Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 112: Bell of Doom (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, Part Four)

Dear diary,

I was really not looking forward to this one. Having found the thing I enjoyed most about The Massacre was the whole subplot about the Doctor and the Abbot looking alike, I really worried that there wouldn't be anything in part four to hold my attention. Thankfully, this episode really brings everything together nicely, and I was captivated by it.

Early on, Steven returns to meet with Anne, and solemnly tells her that his friend is dead. He admits that he doesn't know what to do, and that if he can't find the Doctor's TARDIS key, then he won't be able to make it out of Paris. It's another chance for Peter Purves to shine (there are several in this episode), and it's interesting to see a companion in this predicament.

Towards the end of The Daleks' Master Plan, when Hartnell took a week off, Steven and Sara found themselves stranded, not knowing where the Doctor was. There, they were filled with optimism, and knew that he had to be out there somewhere, probably in the middle of the Dalek's plans. Here, though, Steven is convinced that he's actually seen the Doctor's body, and that he's got no hope. It's a brave thing to do with the programme, and one which we don't often see.

But then the Doctor appears, and all is well! Hooray! Except… where has the Doctor been all this time? He chastises Steven for not being at the tavern when he got back there, and says that the curfew is responsible for a lot of the mess they're in, but… Does he ever actually tell us what he's been up to? Has he just been wandering the streets of Paris for a few episodes?

The actual plot of the massacre itself has been of more interest to me here, too. Throughout the story, I've somewhat struggled to keep abreast of who's on which side, and which one is meant to be trying to massacre the other. Here, it's spelled out nice and clearly. The Queen Mother has given the order, and everyone of the opposing religion is to be killed at daybreak. Simple. The Doctor ten gives us a brief run-down of the events once we're safely back to the TARDIS, and suddenly I'm back up to speed again.

Indeed, it's these final TARDIS scenes that really sell the episode. I've praised Steven as a character in the past because he's not afraid to speak his mind and stand up to the Doctor. Never is this more in evidence than here, when he riles against him for sending Anne Chaplet home, even though it meant sending her to death. It's a beautifully written scene and Purves plays it with perfection again. All the more effective is the way that having told the Doctor he intends to get off the ship at their next stop, he barely says one more word to him before leaving. It's powerful stuff.

I'm only hoping that it gets picked up on in the next story. I've been impressed on more than one occasion with the series so far, when they pick up on big character moments like this even as we move to a new story, and it feels like a moment that really does deserve to have lasting effects. It was an argument like this from Barbara back in The Edge of Destruction that set the Doctor off on a route to becoming a new man, and it would be nice to see this moment continue pushing the Doctor down the right path.

The scene is then lifted even higher by Hartnell's monologue, straddling Steven's departure. He tells the boy that he stands by his decision, and that there is a chance - however slim - that Anne may have survived. Having then watched Steven storm out, the Doctor muses that everyone leaves him in the end. He thinks of Susan, and Vicki, before commenting that Ian and Barbara were all too eager to get back to their own time and place.

It then marks the first occasion in a while where the Doctor has really spoken of his own world, when he considers that it may be time to return. It's a very moving moment for the Doctor, and Hartnell is perhaps the best he's ever been. Much gets said in this story about the way he plays the Abbot in such a different manner to the Doctor - without the little gestures and the flubbed lines. People don't often seem to talk about this moment, where he gets everything spot on, and really sells it to us.

And then… Dodo! It feels silly, but I'd never realised the Anne Chaplet / Dodo Chaplet link had been made so explicitly in the programme itself. I always thought that it was left as a bit of a subliminal hint that everything might have been ok in the end for Anne. Unfortunately, the scene itself isn't perhaps the best introduction to a character - it's serves more as a four-minute info-dump than anything else, checking off everything we need to know (and then some) before heading back out to the stars.

The series has been a very dark place of late, with plenty of death and destruction. I've enjoyed it as a direction for the programme, but I'm looking forward to having Dodo here, and seeing the series head for a slightly less morbid place once more…

(By the way: There's a story that says Ian and Barbara were supposed to appear in this episode, watching the TARDIS as it departs across Wimbledon Common. Sadly, it never happened. How brilliant would it have been, though? I know I was sick of them by the end, but a brief snippet of them here and now would simply be marvellous…)

Next Episode: The Steel Sky

Next Episode: The Steel Sky 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 111: Priest of Death (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

Well… I hope that the Abbot isn't the Doctor in disguise, because if he is then the history of Doctor Who must have flowed very differently to the way I've always understood it, with Hartnell's Doctor killed here and his corpse left out on the streets of Paris.

