Thursday 13 November 2014

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 20th MEET-UP - THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S EVE

Tuesday 12th November 2014


Yes once again, with busy weekends ahead we decided to meet on a Tuesday - this time around Mark's house.  This time we were just sticking to a four-parter - and a four-parter where no episodes or clips exist!

"T
he Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve" is a four part story set in Paris, France in 1572 and precedes the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.  A quick history lesson tells us it was started by a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of Catholic mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), during the French Wars of Religion.  Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de' Medici, the mother of King Charles IX, the massacre took place five days after the wedding of the king's sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre and the esitmated dead range from 5,000 to 30,000.

Thank the Lord such violence between various religious ideals doesn't exist these days.....

Anyhoo on with the story in which Steven and the Doctor arrive in Paris and make no mention of the horrific losses occurred in the previous story.  However, as I mention, we don't know how much time has passed between this story and the Dalek's Master Plan - maybe Steven and the Doctor went for a nice holiday in between.  They deserved it!

 


Photo 1: Mark (with the sign), Leigh, Jason (holding The Massacre DVD cover),Jim (thoroughly bored!) and Shaun around Mark's house.

The both find out where they are, dress appropriately and head outside!  The Doctor, is quite excited to find out where they have landed as he wants to talk with a scientist (apothecary as they called it!) of the time, Charles Preslin.  Charles is ahead of his time in envisaging germs as the cause of disease.  However Charles is quite coy about revealing this as such talk at the time would have been seen as blasphemy (blas-for-you!), but he slowly loosens up when he sees the Doctor is genuine.  But where is Steven??  Well the Doctor, of course, has left him back at a tavern with no money, which doesn't please the craggy old Landlord.  Luckily for Steven a jolly decent chap called Nicholas Muss (who is drinking with his angrier friend Gaston) pays for his drink and engages him in chit chat, telling him of what is going down in France at the time.  Lots of political stuff that I won't bore you with now.  Suffice to say they warn Steven there's a curfew on and offer him a place to stay for the night.  With the Doctor nowhere to be found Steven agrees and as they are wandering home, they find a frightened serving girl, Anne Chaplet, who is terrified of being pressed into the service of the Catholic Abbot of Amboise. 



Photo 2: Mark (with the sign), Leigh, MJ (giving the thumbs down!)
Jason
(holding The Massacre DVD cover) and
Jim (thoroughly bored and sleepy!) around Mark's house.

The Abbot of Amboise is an important character in this story as he looks exactly like The Doctor - and not in the way the robot double looked "exactly like the Doctor"!  No this role was also played by William Hartnell.  The Abbot of Amboise is a bad egg - finding out anyone opposed to the regime he is a part of - like some sort of witch-hunt.  Anyhow Steven goes to meet the Abbot thinking  he's really the missing Doctor in disguise.  Sadly he finds this is not the case.
 


Photo 3: Mark (with the sign), Leigh (holding The Massacre DVD cover), MJ,
Jason
(sleepy) and
Jim around Mark's house.

Anyhow lots of plot follows - including an attempted assasination of a character nicknamed "The Sea Beggar", amusing royal chit chats between a fairly wet King and his plotting Mother (who is silent for a good time when we first meet her!).



Photo 4: Mark (with the sign), Leigh, Jason (holding The Massacre DVD cover),Jim and Shaun around Mark's house.

So Steven finds out that they can't change history and the Massacre occurs as himself and the reunited Doctor escape in the TARDIS.  Steven is very angry at having left poor Anne behind to be killed by the raging mob.  The Doctor says they have no idea if she died or not and some things cannot be changed!  This isn't good enough for Steven who decides to leave the Doctor and time travelling (hoorah - Steven was given the chance to have a bit more Ooomph to his character!).  This leaves the Doctor, for the first time to reflect on all the companions who have left him and he starts to wonder if he should go back to his home planet!  This is quite moving and is the first mention of a potential home for the Doctor in a long time.  However things soon change as a new woman, the Northern accented Dodo, bursts into the TARDIS wanting to use the phone to report a road accident!  It's now 1966 outside and Dodo has seen a little girl be knocked down by a car and wants to use the Police phone box!

Steven also arrives back, saying that policemen are approaching, and is happy when the new woman introduces herself as Dorothea or Dodo Chaplet - this means she must be a relative of Anne and so Anne survived the massacre...

