The Massacre

 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!

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The Huguenots themselves had evolved out of the early 16th Century Waldensians, a group inspired by Peter Waldo. Waldo had converted with zeal to hard-line Christianity, given away all his property, and become a lay preacher in Lyon. He warned of the evils of money and viewed the Papacy as being more interested in riches over souls. More so, he decided that some of the specific dogmas of Catholicism were in fact tricks from the Devil. Namely for one, transubstantiation, where the mass eucharist and wine transform into the non-metaphorical body and blood of Jesus, to be consumed by the worshippers.

Which, as you might guess, is sort of a big deal in the whole Catholicism bit.

The Papacy’s response was from Lucius III, who excommunicated Waldo for heresy. Lucius III set up the Crusade against Saladin incidentally, but died in 1185, long before the eventual peace detailed in The Crusade review. Rest assured he was turning in his grave though, if exile from Rome hadn’t already achieved that.

Anyhow, Waldo’s teachings about the evil of capitalism and hypocrisy engaged many, many fans. Like Jeremy Corbyn. These fans became more militant minded in their outlook, and criticised non-believers. Like Jeremy Corbyn’s. They then began to attack abbeys, and this is where that analogy ends, I hope. King Francis I (of France, not Lewisham) responded to this by having thousands of Waldensians executed in the 1545 in what we know as the Merindol Massacre. Result? Thousands of dead villagers, and the perpetrators were rewarded highly, and then acquitted when a later monarch tried to mend fences.

The Huguenots had started off as a sort of provisional wing of the Waldensians, killing monks, burning churches, being iconoclasts, you know that sort of thing. However, around the same time Francis I was bumping off the Waldensians, he extended a basic level of protection to the Huguenots, groups of whom (because as with everything, its an error to think of a historical group as one identical mass) had quickly worked out the best way to progress their ideas was through political power. Chief among them was a French military leader, Gaspard de Coligny, decorated for service in war, who had converted to the Huegenot cause in the 1550s and served as a commander during the civil war Battle of Dreux. Which ended in a Catholic victory, partly because of measures de Coligny took, believing there wouldn’t be a battle. He was however a crucial negotiator for the Peace of Saint-Germain, a ceasefire between the two sides which allowed Huguenots to hold public offices. The Admiral took advantage of that, and of a weakened King, to become considerably powerful in the French court in a short space of time, and viewed a marriage alliance between the French and the Dutch as a way out of the impasse.

Meanwhile, massacres and tensions continued through France, and in the 1560s we saw several battles, murders, and sectarian decline throughout France, much like other major Western countries. (Not helping matters were the English, who were anti-Protestant until Henry VIII wasn’t allowed to marry his mistress, then Protestant until Bloody Mary took the throne, and then Protestant again when Mary died of cancer, with hundreds of thousands dead for supporting the wrong page in the book worshipping the same God in-between. And the Scots were no better at stirring things in France, as they went the exact opposite of England’s stance on each occasion. The Auld Alliance ended after 300 years in 1560 due to Tudor politics, but Mary Queen of Scots was devoutly Catholic and a massive Francophile given her history…)

Oh and Coligny was considered responsible for the assassination of Francis of Guise during the Siege of Orleans. Which he denied. Repeatedly.

One important fact to remember is that by 1570, it was estimated that 10% of the French population was Huguenot. One in every ten men, women and children. So, to put it into modern terms, when characters speak about exterminating every one of them, as if they were real life Daleks from history, they are talking roughly the equivalent of killing every single Liberal Democrat voter from the 2019 election. Luckily, we live in times when, no matter how many foul things you can think of Boris Johnson, he’s not actively sending the troops in to do that*. Decimate the entire native population. One in ten. From babies to the elderly. Sometimes words in a script, villains motif, can be hard to get into perspective. So just think on that.

*Fingers crossed this doesn't date badly.

Duncan Lunan once said he struggled to find horror films and books scary on anything but an intellectual level as, having read about the Nazis from early life, he found man’s inhumanity to man more terrifying than any fictional element. King Charles IX was a real person. Catherine de Medici and Marshall Tavannes were real, as was the ill fated Admiral Gaspard de Coligny.

And as Doctor Who fans, just remember, one of the leads in our favourite show existed because these people failed. Their evil couldn’t consume every soul, just as 20th Century attempts by other evil people couldn’t, despite their body count effort. Descendants of Charlemagne, the aristocratic family de Perthuis de Laillevault escaped France and eventually set up shop in England. They changed their name to make it more Anglican too: Pertwee.

The only other caveat to note up front is that while this story focuses on dogmatic politicians, the vast majority of those who suffered, on both sides, through the century, were Anne Chaplets. Innocents with no say in the situation, who suffered because of the football strip their family wore, or even those worn by the local squire equivalent or landowners.

Well, that was cheery. Remember when Doctor Who was fun? John Wiles doesn’t…

Right then…

Paris, France, and the words War of God show up on the screen over a contemporary sketch of France, and I have no idea if that was in the finished episode or, knowing of Paddy Russell’s ideas in future episodes, the Loose Cannon team was playing around here. It looks good, though.

This is Paddy Russell’s first of four Doctor Who stories she directed. A former Production Assistant for Rudolph Cartier (under whom she had already perfected her inability to take fools gladly!), Russell had been an actress until she discovered that female directors got paid more. She worked production on Quatermass and the famous 1984 adaptation with Peter Cushing before becoming the joint first ever female director signed by the BBC.

Paddy Russell’s work is summarised by two main strengths. The first is casting, and her four Doctor Whos still remain among some of the best cast in the shows history. This story has Andre Morrell, Eric Thompson, Michael Bilton and Leonard Sachs, for example. She would come round to the idea for an actor for a role, and then defend it and them to the hilt, such as when she forced Graham Williams to accept Colin Douglas for Horror of Fang Rock. Her other strength was in imagining ways of achieving the epic on a Dr Who budget and then doing so – covering the massacre through historical woodcuttings and audio effects, for example, or the very effective shots of an abandoned London in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, caught through technically illegal guerrilla camera work at 4am!

She was a trailblazer who refused to take second best, and if that showed up in her reputation with the regulars (Lis Sladen and Louise Jameson both didn’t go on with her), then it also showed up in the final visual product.

Which makes it all the more damning we can’t see the final visual product here. Not even tele snaps. Because precedent tells us it probably looked amazing.

Those expecting fireworks between determined director and temperamental star were to be disappointed, incidentally, as Russell and William Hartnell got on very well, his energies taken up in disliking the producer, as Russell later quipped!

As a boy plays with a paper football (a game me and my late Great Uncle Richard used to do, until he got tired and painted a scary face on it), the TARDIS lands in a courtyard.

The Doctor announces they are in France, and both muse about the time period.

A worried man enters a house.

The Doctor then decides they have landed in the 16th Century, and so he must go and meet a man named Preslin. Who clearly lives just round the corner, of course.

The two men from the previous scene set up the story for those at home:

GASTON: You're too cautious, Nicholas. The Catholics know of only one way to settle our differences.

