Camp at Blood Island (1958)

 "No room for shirkers!"

This film is a definite oddity- a non-horror Hammer film (this weekend's theme) made in 1958, several films into the company's horror era, directed by Val Guest and starring Andre Morell, both familiar faces from late '50s horror.

Yet it feels utterly Hammer. It's weird to see Morell not playing a maverick scientist, and the token Amercan is played not by Steve McQueen but by Luke Skywalker's Uncle Owen. There's the obligatory cut price Charles Bronson figure. The sadly late Barbara Shelley is in a very Tenko role, and she's wonderful. It's all very lurid, with staggering amounts of torture and brutal violence for its time- but this probably got hrough the censors precisely because Japanese POW camps really were as bad as this and worse.

The budget is low, the direction is no more than competent, yet Morell is a compelling lead and there's a surprisingly plot that makes this a much better watch than its reputation. The film is gripping throughout, which I wasn't expecting.

The film is, of course, incredibly racist, with the Japanese officers portrayed by made up white actors. And yet this particular racism- although nothing can exactly excuse the yellowface make-up, used in other contexts in contemporary films, and we shouldn'r excuse the various European colonial empires in the Far East or anywhere else- can perhaps not be described as prejudice. Many British people, including my Grandad Gordon, fought in Burma and elsewhere, witnessing many Japanese atrocities and refusing to buy Japanese cars for their whole lives. I'm a lover of Japan, and Japanese culture, but this generation of Japanese soldiers, treating their prisoners of war with sheer cruelty, were utterly without honour.

Quatermass and the Pit: Episode 6- Hob

" We are the Martians."

Hmm. Quatermass and the Pit used to be my favourite of the three serials but, while still seminal and extraordinary, on this reviewing I felt it was less good that Quatermass 2 in spite of having more interesting ideas. And that's largely because of how it ends.

This final episode is one of human chaos, caused indirectly by Martian meddling in the past. This meddling causes people to be riotous and, in particular, racist as per last episode's "wild hunt" (although I still don't see how anyone could draw such specific conclusions from that footage!). It's literally gothic; an evil from  the dawn of time. It's tense. It's fast paced. It manages to avoid excusing human evil on the grounds of "the devil made me do it" by being an obvious metaphor. And yet...

Well, there's no physical threat, no baddie, just the legacy of some barely seen aliens from five million years ago. The evil has no face, not even a possessed but intelligent human, to give some immediate sense of a physical enemy. That, I think, is what's lacking. And yet what we have is nevertheless yet another televisual triumph. Although one has to raise an eyebrow at poor Miss Judd having no personality traits other than "hysterical female" and being patronised yet again. Roney's death has meaning and Quatermass' speech is sadly relevant today.

I can't just leave this there without talking about this serial's huge influence over the following two decades at least of British sci-fi, though, especially as a Doctor Who fan. Obviously both The Daemons and Image of the Fendahl are pretty blatant tributes, but there are elements too within the human perfidy of The Ambassadors of Death and the whole '70s trope of intractable military stupidity. And that's before we even get to Erich Von Daniken, Graham Hancock and assorted other idiots...

Quatermass and the Pit: Episode 5- The Wild Hunt

"We're the Martians now."

It is both a complement and an observation on how television pacing has changed over the decades that this penultimate episode is both mostly exposition and gripping. The atmosphere means that the centrepiece- the footage of the Martian “Wild Hunt”, which consists of violent ethnic cleansing- consists of charmingly dated special effects. We don’t care.

Nor do we care that this episode moves beyond the “ancient aliens” property into matters of se one sight and telekinesis, supposed by Bernard to be a Martian legacy. Likewise, we care not that Roney’s ma bone for seeing impressions of the mind’s eye is an impossibility now, let alone in 1959, and is an odd thing for a palaeontologist to have constructed. Indeed, we raise a momentary eyebrow on his Miss Judd, being female, is naturally hysterical and in need of a tot of brandy. We overlook all this, because this is bloody good telly.

I haven’t praised Andre Morell enough; he is charismatic, likeable and easily the best Quatermass so far in any medium. But I must also praise Anthony Bushell, whose continuously brilliant portrayal of the thick and arrogant Breen, the ultimate figure of official idiocy, reaches a crescendo here as thousands are put in danger by official intransigence. I can’t wait until the finale...