Well that was where they left it.  Why Steven thought there was only one Chaplet family in the world and Dodo MUST be related to Anne I do not know - also why would Anne's surname have been passed down?  If she were to marry then surely she would have had her husband's name?  As a re-con it did feel hard to follow everything some time but I did feel a lot of the clever wit and sophistication of earlier historicals wasn't there.  I also felt like there could have been a lot more made of the Doctor/Abbot look-a-like plot.  That was surely ripe for some excellently serious scenes - or some comedy.  Usually they did historicals very well and this could have been so much more!  There was a potential for a great story here  - in fact the set-up for it leant towards that way but it was very let down by  the unfocused script and that was very annoying for me!

Still that was the end of that - but what did Shaun think?


Shaun: "Honestly, I felt this was a place holder.  Nothing of any consequence happened, save for the very end, and the Doctor and Steven essentially just observed or got in the way. The sub-plot of the Doctor and the Abbot looking alike had no substance, went nowhere, wasn't explained and was ultimately waved off as unimportant.  One of the weakest so far".

Well, I suppose the boy makes some fair points!  How about Jason?

Jason: "
I agree.  Bit of a placeholder.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.  I feel my opinion of The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve would have been improved if I'd known more of the actual historical events it was based on and if I could have seen the performances of the actors, but not by much.  I can't wait for the novel or audio adventure that tells us what the Doctor got up to for almost 3 episodes.

My biggest issue is that it completely focuses on the historical events instead of giving our main characters anything dramatic to do.  I love the idea of historicals and enjoy seeing the past brought to life, but we have to feel more involved.  I'm starting to see why straight historicals without aliens eventually disappear.

As I said, seeing the performances might have added a lot.  The "sword fight" may have been amazingly tense with visuals.  The silent exchanges between the Stephen and Gaston could tell us everything we need to know in this battle of wills.  But I suspect not.

I often find myself asking "what were the writers thinking?".

1. What's the point of the Doctor and the abbot looking alike?  I was constantly thinking something more would be made of it.
As far as I remember it's used briefly to get Stephen into trouble when he announces that the abbot is his friend.  This results with him suspected of being a spy.  It's used again when the abbot is killed so that Stephen (and maybe the audience) think that the Doctor is dead.  I just don't think the pay-off is worth the whole doppelganger set-up.

2. The writer's brief for the episode probably said "visit the time of tensions between French Protestants and Catholics in the lead up to the massacre and introduce a new companion". So why isn't Anne - the girl we've been getting to know throughout the story - the new companion?  Why throw in someone completely new (and apparently stoned or stupid) at the last second?  I think the answer to this is actually there if the viewer looks for it, but it's paced terribly.

I'd have preferred the following:

Episode 1. Arrive France 1572.  The Doctor and Steph en stay together.  We haven't seen them alone before, so we get to see their relationship.  They meet the Huguenots in the pub and hear of the current historical events.  Anne appears and they are put in danger trying to protect her.  Cliffhanger.

Episode 2. The Doctor, Stephen and Anne are hiding out.  We get to know Anne and learn more about how the historical events directly affect her.  Stephen in particular starts to bond with her.  There's the usual running around.  Stephen's accused of being the assassin of the Abbot and events escalate towards the massacre/riots.  Stephen and The Doctor discuss how much they can alter historical events.  They are in danger of getting caught up in the fighting and try urgently to get back to the Tardis.  Can they make it?  Cliffhanger.

Episode 3. We make it to the Tardis, but the Doctor leaves Anne behind.  Her fate unknown. Stephen throws a wobbly and argues with The Doctor about his actions.  He can't live like this and says he will leave when they land (we're still only 10 minutes in to the episode). They land in modern day France and Stephen leaves.  The Doctor ponders on what he will do next and gives us hints to his backstory.  We follow Stephen around Paris where he tries to find out what happened to the girl he was falling for.  While doing this he meets a girl called Dodo who is researching her family history.  She is drawn to Stephen as he seems to know so much about the past and speaks of it so vividly.  In no uncertain terms we learn through dialogue that leaving Anne behind was absolutely the best thing to do for Anne and the future of France.  It would eventually lead to the birth of Dodo.  Stephen sees that maybe The Doctor does know better than him and begins to regret his decision.  Stephen returns to the Tardis where the Doctor is preparing to leave.  He apologises and talks about their travels in time.  We then find out that Dodo followed him and has heard everything.  She is amazed at the Tardis interior and begs to go with them excited by the prospect of seeing history happen in front of her.  The Doctor is initially reluctant, but gives in due to her keen-interest in travelling and because she reminds him of his granddaughter.  They all leave in the Tardis for their next adventure.

