It’s a story of political intrigue for the first couple of parts but it does start to drag out. It is a very, very slow burner. It is basically 3 episodes of political and religious machinations followed by one episode of vague action leading up to an event the Doctor knows is going to happen.
Then there is the confusion of an Abbot who looks like the Doctor. This is never utilised very well and I’m really not sure what that was meant to achieve, other than leading Steven to believe the Doctor was killed. But that lasts for about 5 minutes before he realizes the real Doctor is still alive so it doesn’t really have time to achieve a great deal, plot-wise.
This one is a very Doctor – lite story (to use the nuWho parlance) and while that’s not really a bad thing per se (It’s basically a Steven adventure and that side doesn’t work too badly because Peter Purvis continues to be brilliant) it somehow seems very disjointed.
And the ending is very rushed. After three episodes of wandering about a bit and avoiding the pointy end of swords The Doctor clocks the date and realises that there will be a massacre tomorrow and whisks Steven away in the TARDIS.
To me, it’s a bit of an obscure period in history for them to be focusing on. I know the show was trying to be educational and, yes, I learned something from this but it still seems as though there are a lot of other areas of history that would have been much more accessible to the casual viewer.
So we’ve basically found it: A historical that I didn’t really enjoy. It’s a shame because so far some of my favourites have been historicals and ones that I have never really engaged with before – but this one sadly bucks that trend.
The ending is surreal as well – we see Steven torn up by The Doctor’s refusal to change history in order to save lives and storm off out of the TARDIS. This is fine, and we have (another) very touching Hartnell “Everyone is leaving me” scene (I would love to know if Hartnell’s mispronunciation of “Chesterton” was deliberate) before some random girl bumbles into the TARDIS. Security ain’t what it used to be, apparently. Before the Doctor can shoo her off, Steven returns, for some reason spooked by the sight of some policemen, and decides he’s part of the crew again and off they jolly well pop. Only later, of course, realising that they have the young lady still with them. And then, conveniently, it transpires that she’s the descendent of the girl that Doctor rather heartlessly left to die in Paris. All very convenient and just a very odd, unsettling ending and a very strange way to bring in a new companion.
No. Sorry, not sure I get this story at all.