The Massacre [TV/1966.2.5 ~ 2.26]
★★★★★
There's a reason The Massacre is frequently cited as one of the best serials of the First Doctor era. It has a quality to it, a certain foreboding atmosphere and a palpable sense of dread that no other serials have (or least, have to that degree). I've seen some people comment on how this is essentially a sequence of hushed conversations about politics, but it's exactly because the serial is a sequence of hushed conversations about politics that it works so extremely well. John Lucarotti trades in the colourful dialogue and beautiful locale of Marco Polo for dark, shadowy streets, secrets and plots. History is the antagonist here, not so much an active villain seeking to hurt the Doctor and Steven but an impenetrable force that cannot be defied. Giving The Massacre primarily to Steven and leaving the Doctor as a side character for much of its runtime was an ingenious move for this exact reason: with one single man, a human out of his own time faced with one of the bloodiest events in human history, that danger -- that unfeeling, cold nature of the past as an entity of sorts stands out. The Doctor, an upholder of the Laws of Time, refuses to change history to save lives, and therefore Steven is left alone and seemingly betrayed by his best friend. Peter Purves gives one of his best performances here, perhaps his very best as his character, as Steven gets to be the main character facing one of history's darkest moments with the audience.
Religious conflict runs rampant in the streets of Paris in 1572, and a great bloodbath is coming -- the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. It's a great shame that practically every visual reference to the serial is lost, but it's a testament to the performances (and the sterling work at Loose Cannon Productions) that what we got is as incredible as it is. It's perhaps one of my most 'want-them-discovered' serials; Paddy Russell's direction was apparently incredible at the time, and I'd love to witness it. I bet the sets were gorgeous, and the depictions of the assassinations and massacre so very hard-hitting. As it stands, however, the classic painting that the LC recon uses works well also; it lends the serial a unique flair, as if this really is a slice of history and our time travellers are merely a speck on its mane. It's quite remarkable, this serial, and it's also quite remarkable in the context of all of the Hartnell era's pure historicals. Once you give them a once-over, you realise that they're all wonderful in their own ways; there really isn't a dud among them (to be honest, I don't think there's a proper dud in the Hartnell era at all...), and The Massacre works as a character tale (for Steven, the now-weary traveller sick and tired of the Doctor's callous nature towards real human lives), a cautionary tale (any civilisation that forgets its past has no future, and this tale of spilling blood and killing innocents over religious differences is an important lesson to remember) and a very well-written political drama to boot. This is a stunning work, however you decide to look at it.
There's a reason The Massacre is frequently cited as one of the best serials of the First Doctor era. It has a quality to it, a certain foreboding atmosphere and a palpable sense of dread that no other serials have (or least, have to that degree). I've seen some people comment on how this is essentially a sequence of hushed conversations about politics, but it's exactly because the serial is a sequence of hushed conversations about politics that it works so extremely well. John Lucarotti trades in the colourful dialogue and beautiful locale of Marco Polo for dark, shadowy streets, secrets and plots. History is the antagonist here, not so much an active villain seeking to hurt the Doctor and Steven but an impenetrable force that cannot be defied. Giving The Massacre primarily to Steven and leaving the Doctor as a side character for much of its runtime was an ingenious move for this exact reason: with one single man, a human out of his own time faced with one of the bloodiest events in human history, that danger -- that unfeeling, cold nature of the past as an entity of sorts stands out. The Doctor, an upholder of the Laws of Time, refuses to change history to save lives, and therefore Steven is left alone and seemingly betrayed by his best friend. Peter Purves gives one of his best performances here, perhaps his very best as his character, as Steven gets to be the main character facing one of history's darkest moments with the audience.
Religious conflict runs rampant in the streets of Paris in 1572, and a great bloodbath is coming -- the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. It's a great shame that practically every visual reference to the serial is lost, but it's a testament to the performances (and the sterling work at Loose Cannon Productions) that what we got is as incredible as it is. It's perhaps one of my most 'want-them-discovered' serials; Paddy Russell's direction was apparently incredible at the time, and I'd love to witness it. I bet the sets were gorgeous, and the depictions of the assassinations and massacre so very hard-hitting. As it stands, however, the classic painting that the LC recon uses works well also; it lends the serial a unique flair, as if this really is a slice of history and our time travellers are merely a speck on its mane. It's quite remarkable, this serial, and it's also quite remarkable in the context of all of the Hartnell era's pure historicals. Once you give them a once-over, you realise that they're all wonderful in their own ways; there really isn't a dud among them (to be honest, I don't think there's a proper dud in the Hartnell era at all...), and The Massacre works as a character tale (for Steven, the now-weary traveller sick and tired of the Doctor's callous nature towards real human lives), a cautionary tale (any civilisation that forgets its past has no future, and this tale of spilling blood and killing innocents over religious differences is an important lesson to remember) and a very well-written political drama to boot. This is a stunning work, however you decide to look at it.
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