MUSS: Times are difficult enough for us here, without you provoking further quarrels.

GASTON: I? Oh, come, be fair. Paris hates our kind. It would do anything it can to provoke us.

MUSS: You must control your temper, Gaston. It is imperative that we keep the peace at this time.

Wotcha, Dougal and Zebedee, it’s the voice of the Magic Roundabout himself, Eric Thompson. He’s playing tempestuous Gaston, and while he is long gone now (he died of long standing heart issues in 1982), he still holds considerable acting royalty legacy, not merely through the Magic Roundabout, but through his widow Phyllida Law (a great actress) and his daughters, Emma Thompson (Oscar winning actress) and Sophie Thompson (the Olivier winning actress). Nicolas Muss is played by David Weston, a highly regarded Shakespearean stage actor who will later show up in Warriors Gate as Biroc.

Gaston is clearly somewhat genre savvy but not enough to get out of dodge.

The Doctor tells Steven to go get dressed up in his fancy dress collection for the outside world.

Gaston leads a toast to Henri of Navarre. This is interrupted by Simon Duvall, a Catholic loyalist who ends a jovial dispute about Catholic and Protestant beers which I’m sure I’ve heard in Glasgow in living memory…

Gaston has pissed off the landlord, who says he will report back to Simon anything he hears. With the aid of bribery.

Meanwhile Nicolas desperately tries to keep the peace, being unwilling to die.

GASTON: Duvall, leaving us so soon? Can't you stomach the wine here?

DUVALL: I have business elsewhere. After all, my dear Viscount, a tavern is a place where a gentleman may refresh himself, while simpler people amuse him with their badinage.

And as schemes are plotted, Duvall leaves the tavern and in walks the Doctor and Steven.

A rare production photo from this scene shows the Doctor and Steven, in contemporary clothes, with their drinks in a tavern side seat. The thought into costume, positioning and character appears everything we would expect from the missing visuals.

The Doctor plans to go and visit Preslin and stay out of the way of the plot.

STEVEN: Look, I'm not going to sit in the Tardis whilst you gallivant around Paris.

DOCTOR: I shall do nothing of the sort. I am going to visit Preslin. He lives on the other side of Paris, somewhere near Port Saint Martin, I believe. Thank you. I just want to sit down and have a talk with him about his work. Are you interested in germinology?

STEVEN: I don't know. What is it?

DOCTOR: Well, there you are, you see. And you know nothing about the period, do you? You'd only be found out for the man that you are.

STEVEN: Look, I'll be careful. I'm perfectly capable of of looking after myself. I'll just walk around Paris and see the sights.

A plan that would have worked sometimes in history. But here it’s like sending a bull into the red rag shop.

The Doctor plans to meet Steven at the tavern later that evening.

The Doctor gives Steven local money to blend in, leaves the pub, and then Steven immediately gives himself away as a stranger in a strange land by trying to pay for his wine with gold. Nicholas steps in immediately to help and pay and insists Steven comes and sits with him and his friends. While the snooping landlord watches…

The Doctor has instantly found Preslin and tells him he is one of the Doctor’s heroes, that everything he is studying (early germ discovery) is on the verge of being accepted scientific knowledge (the First Doctor never meet anti-vaxxers, clearly) and generally goes all Binro was right on this chap we’ve only just met.

And William Hartnell sounds so supportive and kindly too.

Now if the shop was that easy to get to, where the ¤¤¤¤ does Doctor Who go for the next while? He’s probably having a kip in the TARDIS all along, thinking Steven is having fun or something…

MUSS: Don't mind Gaston, Steven. He's like this with any stranger. In fact, he'd cross-question his own shadow.

GASTON: Don't mock me, Nicholas. I'm in France to protect my master, Henri of Navarre, just as you are to protect de Coligny.

MUSS: You're too suspicious. Steven's been travelling abroad. He knows nothing about what's been happening here. Do you?

STEVEN: No, no. I really do know very little.

GASTON: Yes, but as you come from England you must be for the Huguenot. What you call a Protestant.

STEVEN: Oh, yes, yes.

GASTON: There, you see? It's just that I'm interested in our friend. Now tell us where you've been travelling.

STEVEN: Well, I've been, I've been in Egypt.

GASTON: In Egypt?

STEVEN: Yes. Look, I've taken up far too much of your time. Perhaps you'd be good enough to tell me the way to the Port Saint Martin?

MUSS: I'll come with you and show you the city.

STEVEN: Thank you, but I really should try and find my friend.

GASTON: Wise man. Nicholas here only knows the most boring places.

Halfway through episode 1 and the relationship between cautious diplomat Muss and Scrappy Doo Gaston is well sketched out for the audience. Steven naturally sides with Nicholas and is making enemies for his stay in France without even realising it.

Meanwhile a young woman runs for her life through the streets of Paris as armed soldiers chase her.

The soundscape is fantastic.

Steven goes to leave Nicholas and Gaston when the young woman runs right into Steven and then into the tavern. Gaston prevents the soldiers taking the woman but when Steven asks where she has gone, he admits he doesn’t know, as he was only interested in “baiting soldiers”, not the welfare of a servant.

Preslin tells the Doctor about the Abbot of Amboise, a feared orthodox man who is the scourge of intellectuals, scientists, and religious opponents. The Doctor is immediately all “hmm, maybe I should visit him, hmm”.

Steven thinks the woman was scared but Gaston isn’t interested, and Muss tries his best for the Paris Tourist Exchange by saying:

MUSS: Many things frighten people in Paris these days.

Typical, isn’t it? Can’t have a simple bloody civil war without some people getting the jitters!

They do however find the servant girl, Anne, who says she was scared because she heard people plotting and they mentioned the word Vassy, where her father was murdered a decade previously. The Massacre of Vassy is another forgotten bloody interlude in the long horrific history of 16th Century Europe when Francis of Guise (previously mentioned for his future assassination) led his troops to his feudally owned royal town of Wassy in the Northeast of France. In March 1562, Guise’s men attacked an assembly and killed 50 people. This had the effect of destabilising at birth the attempts by, ironically given future events, Catherine de Medici to end the troubles through diplomacy and the Edict of January.

Anne recognises the name through her family connection, but it would have been known to any Huguenot of the time. As seen by the instant panic in Eric Thompsons voice as soon as the word is uttered.

Gaston cuts people off and is getting worried. Pragmatic Nicholas is even more worried.

Whereas I can’t help but side with Steven here. On asked what Vassy/Wassy was, Muss tells him that a hundred Huguenots were slaughtered there. And Steven’s completely natural response is a stunned “Why?” which Peter Purves delivers excellently, even on audio alone the shock and horror and incomprehension Steven suddenly goes through is evident in a single syllable. This was a bit of time tourism for Steven, but the entire mood of the piece has shifted on the naming of one small French town.

Simon Duvall interrogates the Abbot’s household guards:

COLBERT: We didn't speak of him.

DUVALL: Then what did you say to frighten the girl?

CAPTAIN: Nothing.

