022 - The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's Eve

Broadcast:

5^th - 26^th February 1966

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Steven

Adversary:

French Catholics

Written by:

John Lucarotti, Donald Tosh

Director:

Paddy Russell

Music:

Stock

Script Editor:

Donald Tosh, Gerry Davis

Producer:

John Wiles

Average Viewers:

6.43m (8, 6, 5.9, 5.8)

Summary: Steven finds himself in a vulnerable position at a very dangerous and pivotal time in French history with shocks and surprises throughout.

Love them or hate them, historical stories were a standard part of Doctor Who's early years. Love them or hate them, 'Doctor light' stories have been a part of the revived show (though limited to one per series and only for a few years). The point is, love it or hate it The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's Eve is both of these things rolled into one. It is intriguing and dull at the same time, unless you know about 16th century France, but as a lesson aid it draws you into the period atmosphere ready to listen to and understand what your teacher is telling you, or embark on your own research.

The story title gives you a jumping off point for understanding or researching the setting. On the eve of St Bartholomew's day 1572 (the night of August 23rd) French Catholics assassinated a number of prominent Huguenots in Paris and general Catholic mob violence followed with several thousand deaths. A rather poignant coincidence saw about 2000 civilian villagers massacred in Tây Vinh and Gò Dài (Vietnam) during the broadcast of this story.

Lighter news included the Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 making the first controlled landing on the Moon and Australia moving to decimal currency and introducing their Dollar. Topping the music charts were The Overlanders' "Michelle" and Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", while cinemas had such films as Never Too Late, Bunny Lake Is Missing, and by another similar coincidence The Great Sioux Massacre.

Since this story is completely missing from the archives, it is unclear how each of the writers and story editors were credited and various memories are conflicting. It is unlikely that Donald Tosh would have been allowed to receive credit for both writing and editing the story and it is presumed that he only has credit (or at least copyright, based on surviving documentation) for writing due to extensive rewrites of John Lucarotti's work and Lucarotti's alleged displeasure at them. Gerry Davis was the in-coming Story Editor and may simply have shadowed Tosh and received the credit because Tosh could not... So if the story itself doesn't leave you confused or bemused then the story behind it probably will!

Further confusion arises as you watch the Loose Cannon reconstruction and realise that not a single frame of broadcast material is known to exist, just the amateur audio recording (which varies in a few places but is mostly rather impressive). However, as their Making Of... page explains, they were able to get hold of a number of set photos and acquired images of each actor (including uncredited extras) from other contemporary or near contemporary productions as well as the illustration of Paris which features at each episode's start and end! Add to this mind blowing level of recreation the fact that several scenes are played out in virtual silence and The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's Eve takes on a whole new flavour of intrigue. Sadly, although the details sound well researched and fitted together with what we must assume to have been the standard high quality BBC period sets and costumes, the adventure within the story falls a little flat. There are some nice touches along the way though, such as the Doctor almost making their arrival in 16th century France sound intentional by identifying when and where they are and making a point of popping off to visit one of his favourite apothecaries (Charles Preslin, who may not have been a real person since all internet references I could find only relate to this story!) This little visit effectively removes the Doctor from the story and Hartnell was able to take some time off - possibly two weeks as there are film credits for the middle two episodes where he is only seen briefly and, based on the camera scripts, from a distance which would have been pre-filmed. Thus Steven takes the central role by himself as he befriends a group of Huguenots and is aided at times by French maid Anne Chaplette (who's fate is left ambiguous as I'll detail later).

This all leaves a lot of exposition to come from the French characters as they either plot against the Huguenots or try to protect themselves from the Catholics, but the integrity of the script is maintained by not laying out the back-story unnaturally, which is why I found myself a little lost as it really isn't a part of history that I could claim any foreknowledge of and perhaps a second viewing would be a more positive experience now that I do... but that's a luxury that viewers would not have been afforded originally. So lack of knowledge and a bunch of virtually silent scenes contribute to a mediocre production which, to be fair, wouldn't have been quite so mediocre when the full performance could have been seen: Steven gets caught in disguise and drawn into a sword fight, though he refuses to actually fight, and we only hear a small number of subtle shuffles and knocks; Anne is pursued through the streets of Paris, again to the sounds of just a few subtle shuffles (similar to a missing scene in The Crusade in which Barbara is pursued silently); the key assassination attempt on Admiral de Coligny is almost entirely silent. Music would have enhanced all these scenes and made them more bearable in a reconstruction, building tension and picking out moments, feeding the imagination, but music is verse sparse in this serial and very minimalist when it does feature, though those rare moments are quite effective.

