This is another one of those historically accurate episodes that didn't do much for me. I don't remember when I studied the massacre on St. Bartholomew's eve, but it was very long ago and I didn't remember much of what happened. This plot is probably better suited for European viewers, where this event in history had a greater impact.
I'm not going to re-hash this entire plot, because it is way too complicated to do so. Suffice to say, it had a proper amount of intrigue and killing. This story was mostly from Steven's point of view. The Doctor was either on break, or in a mental hospital, or maybe both. He was in it in the beginning and at the very end.
This episode got confusing when we meet the Abbot of Amboise, servant to the Cardinal of Lorraine. To my knowledge this abbot never actually existed. He looks exactly like the Doctor, though and even Steven thinks that the abbot is really the Doctor in disguise. He thinks that the Doctor is dead, when the abbot is murdered. So if this is a fictional character, what was the point of the physical similarity? Now that is weird and stupid. It would have been much cooler, if the Abbot really existed in all the intrigue, and looked somewhat like the Doctor as well. But no, we can't get that sort of cool factor from the writers' imagination.
At the very end the Doctor just shows up, and tells Steven that they need to get back to the TARDIS and get the heck out of there. SO, if the Doctor was not the Abbot, then what in the name of Rachel was he doing the entire four chapters? Trimming his nails? The Doctor knows that the massacre is about to happen, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. Steven gets very angry about this, partially because the Doctor shoves little girlfriend Anne out the door, sending her home and presumably to her death. The Doctor basically states that he doesn't give a fig about it.
In the last few minutes, Steven decides that he's had enough of the timey wimey thing, so he yells at the Doctor that he's going to leave him at the next destination. Once the TARDIS lands, he runs out the door with a muttered expletive. Enough is enough! He's so mad that he doesn't even care where he's landed and proverbially slams the TARDIS door shut. Good thing they hadn't landed on Dead Plant Planet #18,453. He would have been a sad, sad man.
Once Steven disappears, the Doctor sits down in a chair and begins to mutter to himself about all his companions who have been with him, and that they have all left him. He seems kind of sad about it, but he isn't crying any alligator tears.
Just when you think Steven is gone for good, there enters a stupid, annoying girl named Dodo who is running in search of a telephone box. And then Steven comes back to warn the Doctor that several policemen are approaching. The Doctor glances at Dodo, who looks somewhat like Susan, and decides to abduct her. WHAT. Enough of the abducting teenage girls!
Steven doesn't seem to particularly mind that Dodo is there, either. Worse, Dodo brain doesn't mind either, because she "is an orphan" and wants to go funning with the Doctor and handsome Steven. WOW. Really? Not even a little trickle of tears for her aunt she's left behind?
So begins a new journey with Dodo joining Steven and the Doctor in further adventures. What is with the writers' obsession with the Doctor and teenage girls?
We also got to end the episode with real drawings of the massacre. File that one in your memory box, children.
Next up: The Ark
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