DUVALL: Servants don't run away from a house in fear for nothing.

CAPTAIN: I think we mentioned Vassy and the celebrations here in Paris, but nothing that anyone could've made head or tail of.

DUVALL: She made something of it! Vassy. That might have been it. That word alone is enough to put every Huguenot in Paris on his guard

Gaston tells Anne to run away, but Nicholas recognises the danger she is now in and tells her to go to Admiral de Coligny. Whom she doesn’t know, leading to a line which doesn’t feel out of place on modern political twitter…

MUSS: She can work in the Admiral's kitchen. They won't find her there. Go to the house of the Admiral de Coligny. Tell them that Nicholas Muss sent you.

ANNE: Where's that, sir?

GASTON: Oh, no one is more ignorant than the common people of Paris. The Admiral of France lives on the corner of Rue de Bethisy and the Rue de la Brousette.

Gaston really is a bit Momentum, but if you need convinced why things are much better when your political foes aren’t slaughtered in the streets, this might be the wrong marathon for you.

Nicholas tries to sum up 100 years of European history in a few sentences for Steven and the watching public.

MUSS: I'm afraid you've arrived in Paris at a most unfortunate time.

STEVEN: I wish I understood what was going on.

MUSS: My English friend, it's really quite simple. Henri of Navarre is a Huguenot, a Protestant prince. Yesterday he married Marguerite of France, a Catholic. The marriage was arranged by the Queen Mother in the hope that it would heal the religious wound that's tearing France in two. But in the light of what that girl overheard, it looks as if the Catholics are plotting against Navarre's life. Do you understand?

STEVEN: Yes. Yes, I think I do.

MUSS: And now, I must leave you. I must see the Admiral at once. Forgive me that I cannot show you Paris.

I could have just quoted him at the start and saved 1000 words of historical horror!

Simon Duvall enters the tavern and gets an update on the earlier scenes from the landlord, who wants more money. (I feel that character might be a cult fan favourite if the episodes existed.) He sees Steven and tells him to hurry up as there’s a curfew on the way. The Doctor hasn’t shown up yet, but Steven says he is awaiting his friend. Nicholas Muss shows back up, sees Steven still waiting and tells him to come along with Muss to avoid the curfew, which Duval sees and now assumes Steven’s friend was the Huguenot. Sometimes being affable and friendly is the worst possible character trait to have in a tinderbox. Mind you, so is being sparky, Gaston.

Simon Duvall goes to the Abbot to tell him that the servant girl is in the house of De Coligny and the Abbot turns to Duvall and the camera to reveal… William Hartnell! What a cliffhanger!

This is brilliant stuff, but its never once talking down to the audience. It assumes you will think and understand on multiple levels. Even here, I need to pause, digest, and interlink each scene, even each line of dialogue in my mind. A 23-minute episode took three hours to watch. There is more character work and plot set up here than in 6 episodes of The Web Planet, and so much subtext and analysis within that you need time to take in each individual strand. War of God is a Doctor Who episode designed for the eventual pause button and the DVD age and destroyed long before that was invented.

The Massacre (part 2)

The Sea Beggar

Apparently, when she was turned down for the BBC directors position for the third time (due to being a woman), Paddy Russell dealt with this discrimination by storming into Sydney Newman's office and yelling at him. From our knowledge of Newman (a man who thrived on creative contretemps) this was probably the smartest career move ever made – she was promptly signed up.

“You weren’t supposed to recognise the Doctor in the Abbott, so I used to have a key phrase: “Bill, the Doctor’s showing.” I think it helped that I took it for granted that I would get on with Bill.”
Paddy Russell, DWM 266

And we cut straight into Gaston angrily telling Nicholas that Henri of Navarre refuses to believe there is a plot on his life. “Not surprising, he is married to the King’s sister!” remarks Nicholas. Neither Henri, or the Admiral believe the story because it would involve trusting the word of a servant girl, and lord knows, if its death or allowing the lower classes to help…

Steven goes to the pub to see if the Doctor is there, but the landlord now refuses to have any dealings with Steven because he was talking to Muss.

STEVEN: I'm looking for the old man, the one who was here with me here yesterday morning. Well, he should have met me here last night. Look, he was wearing a large travelling cloak and carrying a silver-top cane.

LANDLORD: No one's been here. We're closed.

STEVEN: Not last night or this morning?

LANDLORD: No, and I've got work to do. If you need help go and ask it of your Huguenot friends.

In a few minutes the Landlord was about to ask Steven which football team he supported. Imagine even common courtesy being down to who you spoke to first. (You don’t even need to – just look at the world map, still full of religious intolerance and segregation and sectarianism rife.)

Nicholas questions his own views as the Admiral wont accept them, but Steven appears to mention the missing Doctor.

GASTON: Well if he's fallen foul of the Catholics who roam about the streets, heaven help him.

MUSS: Many of our followers are just as bad.

GASTON: Oh, nonsense.

It feels real because it is real. Gaston is as much a belligerent of faith as the landlord is. You want to knock their heads together before someone gets hurt. Again.

The Abbott’s Secretary, Roger Colbert, shows up to ask for Chaplet to return to the Abbott’s residence, using his best diplomatic impression.

Although this does formulate a question. How come a known bigot like the Abbott of Amboise happens to hire a Huguenot girl to do his housework? “Hmm, yes, quite so, I hate all the Protestants, but this one does make exceeding good cakes!”

Roger points out Anne, and Muss goes “Oh no, she’s been here forever, that’s uhm, err… what’s a good name…Genevieve, yeah, that’s her, honest” and this terrible bluff works for now.

However, as Colbert leaves (to present a nightly talkshow?), from the window Steven sees him speaking to the Abbot of Amboise.

And if you think Steven immediately goes “Oh that’s the Doctor!” and makes the other half of the big tinderbox clash distrust him, bingo!

STEVEN: But, but that's the Doctor. That's the Doctor talking to Roger Colbert. I must go to him. Thank you for all your help.

GASTON: One moment!

STEVEN: Yes?

GASTON: You say that man is your friend?

STEVEN: Yes.

GASTON: And how long have you been working for the Abbot of Amboise?

STEVEN: What?

GASTON: The man talking to Colbert is the Abbot of Amboise. In what capacity do you serve him?

STEVEN: What are you talking about? Well, that man's the Doc. At least. He's gone. It looked like the Doctor, but if you're certain

GASTON: The certainty is that I don't like Catholic spies!

STEVEN: I'm no spy. Listen to me. I thought that man was the Doctor. If you say it was the Abbot of Amboise, then I must be mistaken.

Oh…Steven!

Even Nicholas is perturbed and goes with Steven to Preslin’s house to test Steven’s alibi that he’s waiting for an old man. (Yes, the same Preslin who went into hiding in Episode 1.)