Yes, this subplot is still the thing that's interesting me the most about this story, and I'm a little sad to see the back of it here in Episode Three, meaning that I'll need to find something new to latch onto for the final part of the tale. Throughout this episode, the entire storyline is expertly woven into the tale - you only need to look at the moment the Abbot's death is announced to see that.

Steven has just assured us again that the Abbot really is the Doctor in disguise, and announces that he's 'certain' of that fact now that he's seen the man up close… at which point we're told that he's been murdered outside his home. Steven is horrified (and Peter Purves turns in a great performance - he really is very good when he's having to portray anger), and rushes out to see for himself.

It's another one of those times that I extol the virtue of experiencing these missing episodes in the form of the narrated soundtracks - because the sight of this man laying dead on the street with the face of the Doctor was far more striking in my mind that it would have been on screen. Just to compare, I did stick on the last few minutes of the Loose Cannon recon when I got home (I've been listening to today's episode on a walk around the supermarket. The death of the Abbot was announced just as I picked up some lamb for tea. Lovely.), and while it's perfectly good enough, it really did very little for me.

What's also interesting in this episode is Steven's faith in the Doctor. Early on, while trying to convince Anne to go back to the Abbot's home, he tells her that if the Abbot is the Doctor, then she has nothing to fear - the Doctor will make sure that no harm will come to her. It's interesting when you consider that his two most recent additions to the TARDIS (Katarina and Sara, and if you want to be really picky, then Brett, too) have both met their demise while under the Doctor's care. I've never been more convinced that Anne is destined for death.

Otherwise… I'm afraid I have to admit that I'm still just not into this story. I'm sorry. I'm trying, really I am, but I'm just not connecting with it. I've been so looking forward to Lucarotti's return to the TARDIS, but whereas his previous tales were painted on a broad canvas that was easy enough to follow, I just feel like I'm losing track of who's who and which side they're fighting on. And have France now gone to war with Spain or not? Yesterday I thought they had, but today they seem to not be…

Next Episode: Bell of Doom

Next Episode: Bell of Doom 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 110: The Sea Beggar (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, Episode Two)

Dear Diary,

I think I’ve said it before, but some days of The 50 Year Diary are easier than others. Sometimes, as I hit ‘pause’ on the music player (usually while the end credits are playing out), I’ve got a list of notes that fills a full side of my notepad, and the hard part is trying to decide which notes to pick up on, and discuss during my entry. More than once, I’ve started to talk about something before realising that it’s probably only of interest to me, deleted it, and taken a different direction for that day’s entry.

Other days… are just difficult. Today is one of those ‘difficult’ days. The problem is that there’s nothing really all that wrong with this episode – it’s perfectly fine as an episode of Doctor Who and all, it just hasn’t really grabbed me all that much. I’ve come away with only about four notes from this episode, and some of those are just bits of dialogue that I’ve liked.

Yesterday, I complained that I didn’t really know this period of history, and mused that it could be one of the problems I was having trying to connect with the story. The problem is… I’m loathe to look into it too much. A quick scan of the top paragraph on Wikipedia tells the that it took place in the late sixteenth century, and that’s where I stopped reading. It’s going to sound odd, but I don’t want any spoilers! Spoilers from a story (made and broadcast 48 years ago) about a historical even that happened several centuries ago!

I can already surmise that The Massacre isn’t going to have a happy ending. Just look at the title to know that! I don’t want to know the exact details, though, because I want to experience it as a part of the tale. This means, though, that I’m still wading through it not quite knowing the significance of events. There’s a few moments where characters say things that (judging by the performance) are obviously important contextually, but I don’t really get them. Ho hum.

