Whatever Happened to the Brigadier (Part 2)

Time now to conclude our look at the post-formative years of the Brigadier, begun with the "Mawdryn Undead" column.

It's quite appropriate that much of "The Five Doctors" takes place "outside of time". It's celebratory nature sidesteps not only the ongoing chronology of the series (where's Kamelion?), but also it's developing characterisation. This isn't much of a problem for the most part; a lot of the people in it hadn't been seen for years and would never be again. An exception is the Brigadier, whose appearance in the Death Zone is curiously ill-at-ease with his recent storyline in "Mawdryn Undead". "The Five Doctors" could happen at any time for him, except for the fact that he knows Tegan, which sort of gives the game away that his on-screen timeline is running fairly parallel to ours.

"Battlefield" is more interesting for looking at the Brigadier. It's funny, but it very much adheres to the popular audience perception of the character - he's an old friend of the Doctors, ever-reliable, ever on his side. Now, it feels as if it were always this way. But ask yourself when. The Brigadier was rarely completely on the Doctors side during the Pertwee and early Baker eras; occasionally he could even be menacing, and was seen both going against the Doctors wishes to destroy the Silurians, and having him arrested for treason. These two instances straddle the Pertwee years, and are by no means uncharacteristic. We'd like to think that believing the Doctor was responsible for the Dinosaur Invasion was a front, a momentary pretence for the benefit of General Finch. But it's a very long moment. All the evidence points to the fact that, at least initially, the Brigadier believed that the Doctor had been caught red-handed.

A while ago we discussed how "Mawdryn Undead" changed things. From this point on, the Brigadier came to accept the Doctor as a part of his past, having been shown that his life was, literally, empty without him. It's ironic that, in a season famed for its nostalgia, it's the lack of it that defines the Brigadier's story. "Battlefield" re-dresses the balance, and the character seems almost to be revelling in his newly returned past - he's even married Doris, and is heard to ruminate about his "blood and thunder days". Crucially, it's the news of the Doctors return that makes him step back into his old uniform and return to action. Where-as "Mawdryn" showed his past returning to re-claim him, here it's as if he knows *he* has to seek *it* out. If the Doctor is back, he'll need to be by his side.

It's a great swansong for the character, and completes the circle that "Mawdryn" begun. If the Brigadier was never really "with" the Doctor in the past, always convinced his TARDIS was a trick and that Anti-matter Universes were beaches, here he doesn't even need explaining who the Seventh Doctor is, deducing his identity with a simple "who else could it be?". The mothballing of Bessie is a little contradictory, an act we are supposed to believe occurred in the Fourth Doctor era, but which is more at home with the Brig's post-"Mawdryn" statement of affection than how he might have felt following "Terror of the Zygons". But we all have moments when we're glad we hoarded something away. "Battlefield" is also the story where the Brigadier re-joins the establishment after its abandonment of him in "Mawdryn" - he's viewed as an elder statesmen, and gets calls from the government at his oddly-lavish house. Perhaps that huge army pension turned up after all, having been lost in the post for a few years?

Whether you approve of the way the Brigadier belatedly collects his dues is another matter. But harrowing as it was to once find him teaching Maths from a hut, his only friends being photographs with no memories attached, one cannot deny the Brigadier's place in history. His post-Pertwee era story is of someone who loses, but then happily re-finds himself. "Battlefield" lacks only a final scene where the Brigadier is awarded a medal whilst all his friends clap and cheer him down the red carpet. That's certainly what happens figuratively, as this long-serving character is finally awarded the dues we assumed he possessed all along.