The Ark
(part 1)
Right, let's crack on with this one and see what it gives us.
It's a monitor lizard on a sandy floor.
The lizard stands so still you might think it was a recon photo until suddenly a toucan crashes down into the shot screeching. Roll over Exorcist III, we've got a new jump scare champion in town!
We open up in proper horror movie territory as a young woman opening a gate in heavy rain is slashed to death by an unseen maniac.
We then cut to one of the greatest Taggart openings, as Dr Janet Napier (Hannah Gordon) is arrested on suspicion of murder by Taggart, and the opening theme plays as we watch her slowly escorted out of the building as everyone stops to watch. We've joined in this story when its already seemingly near a conclusion.
The Massacre (episode 1)
The Massacre ended the night of 23rd and 24th August 1572, but started hundreds of years earlier. Long before Luther, the Reformation and Henry VIII, even. Ever since the Bible had began to be translated into French and English and so on (around the 13th Century), disagreements on how to interpret the messages within had been born. France itself was no stranger to ecumenical problems. When the French King (Philip IV) arrested Pope Boniface VIII (who liked to get involved in wars and conflicts) and he subsequently died weeks later in jail, the French then placed French subservient Popes into power who reigned from Avignon, until a schism which led to a French anti-pope, which splintered again into 3 or 4 different pretenders to the throne until a big conference was held in Germany to sort the mess out.
Complicated sentence for complicated geopolitics!