Still, there’s plenty of interest coming in the form of the ‘is he or isn’t he the Doctor’ plot line. I thought it was quite clearly a case of the Abbot just happening to be a double of our lead character, but actually there seems to be more to it than that. When Steven first speculates that it could be the Doctor, passing himself off as an official for some reason (he wasn’t around to see the Doctor’s role in The Reign of Terror, but I’m imagining the Abbot as wearing the same feathery hat. Just because. I like that hat), the entire sub plot takes a very different turn.

Even more interesting is that other characters state definitively that it isn’t the Doctor. It can’t be him, because the Abbot has been an important figure in their lives for longer than the Doctor and Steven have been in France… but then they’ve only recently actually met the Abbot in person. Maybe this man is the Doctor in disguise?

The Doctor himself doesn’t actually appear in this episode (well, he might, if the Abbot really is the Doctor undertaking some clever ruse, but we’ve not been made privy to that yet), which only serves to make the whole thing even more of a mystery. It’s this that I’m enjoying the most at the moment, also I’m hoping it continues being built up as a key element of the plot. I’m half-wondering if the next episode might be this one told again, but from the point-of-view of the Doctor, before they reunite again at the end of the story…

And that’s the key thing. I’m interested to move on. I’m actively looking forward to tomorrow’s episode. It’s not like some of the stories we’ve gone through, where I’ve really not been all that bothered about the next episode. It’s just that – for now – The Massacre is just sort of there. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing particularly great about it either. Here’s hoping that things pick up from here on out!

(Are we placing bets on whether the Doctor is the Abbot, by the way? Don’t tell me if you know – avoiding spoilers there, too! – but for now I’m thinking… I’m thinking that it would be great if he were the Abbot, but I don’t think he is. I think.)

Next Episode: Priest of Death

Next Episode: Priest of Death 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 109: War of God (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, Episode One)

Dear diary,

“I wish I understood what's going on!” wails Steven about two-thirds of the way into this episode. Truth be told, I did wonder if he was just speaking aloud what was on my mind.

I've been looking forward to reaching The Massacre since… ooh, about three minutes after I finished The Aztecs. During the first season, John Lucarotti's scripts were fantastic, and really sold the idea of the pure historicals to me. While it's often said that this story was rewritten almost wholly by Donald Tosh, I was still hoping for the kind of richness in the setting that we got with visits to Cathay and South America.

In this area, the episode doesn't disappoint. The whole thing is steeped with atmosphere, even though my only frame of reference was a half-remembered image of the Doctor and Steven sat in a tavern. That said, the episode takes place in very few sets, and I can quite believe that they're the kinds of sets the Doctor Who team would have been very good at producing.

Where things fall a little flat for me, though, is in the denseness of the setting. As has been the case more and more with the historical stories since Season One, I'm finding myself in settings that I'm not familiar with. Most of the time, I'm able to bluff myself through the story to some extent, and in some cases I'm even sure that I actually learn something from Doctor Who. Sydney Newman would be so pleased!

Here, though, I genuinely didn't have any context for the setting until Steven be can to vocalise my confusion. I knew this story was set in France, and from the title I'd figured that it wasn't likely to be a light-hearted romp, but then I didn't have much else to go on. The story itself doesn't try to reassure either - the Doctor and Steven's first appearance comes as the enter a tavern, where we've already a scene in progress. I did briefly wonder if I'd managed to switch the soundtrack into 'shuffle' again.

What is nice about this story is the way that Steven and the Doctor get on during their initial scene together. This is the only story from the classic run to feature the Doctor alone with just a single male companion, and so it's a dynamic that feels very fresh. It doesn't last long before the Doctor is off to explore and Steven is caught up in trouble, but it's nice for a while. It's also clear that some time has passed since the end of the previous story, as the tone between the pair is far happier than it was when we left them yesterday.

The cliffhanger - the Abbot turning around and looking exactly like the Doctor - perhaps loses some if its imp ace by being heard on audio rather than witnessed on screen, but it's still quite a striking moment. It helps that Hartnell changes the tone of his voice for the part, too, so that he's almost, but not quite the man we know. The Massacre isn't a story that I know well, so I'm unsure if we'll get more Doctor-on-Doctor action as we had in The Chase (though if we do, because this is a soundtrack I'll be able to have Hartnell playing both roles all the time!), but it could be interesting to see…

Next Episode: The Sea Beggar

Next Episode: The Sea Beggar