In the Louvre, we are introduced to Andre Morrell! Sorry, I mean Marshal Tavannes talking away to Simon Duvall. No Mona Lisa here, it was in De Medici hands from conception, pretty much, but at this period in time it was residing in Fontainebleau and it only moved to the Louvre for public viewings after the French Revolution. Andre Morrell was a fantastic actor, and much of his work has been sadly lost due to the lack of recording TV in the 1950s and 1960s. Like this episode, in fact. What we have, like the entire Quatermass and the Pit, shows an actor of sublime timing and depths, able to carry a scene and change its entire meaning with one look or intonation. Had Doctor Who been around a decade earlier, he would have made a perfect Doctor, in fact. Alas, like William Hartnell, Andre Morrell’s vices (he smoked up to 60 cigarettes a day in his prime) contributed to his early death, aged 69, from lung cancer. Time and again actors die when we ought to have been allowed an extra decade or two to enjoy their talents. A recurring theme in this story in fact. Barry Justice (we’ll see him as the King) committed suicide aged only 39 after depression when The Pallisers ended. Eric Thompson never got to see his daughters successes as he died in 1982 in his early 50s. Erik Chitty made it to 70, dying shortly after appearing in The Deadly Assassin. I would say that we can still see them now, but that’s the point – here, we can’t.

Duvall tells Tavannes about the Englishman visiting the house of the Admiral, and now Steven is suspected to be a spy for Elizabeth I. He’s very bad at making friends and influencing people in this story.

TAVANNES: Hmm. Perhaps our fine Admiral is making secret overtures to the English?

DUVALL: It seems that he's a stranger to France.

TAVANNES: All the more reason why Elizabeth of England should send him. Find out more about this Englishman. Go now, and stay close to the Abbot. And Simon, tell him I shall bring word later concerning the Sea Beggar.

I wonder who the Sea Beggar is!

Into the scene walks the oft mentioned Admiral de Coligny! He assumes the Sea Beggars referenced are the Dutch.

What a wonderfully authoritative voice Andre Morrell has. It booms from the audio alone with verve and pronouncement. The real-life Gaspard de Saulx (Marshal OF Tavannes) was known in his day for being a French war hero, and for the fact that, during his time as Governor of Burgundy, he persecuted Protestants even more than was normal by French standards of the time. He had only just been made a Marshal in 1870, and his posthumously published memoirs were one of the key contemporary sources for understanding the politics of 16th Century France. That said, as one of the chief architects of this and other atrocities in the period, he was one of the monsters of history, and if anything, he is somewhat sanitised here for the necessity of TV.

DE COLIGNY: Your only quarrel with the Dutch is that they are Protestant and not Catholic.

TAVANNES: That could also be the reason why you support them. But rest assured, Admiral, we are examining their claim for France's aid.

DE COLIGNY: That is something I suppose.

TAVANNES: Tell me, have you any news from that other ally of yours, England?

DE COLIGNY: No. Why should I?

TAVANNES: Strange. I'd heard that you have an Englishman staying with you.

DE COLIGNY: There was a lost stranger who lodged at my house last night. I believe he was English.

TAVANNES: And he brought you no word?

DE COLIGNY: You are an extraordinary man, Tavannes. You see shadows where there is no sun.

This is a great scene between two great actors who are clearly relishing their roles in this historical. I was going to say “Lucarotti dialogue” but of course, very little of that is left here!

Back in 1963, John Lucarotti was contracted for 3 historical Doctor Who stories. Marco Polo and The Aztecs happened, and we’ve discussed how good they were, but then Season 2 passed and no third Lucarotti tale, and then Verity Lambert left the show. “Contractually we owed John a story”, noted Donald Tosh to DWM, and the Aztecs scribe was keen on doing something around the Indian Mutiny, with help from Warris Hussein. However, suddenly in came an edict from above: no Doctor Who historicals could take place after 1600. Was The Reign of Terror that bad? Appeals brought nothing, so Lucarotti suggested doing something about the Vikings discovering Greenland. Unfortunately for him, Doctor Who had just covered the Vikings, so he was given the brief to cover the Huguenot massacre of 1572. If you read my summary of the political background to Part 1, you might see why John Lucarotti found this a difficult topic to cover.

Having set him an awkward bit of history, Donald Tosh was dismayed to find the scripts were historically inaccurate! (Marco Polo had the Khans in the wrong place, Reign of Terror put Napoleon in the wrong country, and The Myth Makers didn’t actually happen, for those keeping score at home.) And so Tosh rewrote the entire thing, John Lucarotti took his name off the credits and The Massacre had no writers credit on the titles. I would double check this but some bugger lost the episodes…

I’m enjoying this but apparently contemporary audiences didn’t, with it losing nearly 3 million viewers over the course of its 4 weeks. Well, it does require thinking and slow digest now, and those things weren’t available in 1965. Plus, where are the monsters? Although, jibes aside, this was the first historical to drop viewers so consistently. The Crusade dropped 2 million in-between episodes, but then gained most of that back. The previous Lucarotti stories held strong viewership’s throughout, average 9.4 million for Marco Polo up to 10.4 million for the finale, a consistent 7.4 million for The Aztecs, better than the poor old Sensorites which followed it. Episode 1 of The Aztecs, in fact, was the only non-Dalek episode of Season 1 other than the first ever episode to achieve an above average Audience Appreciation Index figure – 63, for the record. Although a look at the figures for Season 2 show that there wasn’t much correlation between historical and SF stories in terms of rating or AI figures (which were below average across the board), with The Dalek Invasion of Earth inflating ratings pretty much up to the Space Museum, and the only notable AI number of the season being the woeful 42 for Web Planet episode 6. Which tells us two things. One, that the audience of the time loved that episode as much as I did. Two, that the show at that time had cultivated a loyal percentage of the audience who would watch any old dross with the Doctor Who theme tune attached to it.

I feel recognised!

Season 3 is where the historical was killed off, due to its weak performance. Myth Makers got an average of 8.4 million viewers shortly after the 11.3 million of Air Lock (clearly 1965 audiences knew it would return one day), but the big drop off happened for Mission to the Unknown! The Daleks were promoted ahead of time (see contemporary Radio Times) so maybe a lack of the Doctor killed interest. (It was already known by August that this edition of Doctor Who would have no TARDIS, nor Doctor.) And Myth Makers suffered from severe “WTF happened to the Daleks syndrome?” at the time, with the AI reports noting people phoning in to complain the BBC had shown the wrong episode! It was The Massacre that shed viewers, and the Gunfighters who put in godawful AI figures, and the combination of the two set the death knell on the Dr Who historical.

Although if you look at the AI index (50 was the highest the show got in the last 17 weeks of Season 3) and the dropping ratings (which fell further after nadir Gunfighters – trademark "Haining" – with War Machines getting worse ratings an an AI of 39 for Part 4. There’s no way any episode of The War Machines is worse than Web Planet episode 6!)… it was clear that Doctor Who itself had run out of steam somewhat, and that to look at the data and go “aha, historicals are to blame” is as wrong as to look at the figures for Celestial Toymaker (well above average for the time period) and think that Doctor Who needed more dancing clowns and Billy Bunter rip offs.

