'I think we all have, Brigadier. Right up to our necks'. Doris, the Brigadier's wife, lost scenes in Part Four in which she listens to radio reports about the situation at Carbury, then tries to contact her husband to tell him she loves him. Another lost scene had Major Husak and his men fighting it out with the Destroyer in the ruins, only to get zapped. When confronted with the interstitial vortex created by Morgaine, the Brigadier was to make reference to the Master (as in The Time Monster). Producer John Nathan-Turner had discussions with Courtney about killing off the Brigadier, but both decided against it. Nicholas Courtney however perpetuated the myth that two endings were filmed. Aaronovitch wrote several unused endings: his favourite had the Brigadier accepting a job offer from Ancelyn to return to his world to become their ruler now that Morgaine has been dealt with...

As with many stories of the Seventh Doctor's era, Battlefield over-ran the time limit set by the BBC. As a result material had to be cut. A sub-plot concerning Ace's dislike for the Brigadier was identified as being redundant and so all reference to this conflict was removed, even at the expense of important plot explanation.

Durations	Tape	TV	Cut	Video
Part One	24.30	24.01	.29	24.01
Part Two	24.52	24.08	.44	24.52
Part Three	27.22	24.13	3.09	25.26
Part Four	26.32	24.14	2.18	24.14
Total			6.40

The following analysis is a comparison of the televised version with a tape of the first edit of the episodes (which does not have special effects or music). Cut scenes are not the only difference; some scenes are edited in a different order, while some are inter-cut with others, and in one case the TV version has a scene not included on the tape.

Marc Platt's 1991 novelisation is a curious hybrid of Aaronovitch's original over-length script and the TV version. Many of the cut scenes have been reinstated but some TV scenes are not in the book. Oddly, Platt has included Aaronovitch's unused ending with the Brigadier accepting Ancelyn's offer. Relevant pages are given in brackets.

The extended video release contains many of the scenes cut from parts two and three (parts one and four are the same as the broadcast version), and these are noted accordingly.

PART ONE

The first cut comes after Doris tells Alistair that the Doctor is back. 'Alistair, who is the Doctor?' she asks. He stands. The scene continues:

{Novel, pg 51}

A change occurs in the scene where Alistair gets ready to leave for London in the helicopter. On the tape the sequence runs together for a full 1 minutes 15 seconds. On TV it is cut in half with scenes at the hotel inserted between. As a result Alistair and Doris lose several seconds of kissing!

The end to the episode is different: on TV the knights burst into the brewery, the Commander ordering: 'Kill them, kill them now!' with a final close up on the Doctor. However, on the tape the episode ends with the Knights bursting in. The Commander utters just a single 'Kill them!' Bambera shouts 'Not again!'. The credits then come in on the Commander's face, not the Doctor's.

PART TWO

The first cut comes early, with Alistair in the helicopter. The 15 seconds of dialogue comes in after Alistair orders a cordon put 'outside the limit of radio jamming':

The scene continues as on TV. {Novel, pg 73}

After Alistair has commandeered Shou Yuing's car there is a 44 second scene cut with the Doctor and Ace exploring the alien space ship. Part of this sequence, with the Doctor on the spiral stairs appears in the More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS video:

[The scene appears on the BBC video]

On TV this scene has been replaced by a brief cut-away shot of the space ship under the lake with a voice-over of Ace saying, 'You've seen one space ship, you've seen them all', which is not on the tape. Ace's reaction on entering the crypt is retained on TV but her final lines have been removed in editing.
{Novel, pg 87-88}

The cliffhanger is edited differently (apart from the fact that the green snakes are not on the tape!) in that the final shots are of Ace in the tank and not of the unconscious Doctor.

PART THREE

This episode contains the most cuts, it having the longest over-run and having most of the Ace-Brigadier conflict.

On TV, Ace gets ejected from the space ship clutching Excalibur. Walmsly quotes from Mort d'Arthur ending on 'holding the sword'. It cuts to a shot of the water over which Walmsly is heard saying 'It's all a myth, really'. Bambera then sees Ace rising. Walmsly says, 'It's that wretched girl'. The Original Edit mixes the scene different and has 21 additional seconds of dialogue from Walmsly:

The scene continues as on TV. {Novel, pg98-99}

The next cut comes after the Doctor and Alistair emerge from the tunnel. The TV scene ends with Bambera saying she thought he had retired. 'So did I,' he replies. The original tape continues for 11 seconds:

{Novel, pg 102}
[The scene appears on the BBC video]

The follow-on to the above scene begins the Ace-Brigadier conflict. It comes after Morgaine has instructed her men to give the humans 'an honourable death' as on TV. Part of the cut scene appears on the More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS video:

{Novel, pg 103}
[The scene appears on the BBC video]

The next cut continues the Ace-Brigadier sub-plot. It is rather unfortunate that this scene was completely cut as opposed to being edited around as it provides the viewer with some badly needed explanatory dialogue about what exactly has been happening for the last two episodes! On TV all the surplus cast are loaded off in a truck and driven away. Ace and Shou Yuing watch in hiding as the vehicle leaves. Ace tells Shou Yuing that she may wish she went with them. The next scene which runs for one minute is cut:

{Novel, pg 127-128}

The Doctor and Alistair have gone off together in Bessie leaving Ace and Shou Yuing at the hotel. The Doctor has told them to draw a chalk circle. The scene on TV ends with Shou Yuing's line 'What did the Doctor say? At the first sign of something strange?'. The tape goes on for 22 more seconds, continuing the Ace-Brigadier sub-plot:

{Novel, pg 135-136}
[The scene appears on the BBC video]

The follow-on to the above scene, with Ace and Shou Yuing sitting in the chalk circle has been shortened by eight seconds for TV. The scene on the tape starts with a close up on Ace, then Shou Yuing):

The scene continues as on TV. {Novel, pg141}

PART FOUR

Most of the cuts to this episode are unnecessary scenes, proving that the editing here was done with care. Only the final cut scene carries the Ace-Brigadier conflict, but shows that this has been resolved and they are now good friends.

The first is a minor cut, reducing the arrival of the Destroyer. He moans and dribbles for an extra eight seconds!

The Doctor studies the swirling interstitial vortex left by Morgaine in the hotel. The scene on TV is 11 seconds longer as he picks up a stick and pokes it in the vortex. The end of the stick glows red.

The battle at the dig is over, with scattered bodies of UNIT men and Knights alike. Ancelyn tells Bambera it was 'a good fight'. The scene continues on the tape for a further 25 seconds:

{Novel, pg 152-153}

The Brigadier has been hurled through a window by Morgaine. The Destroyer begins to break free; the Doctor thought Morgaine 'was only bluffing'. The following 23 second scene continues from where the Brigadier fell outside (on TV all we see is him rolling over in pain):

It is here, inter-cut with this scene that the missing Doris and radio scenes would have appeared. {Novel, pg 157}

The final cut, resolving Ace's conflict with Alistair, appears just after the spaceship explodes and there is a fountain of water from the lake (this scene appears on the tape immediately before the final scene at the Lethbridge-Stewarts' house, and has been moved to a much earlier place on TV). Ace, on the lakeside, watches the explosion and cheers and jumps for joy. The tape continues for six seconds:

{Not in the novel}

There are some other minor cuts without dialogue in this episode, mainly showing the Destroyer breaking free and wandering around. But hey, who wants to see additional footage of a giant blue slobbering monster, anyway?

Sources: DWM 159, 201, DWM Summer Special 1993.