The Massacre

Still smarting from their losses against the Daleks, Steven and the Doctor find themselves in Paris, France, in 1572. The Doctor wants to visit the apothecary, Charles Preslin, and leaves Steven to his own devices for a while, unaware that they have landed during a time of political upheaval driven by religious rights. The ruling monarchy are all Catholic and are having difficulty with the Protestant community, and there is treachery afoot. Steven is caught up in the swell of events and befriends a young girl named Anne Chaplet who has overheard news of an assassination plot. It gets even more dangerous for Steven when he discovers that the Abbot of Amboise, one of the cheif persecutors of the Protestants, looks exactly like the Doctor. The Doctor is laragely missing for the story, leaving Steven to first believe the Abbot is the Doctor in disguise, and then to believe that the Doctor is dead and he has been stranded in this time. The Catholics conspire amongst themselves to cleanse the city of its Protestant population, and on the eve of St Bartholomew's, they begin a slaughter that will spread across France and claim thousands of lives. The Doctor realizes what the date is and hurries Steven to the TARDIS so they can escape and leave history to run its course.

Here's a story that Catholics probably overlook when they like to speak of religious oppression in history. Kind of like how Americans don't like to talk about the War of 1812. I don't mind bringing either up, but that's just me being smug.

The effects of losing Katarina and Sara are bad enough for Steven, but having grown fond of Anne Chaplet he is furious with the Doctor for sending her home to die in the massacre. The Doctor could really not have saved her as it would have gone against the laws of time and perhaps changed the future, but Steven sees it as cold scientific logic and wants off the ship as soon as it lands. The Doctor lets him go and reflects to himself that no-one has understood him or what it means to travel in time, and now they have all left him in the end. His solitiude is short-lived though as a young girl named Dorthea Chaplet (she prefers Dodo) pushes into the TARDIS; the ship has landed in England and she has mistaken it for a real police box and needs to use the phone. Steven also comes back in having seen policemen heading for the ship, and the Doctor takes off, with Dodo still on board.

The whole inclusion of Dodo like this is purely for the sake of getting a new girl in the TARDIS, and her casual acceptance of the TARDIS as a time machine and her dismissal of the possibility of never going home again feel a bit too rushed. The Doctor welcomes her openly (how times have changed - remember how he was furious at Ian and Barbara when they invaded his privacy?) and tells Steven that Dodo looks just like his granddaughter, Susan (oh god please no not her again).

So we have a full crew again. Not much of an introduction for the new girl, though.

Let's take a side trip into a novel so we can get to know Dodo better...

NEXT EPISODE : SALVATION