A further indication of the limited action in the story is the lack of any real cliffhangers, apart from the shockingly bleak end to episode three where it very much appears that the Doctor is dead. Due to the lack of cliffhangers, The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's Eve is the first and quite possibly the only serial to have no recap at the start of any episode. Consequently, viewers are reminded of the Doctor's apparent fate by Steven relating the events to Anne. Much like Galaxy 4, there is a lot of toing and froing but all the while there is a barely touched mystery of the Doctor's whereabouts (and I'm deliberately making no further details of that. Thinking philosophically, it is a story about absence - absence of sound, music, characters and ultimately of course lives. As Steven finally ends up in the TARDIS with the Doctor (as any viewer would surely have expected eventually) the horrendous events are just starting to unfold. They are shown in the reconstruction in the same way the camera script described them appearing originally, through the medium of historical prints and illustrations. It feels a little odd now, though in a recon made up of still images not exactly out of place, but it would not have been out of place in 1966 and there was something of a precedent in the form of Paris being represented by illustrations in The Reign Of Terror.

Despite the lack of recaps, each episode comes in at a respectable and above average length (around 23.5 minutes without titles and credits) so it is surprising when the TARDIS departs with nearly ten minutes to spare. What follows feels a little tacked on and rushed but it does contain some very valuable moments. The Doctor explains what happened in the days that followed their departure and Steven is angry at the Doctor for not taking a moment to save Anne from it all. He is reminded, of course, of their inability to interfere with history no matter how insignificant someone might be (completely forgetting about Katarina, though it is likely that she would have died in the Greek invasion). However, Steven is so incensed that he echoes Ian's words from a year earlier and declares that he will leave the Doctor at the very next place they land. Unlike Ian, he actually goes through with it and the Doctor is left alone for the first time and the mood turns from mournful anger to melancholy as he sits reflecting on everyone who has left him (saying "Chetterton" before correcting himself) and contemplates going home, though he feels he can't. Then like a bold out of the blue a young girl comes bursting in expecting to find a telephone to call for help (the TARDIS does look like a Police Telephone Box after all and it has landed in the swinging sixties). The reason for the girl's concern is never fully explained other than a little boy being hurt and the Doctor tells the girl to find another Police Box and quite openly explains his TARDIS just before Steven comes running back in rather frantic about the approach of two policemen (perhaps being wary of the events seen in "The Feast Of Steven" last time they were in contemporary England)... The depart complete with the young girl, who of course becomes the new companion. She introduces herself as Dorothea Chaplet, explains that she has no family to miss her, she's glad to get away and that they should call her Dodo. Her surname starts Steven thinking about Anne and when Dodo tells him that her grandfather was French he feels happy than Anne must also have been an ancestor and therefore had survived (ignoring the fact that had she married her name would no longer have been Chaplette, and being a maid it was unlikely to have been her married name already!). The Doctor is also happy because he thinks she looks a bit like his own granddaughter (Susan, of course) and off they go ready for the next adventure.

This final sequence comes at a shockingly refreshing pace and is a completely unexpected contemporary addition to an otherwise historic episode. It feels very modern and is perhaps the first step towards the second, less stuffy era of the show, though she would not last beyond the end of this third season and Steven too would be leaving. Since I already knew that Dodo would be joining during this serial I was kept wondering how it would happen because I also knew that she was a modern girl so this add-on scene really lifted the final episode and gave a more positive feeling for me to depart with. However, I couldn't ignore the fact that it felt a bit clumsy and it certainly didn't make up for the rest of the serial's limitations so I still had to score it a mediocre 50% making it the second lowest story (technically, Mission To The Unknown was even lower, making this the third lowest, but as stories go it is really part of The Daleks' Master Plan