That said, The Massacre isn’t really a great historical location for Doctor Who: obscure grim history. It lacks the panache of The Crusade’s celebrity historical figure, or the localised threat of The Aztecs (Tlotoxl wants to kill the Doctor, oh no!). It’s part of the John Wiles era’s stamping out on all fun and niceness in the show. However, some 50+ years later, it’s a great bit of TV to listen to, and I’m glad they made stories like this that clearly don’t fit into the public idea of the perfect Dr Who. Or the fans. Or the producers. A deadly serious discussion about the repercussions of sectarianism on teatime TV is arguably more oddball Doctor Who than meeting unicorns, vampires or Michael Gough.

Where were we? Oh yes, Andre Morrell was being fab.

And we cut to a darkened Parisian Street, but no Thin Lizzy play. Steven looks for Preslin’s house with Nicholas only to find it abandoned. A local ghoul tells them Preslin was arrested two years and was “hopefully burned”.

MUSS: Your story is thinner than before. You say the Doctor is with Preslin, who is by all accounts dead.

By one account, mate. Steven points this out. But Nicholas, who seemed so assured and careful in Episode One, is now using those very character traits against Steven, who looks for all the world a spy.

So Steven runs away, no friends in sight. He is convinced the Doctor is disguising him as the Abbott. And we cut to Colbert and Duvall talking up how strange the Abbott is and how they’d never met him before, which seems to be here solely to get the audience thinking it’s a Doctor plan.

At the Admirals house, Nicholas is interrogating Anne over Steven, when Gaston arrives. His jokey nature dies instantly when Muss tells him of Steven and, when Anne points out that a spy would surely know there was to be a royal wedding imminently, Gaston tells to her F off. If there’s anything he hates more than Catholics, it’s the working classes.

For those keeping scoring, Duvall and Colbert are out to get Steven, and so are Muss and Gaston now.

Steven goes to the Abbott’s residence just in time to overhear a snippet of conspiracy.

TAVANNES: Between you, you will find the Abbot and you will give him this message for me. Say the decision has been made.

DUVALL: You mean

TAVANNES: You interrupt me, Simon. Tell him the Sea Beggar dies tomorrow.

COLBERT: Tomorrow? Where?

TAVANNES: He will attend an early council meeting at the Louvre. On his return, Bondeaux will be waiting for him.

COLBERT: Do you wish that the Abbot instructs Bondeaux?

TAVANNES: No. Bondeaux already has his orders.

Sounds like a bad time is in store for The Sea Beggar. Also, Tavannes is getting right annoyed at the Abbott’s mysterious behaviour.

Steven hears this and goes to warn Nicholas. Unfortunately, he bumps into Gaston.

STEVEN: I have important information.

GASTON: ¤¤¤¤ off!

STEVEN: Your life is at stake!

GASTON: ¤¤¤¤ off! I don’t care. I hate you!

STEVEN: Oh for gods sake.

(Gaston brandishes a sword)

STEVEN: Fine, sod off and go find Beauty in the Beast’s castle, Gaston.

Paraphrased slightly, but it doesn’t go well because Gaston is a blinkered idiot who dives headfirst into things. If The Crusade showed us that even seemingly nice characters like Princess Joanna can turn out to be sectarian bigots, then The Massacre points out to us that unthinking dogma can be found on both sides of a religious divide. And even then, it’s never an excuse to go bumping off the other side.

Doctor Who works best when it gets your emotions going and I can’t help but get really ¤¤¤¤ed off properly at this fictional character, who de facto allows a massacre to go ahead now, because he wont taking warnings from anyone, because of his own character flaws. This man who sneers at people below his class. Such a horrible man.

It really is a very good performance by Eric Thompson, who is clearly completely unafraid to look flawed and even horrible on screen. A world away from The Magic Roundabout this!

And I’m not sure if its more frustrating because, as an atheist from a Catholic background living in Glasgow, I’ve met people like Gaston from both sides. These people who change the facts to shape their opinion. And if I get really ¤¤¤¤ed off properly with this character here, it’s only because Eric Thompson is playing one of those so very real people very well.

It’s a shame we can’t see the scenes though. Or the sets. Paddy Russell probably doing some great stuff right about now, as Steven panics, and we can’t see it.

“Doctor Who in a sentence: not enough time or money, but it could be fun if you got the right actors.”
Paddy Russell DWM 266

But yes, Steven rushes off as Muss arrives, so neither of them get the warning about the Sea Beggar getting killed tomorrow. Sigh.

GASTON: He was spying. I caught him going through your papers.

MUSS: He must have had a message otherwise he'd never have come back.

GASTON: I tell you he was going through your papers.

MUSS: Where did he go?

GASTON: How should I know? Probably back to that animal from Amboise.

MUSS: Steven said he'd come back here if he found out something important.

If only Muss could make his mind up…

Meanwhile, Steven bumps into Anne again.

STEVEN: Who is the Sea Beggar?

ANNE: I don't know, Monsieur. Why?

STEVEN: He's going to be killed tomorrow. All right then, if you insist on coming with me, do you know where we can spend tonight?

ANNE: We can't go to my aunt's. They'll be looking for me there. There must be lots of places in Paris where no one would think of finding me.

STEVEN: Yes, of course, Preslin's shop. Do you know how to get to the Port Saint Martin?

ANNE: Of course.

STEVEN: Take me there. I've only been there once. I don't think I can find it on my own.

And so Steven goes to spend the night with a young woman. Yes, I’m aware there are screeds written about Steven being Dodo’s ancestor because of this time jump. Not everything needs to be in little pretty patterns, though.

Anyhow, he is off to spend the night with a young woman.

Meanwhile, at the Admiral’s house:

DE COLIGNY: You're working late.

MUSS: I thought you were asleep.

DE COLIGNY: Nonsense. I've been with the King.

MUSS: Do you wish to give me some notes?

DE COLIGNY: No, not tonight. I think I've persuaded him.

MUSS: You've got the King to agree to war with Spain?

DE COLIGNY: It's possible. If he doesn't change his mind by the morning, we are to join with the Dutch. Do you know, Nicholas, after I'd explained the situation to him, he turned to me and he said, if we do ally ourselves with the Dutch, you, de Coligny, will go down to history as the Sea Beggar. The Sea Beggar. It's a title I'd be proud of.

Duff duff duff duff


(Eastenders theme plays)

Another great episode, livened by the appearance of the fantastic Andre Morrell, and one of the great Doctor Who cliffhangers. But Gaston, FFS.

THE MASSACRE episode 3

Did you know that, in September 2021, over 50 loyalist marches went through Glasgow from various directions towards Glasgow Green, which held up traffic? And that not long ago we had a Republican sympathiser march through Glasgow? The Massacre is so close to being an example of living current events, not history.

Which is part of the problem: I’ve known folk like Gaston and the Abbot of Amboise in real life. Blinkered bigots, unable to see past their own binary views, willing to harm the vast majority of amiable peaceful people on both sides because they disagree on how to worship the same God.

I'm glad Dr Who touched on this in such a mature fashion though. I only wish it was historical!