No need for 4th episode.

I feel this way is much more dramatic and forces conflict between the leads.  We learn more about the The Doctors motivations and even get a bit of a love interest.

Anyway, I didn't actually mind this story.  I just feel it could have been better and more than just "Stephen watches stuff happen, gets pissed off, leaves, immediately returns.  Idiot girl turns up." - 3/10."

Well strong opinons there and I very much agree with Jason's summing up.  He makes a lot of good points!  Still at least Jim must have liked it...

Jim: "
It was rubbish.  It made no concessions to the viewer and made no effort to be exciting or interesting.  The Doctor and Ian were bystanders and may as well not have been in it.  Considering how well done Marco Polo and The Reign Of Terror were, there was no excuse for an historical serial to be so tedious.  I miss Ian.   He would have given those Frenchies a damn good thrashing.  Two thumbs down from Mr. Jim."

Oh well, as ever, until next time I shall return, yes, I shall return....

MJ 12-11-14

Friday 7 November 2014

DOCTOR WHO MARATHON 19th MEET-UP - THE DALEKS' MASTER PLAN (PARTS 8 - 12)

Tuesday 4th November 2014


So again with a lot of weekends not free we decided to meet again on a Tuesday night - this time around Leigh's.

We were there to FINALLY finish off watching The Dalek's Master Plan - and it happened to fall on My Birthday Eve (which is a proper date - just like Christmas Eve and New year's Eve!)!
  Like last time we were to watch 4 recons and 1 episode.  The first exciting title we had to look forward to was: "Volcano"
 


Photo 1: Shaun (holding THE BOOK!), Mark,Jason (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover), Jim (with the sign) and Leigh (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Leigh's house.  All are doing the Mavic Chen evil pose!

We started off with the Doctor and his two companions escaping from the Daleks and Mavic Chen (to whom the Doctor had given the fake taranium core).

They detect another time ship after them and assume it's the Daleks so try to shake them off by landing first in The Oval (the English cricket ground) during the middle of a cricket game.  The Cricket Commentators start moaning about the game being spoiled by a Police Box!  This is quite a bizarre sequence and I thought we'd gone back to the mental-ness of the Christmas episode!  they soon get back on their way and end up on a volcanic planet (Tigus) in which the time ship catches up with them - but it's not the Daleks!  It's our old friend The Meddling Monk!  So apart from the Daleks this was our first recurring villain (if you want to call him that).  It was great to have him back and see the banter between him and the Doctor!  The Monk's revenge, for the events of the Time Meddler, is to damage the Doctor's TARDIS lock.  Luckily for us all the Doctor manages to free the lock by shining sunlight through his ring onto the lock and that frees it.....  Hmmmm - not sure about that - still they get away and the Doctor explains "the sun in the galaxy that Tigus is in possesses certain qualities that when filtered through the gem in his ring reversed the process of the Monk's device"....  Okay well we'll let him get away with that - this once!


Meanwhile The Daleks and Mavic Chen, having realised they've been duped by the Doctor have ordered a Time Ship from the Daleks home world and are now in pursuit of our heroes....


 


Photo 2: Shaun (holding THE BOOK!), Mark,MJ (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover), Jim (with the sign) and Leigh (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Leigh's house.
We're all doing the Mavic Chen evil pose!


We then moved on to re-con number 2 - "Golden Death" in which the Doctor and co land in Ancient Egypt at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza!  However Mavic Chen and the Daleks are only 4 minutes behind!  Not only that but a small Egyptian boy tells the adults about there are strangers around - so guards are sent and immediately they arrest and tie up Sara and Steven - but not before they see that the Daleks and Mavic Chen have arrived.  This is a fun tale with the Monk throwing his lot in with the Daleks and then the Doctor.  In fact he sides with whoever he thinks will help him at any given moment!  The Doctor is also up to mischief (and revenge) and steals The Monk's TARDIS' directional unit. After a while the Monk and the Doctor meet up again and it looks like the Doctor is not going to put up with much more.  In fact the episode end with Steven and Sara, having cut off their bonds searching a sarcophagus which opens and a bandaged hand emerges...!  Very Scooby Doo!
 


