Sergeant Benton John Levene

• A Review by Stuart Gutteridge
• A Review by Gillian Moore

A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 14/8/02

Of the regular UNIT team, Benton is probably the most overlooked of them. To all intents and purposes he is just a regular guy doing his job and this is why he is overlooked. He is never afforded any real room for character development and he does seem to be there just to make up the numbers. Any significant role he plays in a story; notably The Time Monster results in something going wrong, this however doesn`t prevent him from trying. To John Levene`s credit, he is able to keep this up throughout his time on the show and it is unfortunate that some of his sense of humour doesn`t rub off on the character. Perhaps the best way to describe Benton is like a pair of old slippers, always there.

GREATEST MOMENT: Being promoted from Colonel to Sergeant and eventually RSM.

A Review by Gillian Moore 22/8/02

Benton first comes properly to notice in Inferno when we see how nasty and vicious he could have been as his fascist counterpart ill treats the Doctor. Ironically, there's a photograph of Platoon Under Leader Benton holding a rifle which looks decidedly sexy, weird or what? After this Benton's good guy status is established. He fights monsters and villains often getting injured in the process, like his head injury in The Mind of Evil. At the same time he's a big brother to Jo Grant, trying to protect her from seeing Pigbin Josh's dead body in The Claws of Axos, and comforting her when she thinks the Doctors are dead in The Three Doctors.

In stories like The Daemons and The Three Doctors it's shown that he could make a good travelling companion to the Doctor. He's brave, adaptable and practical minded, somewhat like Jamie McCrimmon in khaki. One or two things do jar though. In The Mind of Evil the Brigadier treats him somewhat unfairly after his fainting fit. While in The Claws of Axos he's easily fooled by the Master's army officer disguise. Are NCOs really as dim as that?

It takes until Wartime, over ten years after his last regular TV appearance for Benton to truly shine. He's given a family background, reasons for his military career and protective nature, even a first name. They get the date wrong though. I always reckoned Benton to be the same age as John Levene, so in 1944 he'd be too young for war games. Then again, a later date would be a less exciting date.

Then there's Benton's life in print. He's easily recognisable in books like The Devil Goblins From Neptune and The Scales of Injustice. Effort is made in the former to make him into a three dimensional character with some intelligence and even sexual memories, shock, horror! His most notable appearances, however, would have to be in Blood Heat and Genocide. In the first of these his personality is so warped as to be almost unrecognisable, but then, this is a warped world. In the second he's older and less adventurous, but it only takes mention of the Doctor to awaken something in him.

To conclude, Benton's as popular as he ever was in Who circles, so there must be something more to the character than comfortable familiarity. Perhaps it's humour, or maybe sex appeal. Certainly, the end scene of The Time Monster is one of the abiding memories of my pre-adolescence. Although, how much of this is down to sheer embarrassment on Benton's behalf, I shall probably never know.