Anyhow, last time Steven had uncovered a plot to kill The Sea Beggar, only for the audience (but not Steven) to find out that the Sea Beggar was none other than Admiral de Coligny himself.

Anne Chaplet wants to leave Paris before anything horrible happens, like, say, a massacre, but Steven is insistent that they warn whoever the Sea Beggar is that they are about to die. Steven plans to go back to the Abbot’s dwellings to find out more.

Steven puts on a disguise, in the hope no one will recognise him if he changes clothes.

DE COLIGNY: If we ally ourselves to the Dutch in their conflict with Spain, the common cause will unify the country, and prevent further civil strife.

TAVANNES: Oh, surely the marriage between Henri of Navarre and His Majesty's sister have already put an end to the disturbances?

DE COLIGNY: For how long? As I have pointed out frequently in this chamber, it would take but one small incident and the whole of Paris could be in uproar.

TAVANNES: Incidents occur daily, yet still the city does not rise.

DE COLIGNY: If we allied ourselves with the Dutch even those incidents would not take place.

CHARLES: My Admiral has a good point there. Pray accept it, Marshall, and let us finish with this tedious business.

TAVANNES: Your Majesty, France cannot afford this war.

CHARLES: So we are told frequently by our mother.

TAVANNES: The recent conflicts inside the country have brought us almost to ruin. There is no money to pay for the forces that would be needed to wage war with Spain.

De Coligny and Tavannes argue about politics, and fill in the geo-politics for the audience at home. Andre Morrell has such a strong and rich voice. Enemy of my enemy can get you tied up in knots, as seen here. Oddly the recon have gone for pictures of Catherine in this scene, even though she isn’t and the King is. This is the trouble of a story with no telesnaps. We can only guess, and look at the CV of the production team, and sigh. It probably looked incredible.

Charles de Teligny (not to be confused with Coligny) gets a good laugh when Tavannes suggests that the French pay for the war by selling the Kings Alpine lands to Italy, only for him to state aghast that “the bears there are French! They might not like being sold!” Which is such an on point skewering of hardline patriotism that it hurts. Charles is played by Michael Bilton, who was later a butler in Pyramids of Mars, and became a household name in the early 90s as Basil in Waiting for God, before his sudden death aged 73 in 1993.

Michael Bilton is the right age for the role at the time, even if we think of him as an older actor in stuff which still exists. As for the real life Teligny, he had been retired until he was recalled by the King as a trusted advisor with the Kings own personal seal of protection. This didn’t save him from being one of the first men killed during the massacre, and indeed, you can see the spot he was slayed in on a visit to the Louvre today. He was also dug up after death and thrown in a river, because as we all know, blasphemy from zombies is the worst possible type of blasphemy…

“War is so tedious” says the King, which we can all agree with.

Steven insists on Anne coming with him to the Abbots house of horror, because she doesn’t want to stay in the abandoned old house to be captured by the anti-Huguenot crowds. Steady on, old chap.

DE COLIGNY: How much longer are the Huguenots to suffer these frequent violations of their rights?

TAVANNES: The treaty drawn up by the Queen Mother to conclude the religious difficulties of the country was generous in the extreme to the free thinkers.

DE COLIGNY: Words were spoken. Signatures were exchanged. But they did not prevent many acts against the Huguenots.

As we have axed Guise to save character space (and give Tavannes a bigger role) this is one of the only references to the peace treaty de Medici supervised a decade earlier. In this Doctor Who she is given an adaptational villainy makeover, more so than at the time (and given we’re talking about somehow who OKed the massacre of around 1 in 10 of her own citizens, that is saying a lot!). Whereas in real life, folk like Gaspard de Saulx (the Marshall of Tavannes) had their hands a lot bloodier in the conflict and result here.

Mind you, if he is allowed moments of “what have we done?” that might be because one of the source materials for history of this period, and thus this Doctor Who story, is in fact Marshall Tavannes personal memoirs himself. So little wonder!

CHARLES: Ha, ha! Admiral, come with us. We are going to play tennis.

However, the King was so weak, even Tim Henman beat him…

Steven and Anne go to meet the Abbot, realise he is not Doctor Who after all, and so Steven quickly claims he returned the “servant girl” to the Abbot of Amboise. This allows both of them to overhear more plotting to assassinate the Admiral, at which point they run off to warn the Huguenots. Tavannes finds out what has happened and is well ¤¤¤¤ed off.

TAVANNES: My Lord Abbot, what mistake have you perpetrated now?

ABBOT: He could not hear what was being said. I sent him out of the room. In any case, it is too late for him to warn the Admiral.

TAVANNES: For your sake it had better be

We can only assume William Hartnell is giving a proper good performance here – by voice alone, he is harsher, but we’ve got no pictures or anything else to go by. Apparently one of the ways that Paddy Russell (and yes, this marathon stans Paddy Russell, as the kids apparently say) broke the ice with Hartnell was to tell him if the “Doctor was showing” in his Abbot performance.

But by voice alone, we’re used to that being the voice of the Doctor. We really need the images to judge it.

Steven rushes to the Admiral’s house and finds its Nicholas Muss that is in the House, not Gaston. Which is useful.

Nicholas instantly believes Steven that the Admiral’s life is in danger.

An assassin sets up a rifle from a shop window and focuses in on the Admiral walking down the road, papers in hand. He drops a paper and goes to pick it up and is so shot in the shoulder. This is an entire scene that is only images and bare snippets of incidental music. It’s clearly a tense build up. But again, without the pictures we are lost.

This leads to things going very badly for the Abbot of Amboise in a hurry, as Professor Quatermass goes tonto.

TAVANNES: If this should go wrong, you are to blame, and you will be the one to answer for it.

ABBOT: The Cardinal…

TAVANNES: Is in Rome and cannot help you now.

ABBOT: If de Coligny is delayed by the King, then the news of his death will be delayed also. Bondeaux is an excellent marksman. You know that. There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to wait. Meantime, I will retire to my room.

TAVANNES: You will not. You will wait here with me.

…

COLBERT: The attempt has failed.

ABBOT: I see. Was Bondeaux caught?

COLBERT: He rode away. But the Admiral was only wounded, not killed.

TAVANNES: So, the Sea Beggar lives. You have failed! Call the guards! It is strange, Father Abbot, that since you came everything which had been so carefully planned has gone wrong. This man is a traitor to the Queen. Kill him. You heard my order, kill him!

And so William Hartnell is taken away to be shot. Lets hope he signed an extension to play that other role! In John Lucarotti’s book, the Abbot and the Doctor meet face to face instead, and Simon Duvall is tricked into killing the real Abbot thinking the Doctor is he. Even written as a kill or be killed situation, I prefer the Doctor to be a bit more chivalrous in his attitude to life (indeed, to never be cruel or cowardly?) and so this TV version, where the Abbott meets his end at the hands of a real life historical monster suits the tale far better for me. If hands must be bloodied, let those hands be already bloodied. As a future villain once didn’t say, beware Tavannes, Marshall of France, he is steeped in blood.