Photo 3:
Shaun (holding THE BOOK!), Mark,Jason (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover), Jim (with the sign) and Leigh (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover)
around
Leigh's house.

We then move to our one existing episode of this run "Escape Switch" - where we discover that the bandaged hand belonged to The Monk - whom the Doctor had overwhelmed!
Sadly it doesn't take long for the Daleks and Mavic Chen to capture them and they send out a loud-speaker message telling the Doctor he can have the hostages back for the real taranium core.  This the Doctor does and they quickly make their escape and, using the newly fitted directional unit from the Monk's TARDIS, they can be more precise with where they land - Kembel to try and stop the Dalek's and Mavic Chen from using the Time Destructor.  Meanwhile the Monk, having escaped in his TARDIS end up on an ice planet - annoyed that this wasn't where he was supposed to land he checks his TARDIS and realise what the Doctor has taken.  He vows to meet the Doctor again one day and get his revenge!...

Back on the TARDIS the
directional unit is smoking away and the TARDIS veers about - has it not worked???....




Photo 4: Shaun (holding THE BOOK!), Mark,MJ (holding The Dalek's Master Plan DVD cover), Jim (with the sign) and Leigh (holding the Lost In Time DVD cover) around Leigh's house.

Moving on from that cliffhanger we FINALLY moved on to our last 2 recons of the evening "The Abandoned Planet" and the gloriously titled "The Destruction of Time"!  In the first one we have the Doctor fretting about how they are to get back to Kembel - luckily for them, they are already arrived there - the directional unit must have broken after the trip!  Anyhow they head off into the jungle - the Doctor getting split up from Sara and Steven.

Meanwhile Mavic Chen has come back to his council of weird and wonderful aliens (well those that haven't been killed by the Daleks already!).  He tells them all that he (Mavic Chen) has got back the
taranium core and is the ruler of them all - the delegates don't appreciate this and then get locked away by the Daleks!  Sara and Steven find them later on and release them all and the delegates escape in their own ships but Mavic Chen's ship has been boobie-trapped and blows up!  Of course this is a ruse and Sara and Steven get set upon by Chen who (thinking the Daleks will change their minds and appoint him in charge again) takes them into the Dalek bunker at gunpoint...

This leads into the final episode
"The Destruction of Time"!

So Chen still has Steven and Katarina captive and is convinced that the missing Doctor and his companions intend on usurping Chen's place as leader of the solar system by allying with the Daleks - and he won't believe when told otherwise!  Chen is really starting to lose the plot from now on and is trying everything to get back in with the Daleks.  However, after he's brought them prisoners and they still ignore him he goes ballistic and tries to shoot at the Dalek Supreme - which leads to his EXTERMINATION!!

Poor Chen - but this confusion allows the Doctor to emerge from the shadows where he turns on the Time Destructor and threatens the Daleks with it - using
it as a shield to stop the Daleks from shooting.

They try to make there way back to the TARDIS, Steven get to he TARDIS fne, but the
Time Destructor makes good on it's name by turning everything around it to dust - the Daleks start to crumble and age - but so do the Doctor and Sara!  The Doctor, though struggling, at least can live for hundreds of years so hardly seems to age - but poor Sara ages quickly until she becomes a frail old lady and then turns to a skeleton and dust!  It's a shame this episode is missing as I would love to see this - it looks (thanks to some off screen photos) and sounds horrific!

Steven gets back to the Doctor and helps him back to the TARDIS whilst the

Time Destructor burns itself out!  So it could only destroy Time in a limited range eh?

Steven and the Doctor come out afterwards with the Doctor being pleased the Daleks are destroyed - Steven reminds him of all the lives that and the Doctor agrees saying "It's a waste... What a terrible waste...".  They both leave in the TARDIS leaving a real downbeat feel to the whole thing!

For me the story was excellent and quite bleak for back then.  I do acknowledge that the tale had a lot of padding in parts but it did feel the most epic we've seen so far.  All those locations and aliens.  Not only that but it must be the darkest tale we've seen?  Has there been so much death and destruction before?  Famously this story was only ever sent to Australia for a potential sale and they refused to put it on as they found it too violent!

 
Next time we shall watch a lot shorter story (they never did another 12-part single story) but that's all for now.  As ever, until next time I shall return, yes, I shall return....

MJ 07-11-14