Doctor Who: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve

Or, Steve Argues A Lot

This is the fifth serial of Season Three of Doctor Who. It was first broadcast in four parts between February 5 to 26, 1966. This episode is the introduction of Dodo Chaplet as a new companion for the Doctor and, like most of Season Three, is completely missing. This episode is also supposed to feature some more characterization for Steve Taylor which may be fun. If not, well... that'll be interesting too. I don't really like Steve very much. He should've been the one to die! Not Sara Kingdom. She was tough and awesome!

Two Hours Later...

Wow!

This serial! I really wish footage from it survived because this was an amazing episode to listen to and view clips of. I was kind of on the edge of my seat the whole time curious about what was going on and everything. I even want to read more about the War of Religions in France during the 16th century now.  I really, really liked this.

First of all, the serial focuses on Steve the most. The Doctor has his own little plot where he goes to find an apothecary by the name of Charles Preslin who apparently theorized about germs. I think this is one of the first solid signs that Doctor Who is moving away from "edutainment" and onto just a science fiction/fantasy show about a time travelling alien because I can't find any evidence of Charles Preslin online other than as he relates to this episode and show. That's actually a little depressing.

Anyhow, Steve falls in with some Huguenots in Paris, France 1572. He tries to help them get through assassination plots and all manner of problems with living in a very Catholic Paris while being Protestants, but they begin to distrust him because the Doctor looks very similar to a Catholic abbot, the Abbot of Amboise. In the end, the abbot is killed by the Catholics who blame the Huguenots who are then massacred on St. Bartholemew's Day.

Steve, believing that they actually killed the Doctor and not the Abbot of Amboise, searches for the TARDIS key with a girl he's met during this adventure named Anne Chaplet. They run into the Doctor who, realizing the date decides they had better depart. So, the Doctor sends Anne Chaplet to her aunts house where guards are looking for her and dematerializes in the TARDIS with Steven. They watch the massacre on the scanner or the Doctor tells Steve about it, I can't figure out which. And then something happens that actually made me like Steve.

He gets righteously angry with the Doctor. His new friends and, probably, Anne Chaplet were just killed and in the case of poor Anne, the Doctor pretty much made it happen. The Doctor insists that he could not change history, but she was one girl surely he could have made an exception for one girl! So, Steve does the one thing I've been wanting to do all along with his disagreeable ass. He decides that he's getting off the TARDIS at the next location and he's not returning.

Of course, the TARDIS lands in England, 1966. Steve leaves and we get a really nice moment with the Doctor where he realizes that for the first time in a long while, he is totally alone. His friends, granddaughter, everyone has left him. He'd go home... but he can't, but the Doctor knows that he dare not change history. Not by one line. Yet, he still can't go home either.

And then Dodo Chaplet walks into the TARDIS, thinking it's a police box. She wants to call for help because a small child has been hurt. She speaks in a strong accent, but apparently she immediately realizes that something "funny" is going on. Just then, Steve rushes back into the TARDIS to tell the Doctor that they had better leave because police are approaching the TARDIS and that's A Very Bad Thing... for some reason.

The Doctor takes off taking Dodo with them... and Steve berates the Doctor for kidnapping a poor girl... who doesn't care and somewhat resembles Anne Chaplet from 1572... and has the same last name. Steve suddenly realizes that Anne may have survived and had children and then he goes back to berating the Doctor who is not impressed by Steve's double standard (yelling at him for leaving and taking Dodo).

All in all, I really liked this episode. Steve really is a traditional hero when left alone. He isn't very smart and he can get irritating sometimes, but I think he's growing on me. Then again, two hours of just Steve can do that. Dodo... I'm not so sure about. We'll see.

Next episode: The Ark... I hope this one isn't religious too...