Also another annoyance about this being missing is how great it would be to see Andre Morrell and William Hartnell sparring like this on TV. The two grandfathers of British modern SF/fantasy TV, in the same scene! Quatermass vs Doctor Who! Ok, they’re actually playing two historical bigots, but still! What great actors both men were, and how indebted we fans of cult TV are to their efforts.

The King responds to the news of De Coligny's attempted murder by going off in a rage about never having any peace while his mother watches carefully.

The Admiral is alive but in pain and waiting for a surgeon.

STEVEN: Nicholas, I'm sorry. I tried to tell Gaston, he wouldn't listen to me.

MUSS: I know, he told me.

STEVEN: I knew that the Sea Beggar was going to be killed. Until this morning I didn't know who that was.

MUSS: I could've told you. How did you find out?

STEVEN: Oh, when I ran away from you yesterday, I went to the Abbot's house. Well, the Doctor wasn't there, but I overheard some men talking about the Sea Beggar.

MUSS: Who were they?

STEVEN: Oh, I don't know. But, well, one of them was the same man who came to see the Abbot this morning.

MUSS: So the Abbot is behind this.

STEVEN: No! The Abbot is the Doctor. Now that I've seen him I'm certain of it. He's just pretending to be the Abbot, that's all.

MUSS: Now listen, Steven.

Steven, you just met the guy, you know he’s not the Doctor!

Someone says the Abbot is dead, and Steven rushes off in horror.

CHARLES: I am the King, and to be obeyed! Now keep out of my sight unless you care to end your days in a convent.

CATHERINE: I would wish you have the courage, my son.

CHARLES: I have but to give the order.

CATHERINE: Summon your guards, have me arrested. But you had better have a good reason for the council and for the people.

CHARLES: The attempted assassination of my Admiral, by you and Tavannes. Do you deny it, Madame?

CATHERINE: No.

CHARLES: Have a care. I mean what I say. I shall send Tavannes to the block!

CATHERINE: You would execute the Marshall of France for doing his duty?

CHARLES: Duty? He's an assassin!

CATHERINE: He tried to rid you of a dangerous enemy.

CHARLES: de Coligny is my friend. You, Madame, are my enemy.

The King tries to argue with his mum, but she completely turns it against him, by pointing out that his position is now weak due to the rise of the Huguenots. She is so disappointed too, she wants the King to grow a backbone and depose his own mother.

For those of you confused at home, the Medicis and the Borgias were around at the same time, but bitter enemies. The Medici can ruled Florence, and the Borgias held Rome. Catherine de Medici was born in 1519 and lived to 1589, and she was also the mother in law of Mary, Queen of Scots. However, Mary left France in 1561 – which turned out to be a bad life decision which resulted in 2 abusive relationships, 2 partners brutally murdered, rape, a coup, a miscarriage and finally being executed by her paranoid cousin, Elizabeth I. Was anyone enjoying existing at this time period?

When not fighting the Reformation or having folk killed, the Medici clan were found of art and helped finance early works by three future mutant ninja turtles, Galileo, the piano itself and Machiavelli, when they weren’t torturing him as a political prisoner. Depending on your definition of The Prince (is it satire? is it not?) this potentially makes old Niccolo even more hardcore than you thought.

Spoiler alert – it is satire. Of course it is.

Steven finds the corpse of the Not Doctor, and mourns. A crowd say that the Huguenots killed the Abbot, and when he denies it, the mob turn on Steven when Leon Colbert calls him the assassin, and he has to run for his life through the streets of Paris.

Another great episode of Doctor Who, and the least grim of the three so far, which is an odd way of putting it when one ally is wounded and someone who looks a lot like Doctor Who is murdered by some sectarian sods as pretext to kill even more people in the near future.

The Massacre (part 4)

In which there is a massacre.

Anne and Steven find each other again. Steven thinks the Doctor is dead and that he must have changed clothes at the shop, so he hopes to find the TARDIS key.

Tavannes orders for Steven to be killed when he is found.

Steven is frantic in the shop looking for evidence of the Doctors clothes:

STEVEN: Yes. Well, his clothes must be here somewhere! Where did you find it?

ANNE: In the back, Monsieur. But there are no clothes there.

STEVEN: You sure?

ANNE: Yes. I've searched everywhere!

STEVEN: Then why the stick? He couldn't have pretended to be the Abbot dressed as he was, so he must have changed somewhere. But where?

ANNE: Perhaps he went away somewhere with the apothecary who used to live here?

STEVEN: What, with Preslin? No, he couldn't.

ANNE: Why not?

STEVEN: Because Preslin is either dead or in prison.

DOCTOR: He is not.

The Doctor is back after a short holiday!

Gaston warns the Admiral and Nicholas to get out of Paris ASAP, but no one listens to the boy who cried wolf.

The curfew bells go to signal night time and Anne points out it is St Bartholomew's Day the next day, and the Doctor notably goes on edge.

DOCTOR: Did you say tomorrow was Saint Bartholomew's Day, child?

ANNE: Yes, Monsieur.

DOCTOR: What year is this, my boy?

STEVEN: Oh, I don't know. What difference does it make?

DOCTOR: What date is it, child?

ANNE: Date, Monsieur? August the twenty-third as

DOCTOR: Yes, yes, yes, I know that. The year, the year, hmm?

ANNE: Fifteen seventy two, Monsieur. But surely you know that?

DOCTOR: Go home, Anne. You must leave here at once.

ANNE: No! I've got nowhere to go!

DOCTOR: Where were you working?

ANNE: At the Abbot's house.

DOCTOR: You go back there.

ANNE: I can't! They'll kill me!

DOCTOR: You must leave this shop, child.

STEVEN: Doctor, what's happening?

DOCTOR: Oh, please don't interfere. Now, my dear, there must be somewhere you can stay in Paris.

ANNE: No, there's only my aunt's place, and they'll kill me there.

DOCTOR: Oh, nonsense. Tonight you will be quite safe. Now you go carefully through the streets.

ANNE: Well, what about the curfew?

DOCTOR: Well, you've been out in the curfew before, haven't you?

ANNE: Yes, but the guards

DOCTOR: Then you know how to avoid the patrols. You go back to your aunt. You'll be quite safe. And you take my advice and stay indoors tomorrow. Now do you understand? It's too dangerous for you to stay here.

Now, this is controversial, as the Doctor basically abandons Anne to her fate, and we are left only with the coda of Dodo Chaplet, who might be a relative. "They look alike" - no they don't.

However, could Anne have possibly survived the Massacre? Well, yes. For several reasons. One, that only half of the Parisian Huguenots died in the massacre, with the focus on the nobles and those with power. Yes, I note the use of "only" but given it was a religious genocide, it could have been so much worse. Secondly, in the TARGET novel, John Lucarotti adds in underground tunnels that stretch below Paris. You know them nowadays as the Catacombs, but before being used for burials, they were the remnants of an thousand year old set of mines. It is feasible they were used as escape routes by people being hunted.

