The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve

The TARDIS makes a return to France, this time in 1572. It may be an earlier period than the Doctor's previous visit during the Revolution but it by no means any less dangerous; tensions between the Catholic and Protestant citizens is on the rise and a royal marriage arranged to ease them has failed. The Doctor wishes to see a man named Preslin about his work in science and takes his leave of Steven, advising him to steer clear of any local trouble stemming from religion or politics, The dire warning does no good, though, and Steven finds himself alone in Paris in the days leading up to a bloody slaughter.

This one has interested me for a long time, going way back to when I first read the Target novelization of the script in 1987. As the episode doesn't exist on film or video I had very little to go on content-wise aside from the odd photo of the Doctor and Steven in period dress and a few details of the plot. Along came John Lucarotti's novelization of the tale and I was intrigued by its depth and detail and the sequences involving not only the Doctor's resemblance to the vile Abbot of Amboise but the Doctor's journey under Paris through the tunnels on a dog cart, the attempted burning of the TARDIS, and of the Massacre itself. Moreover I was surprised that the whole book was written as if the Doctor was on trial somewhere for interfering in history, and the events of the tale were being presented as evidence - this very thing had just been done on TV a year earlier in 1986. And at the end of the book there was no new companion introduced as I had expected; a girl named Dodo Chaplet was merely mentioned in passing as having joined the TARDIS crew sometime after the adventure. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I knew I wasn't getting the whole story, brilliant as the novel was.

Then I got my hands on the audio recording of the original episode, narrated by Peter Purves, and it was almost a completely different story. The Doctor was hardly in it, and not once did he cross paths with the Abbot. There was no dog cart, there were no catacombs, and the TARDIS was not proclaimed and abomination and set on fire. And when Dodo Chaplet finally did arrive, it was in a hurried sequence at the end of episode four with no proper intro.

It is possible to reconcile both versions of the story, though, as the Doctor is missing for most of the televised serial and could have been getting up to all sorts of adventure while Steven tries to help a girl named Anne Chaplet avoid the clutches of the Abbot and the Catholic conspirators. The harder parts to explain away involve the Doctor and the Abbot meeting face to face, as the Abbot's fate was sealed before the Doctor returned to the screen. What was presented in the novel is apparently the original draft of the show before things had to be altered to accommodate a vacation for William Hartnell and remove some of the more challenging visual sequences. In an interview I read once before Lucarotti stated that the trial part was his own idea but he did not know that it was being used in the (at the time) current series.

Steven's about at breaking point in his relationship with the Doctor. Having seen so many friends die in the fight against the Daleks he is horrified that the Doctor will not do anything to try and save Anne Chaplet from the tide of history, and effectively sends her out into the night streets of Paris knowing right well that come morning thousands of Protestants (also called Hugenots) will be slaughtered in a religious cleansing by the Catholics. The Doctor knows he cannot interfere, and has an interesting soliloquy inside the TARDIS on his own, reflecting on his companions and their inability to understand his responsibilities as a time travellers, and he even muses about going home.

And along comes your Dorothea Chaplet, who prefers to be called Dodo, at the end of episode four when the TARDIS arrives in modern day London. As her surname matches Anne's the Doctor offers that consolation to Steven that maybe Anne survived and this is one of her descendants.

I don't like how Dodo just blunders into the TARDIS and is immediately accepted and taken away without any real consideration. Her only personailty trait seems to be she's upbeat, even in the revelation of her lack of parents and a great aunt who won't care if she doesn't come home. Oh, fine, welcome aboard then. It just feels like she was thrust into the series for the sake of having a female companion around and not have it just the Doctor and Steven travelling together. Oh if only someone had written a backstory for her, or at least a better introduction.

Oh wait, someone has...

NEXT EPISODE: SALVATION