Third, and this one requires less flight of fancy. As with every terrible event, people are individuals, and many "on the good side of Medici" risked their lives to protect neighbours, friends or strangers from the killer mobs.

So it is possible that Anne Chaplet could have survived the horror to come. But keep in mind, thousands of young women like her didn't, children too. There is no cause on Earth that justifies the murder of children, no matter what being you do it in the name of.

TAVANNES: The list, Madame. When those Huguenots are killed we need have no further fear of a Protestant France.

CATHERINE: We have no need of lists, Marshall. The good people of Paris know their enemies. They will take care of them.

TAVANNES: The good people? Madame, if you rouse the mob the innocent will perish with the guilty.

CATHERINE: Innocent? Heresy can have no innocents. France will breath of pure air after tomorrow.

TAVANNES: And Navarre, Madame, your son-in-law? Is he to be slaughtered with the others?

CATHERINE: Tomorrow Henri of Navarre will pay for his pretensions to the Crown.

TAVANNES: Madame, we must not kill Navarre.

CATHERINE: Must not?

TAVANNES: Protestant Europe will merely shed a pious tear over the death of a few thousand Huguenots. The death of a prince will launch a Holy War.

CATHERINE: If one Huguenot life escapes me tomorrow, we may both regret this act of mercy.

TAVANNES: Not mercy, Madame. Policy.

Even Tavannes is horrified at what he is about to unleash, although that could be Andre Morrell being horrified. His voice damn near breaks, but he's going to do it anyway, because bigots gotta bigot.

The Doctor rushes Steven to the TARDIS.

Tavannes orders Duvall to go protect Henri of Navarre, as he lives in real life.

TAVANNES: At dawn tomorrow this city will weep tears of blood.

You're telling us.

The Doctor and Steven make it into the TARDIS just as the guards hammer on the Admirals door, ready to kill him.

And everyone you liked in the past 90 minutes is horribly murdered. Admiral? Gone. Witty Teligny? Gone. Good old Nicholas? Thrown out a window. Gaston? Dead in the Louvre. Anne? Probably doomed. Sorry.

This was shown on screen with the sound of screams over contemporary woodcuts of the massacre. Which would have been interesting to see. Though Loose Cannon gave it a shot.

Effective and doom ladden.

This leads us to a cracking TARDIS scene where Steven rounds on the Doctor with the fury of a thousand Barbaras.

DOCTOR: I cannot change the course of history, you know that. The massacre continued for several days in Paris and then spread itself to other parts of France. Oh, what a senseless waste. What a terrible page of the past.

STEVEN: Did they all die?

DOCTOR: Yes, most of them. About ten thousand in Paris alone.

STEVEN: The Admiral?

DOCTOR: Yes.

STEVEN: Nicholas? You had to leave Anne Chaplet there to die.

DOCTOR: Anne Chaplet?

STEVEN: The girl! The girl who was with me! If you'd brought her with us she needn't have died. But no, you had to leave her there to be slaughtered.

DOCTOR: Well, it is possible of course she didn't die, and I was right to leave her.

STEVEN: Possible? Look, how possible? That girl was already hunted by the Catholic guards. If they killed ten thousand how did they spare her? You don't know, do you? You can't say for certain that you weren't responsible for that girl's death.

DOCTOR: I was not responsible.

STEVEN: Oh, no. You just sent her back to her aunt's house where the guards were waiting to catch her. I tell you this much, Doctor, wherever this machine of yours lands next I'm getting off. If your researches have so little regard for human life then I want no part of it.

This erupts out of the screen in audio alone, and you can sense Stevens righteous fury and the Doctor, unable to get his view across, unable to look at his own friend properly. They've been through too much - the Trojan War, losing Vicki, Katarina's death, Bret's death, Sara's death, now the horrors of a dark stain on history.

So Steven storms out of the TARDIS, and then we get the William Hartnell speech. The one we so need the footage back for, the one he nails in one take, despite being an ailing ill man because he instantly saw how important it was to the character, and Donald Tosh, who wrote it, and Paddy Russell, who directed it, both told him how crucial it was to the entire story, and how it was his moment, and so an actor struggling with memory loss worked his socks off to knock this out of the park:

DOCTOR: My dear Steven, history sometimes gives us a terrible shock, and that is because we don't quite fully understand. Why should we? After all, we're all too small to realise its final pattern. Therefore don't try and judge it from where you stand. I was right to do as I did. Yes, that I firmly believe... Even after all this time he cannot understand. I dare not change the course of history. Well, at least I taught him to take some precautions. He did remember to look at the scanner before he opened the doors. Now they're all gone. All gone. None of them could understand. Not even my little Susan, or Vicki. And as for Barbara and Chatterton. Chesterton. They were all too impatient to get back to their own time. And now, Steven. Perhaps I should go home, back to my own planet. But I can't. I can't.

Just...incredible.

Also, for the record, the TV Exec who killed Peter Purves acting career confidence by saying he had no talent? Utter fool.

The pathos here is slightly ruined by a young girl walking in, all straight and to the point, but bloody hell, we needed it after the last 16 weeks!

Look, everyone, it's Jackie Lane!

A child is hurt, but Dodo (for it is her) forgets that in a hurry as she is too excited at suddenly realising she is in a spaceship. And to be fair, wouldn't you? Steven shows up again, telling the Doctor that a policeman is going for the TARDIS, so he takes off quickly.

And while her "Oh sod it, lets go for an adventure in time and space, sod that little boy" attitude might not be the greatest character intro, bloody hell, its like a sudden blast of fresh air into the show. I've frankly never been happier to see Dodo Chaplet in my life. And the Doctor is so broken by recent events, he is quite happy to accept someone new in his life, and he even thinks she looks like Susan. Which she doesn't.

DOCTOR: What is your name, child?

DODO: Dodo.

DOCTOR: What?

DODO: It's Dorothea, really. Dorothea Chaplet.

STEVEN: Chaplet? Yes, but you're not French, are you?

DODO: Don't be daft. Me granddad was, though.

STEVEN: Doctor, it's not possible is it? Chaplet? Anne's great, great

DOCTOR: Yes, yes, it is possible, my boy. Very possible. Welcome aboard the Tardis, Miss Dorothea Chaplet.

DODO: Dodo!

So the TARDIS is back to a crew of 3, and we're about to move away from the depressed world of John Wiles and into the action adventure time period of Gerry Davis. Onwards and upwards!

The real life Massacre is one of those time periods that, as Rod Serling would say of the Nazis, was "a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shovelled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers." He spoke of Dachau and Auschwitz, but again, it reverberates throughout history, this senseless and calculated murder of those different. The Massacre forces us to remember a time when humanity was shovelled away and rigid dogma gave an exception for killing fields. It's not fun, but it is important. It is great TV and great Doctor Who, but it is not enjoyable, because it reminds us of the darkness, which continues to lash out across the world even today. 500 years on, has anything really changed? Not enough.

It is a great piece of time, but I am profoundly grateful that Doctor Who isn't like this all the time.