Quatermass and the Pit: Episode 4- The Enchanted

“You realise what you’re implying? That we owe our human condition to the intervention of insects?”

And here we have it; the ideas episode. This is where Quatermass expounds on the possibility that these alien arthropods, perhaps from a more habitable Mars of five million years ago, prefigured The War of the Worlds by attempting to somehow terraform their blue neighbour. I’m not sure what advantage they would gain by boosting the intelligence of early hominids, but it’s an arresting thought and one that has had a profound effect ever since both on science fiction and silly flying saucer conspiracy theories- I note this was more than a decade before Erich Von Daniken.

The drama is still at the forefront though as Roney rushes to preserve the remains and Quatermass grapples with the enormity of what is occurring. Further research establishes that such figures have Haunted mankind since prehistory- it is here that Bernard expounds upon the chilling idea of “race memory”. But it’s when we see the utter blind stupidity of Colonel Breen, which reaches new heights here, and how the powers that be accept his explantation above that of Bernard- evidently Michael Gove wasn’t the first person to have had enough of experts- that we return to Kneale’s ever-disapproving view of humanity. As an aside, it’s fascinating, as a Doctor Who fan, to see the obvious influence here on the work of Malcolm Hulke.

Perhaps I could venture a mild criticism in that Miss Judd, the only female character at this point, is a merely functional character, but this is brilliant telly. And it’s only at the very end, as the alien vessel does something to poor Sladdern that seems to make him a focus of poltergeist activity, that any physical danger arises- but it’s here now....

Quatermass and the Pit: Episode 3- Imps and Demons

"It's a good thing to be insured. At least it cheers you up."

After last episode’s slight wobble we’re back to the gripping and gradual unveiling of what is going on, concluding with the reveal of the insect-like alien bodies inside the capsule which have been there for “a long time”. Meanwhile we discover that the ghost stories go back many centuries and coincide with the disturbing of the ground, while “Hobbs Lane” itself is a probable reference to the Devil.

Elsewhere, James Fullalove is back and still the same stereotypical reporter. He recognises Quatermass from a photo in spite of the fact he looks nothing like he did in Quatermass 2, but then again the same could be said for Fullalove himself. Looks as though he will be hanging around for a while.

I also wonder about those strange marks on the.Captain’s and Sergeant’s hands- first inkling of a present day threat from the artifact? This is fantastic stuff, and I can think of at least two Doctor Who stories that owe an awful lot to this.

Quatermass and the Pit: Episode 2- The Ghosts

"It was a kind of figure!"

Once again Nigel Knee shows us, in an unusually slow episode that for once feels a little padded, that he takes a rather dim view of human behaviour. Yet there are interesting contradictions. Colonel Breen, while undoubtedly a fool for insisting on rushing the archaeology in order to dig up the artifact, is portrayed as a fool for neglecting to see its extra-terrestrial origins. Yes the credulousness of the tealeaves-reading types who insist on having seen ghosts thirty years earlier runs is also criticised. What is Kneale saying here? It looks as though he’s trying to have it both ways.

That isn’t the only bad tempered moment, either; even the normally likeable Quatermass snaps at Miss Judd when she tries to help. But, nevertheless, this is part of a gripping tale, of a rather slow one by itself. Not enough really happens in terms of plot, character or mood to justify the running time. Still, we are introduced to Roney’s optical encephalograph; I suspect the law of Chelhov’s gun will kick in later.

Still, the tension continues to build as more and more signs emerge that this is a five million year old spacecraft- although the skulls are indeed of terrestrial origin. This episode may be unusually slow, but the underlying plot continues to grip.

Quatermass and the Pit: Episode 1- The Halfmen

"They'll stick me alongside the Piltdown forgeries as a horrid warning!"

It's good to get back to Quatermass, that slow-building tension and that great storytelling team of Nigel Kneale and Rudolph Cartier. There are so many superb touches here, from the neat little piece of exposition by newspaper headlines to the use of vox pops. Yet these vox pops don't give a very flattering impression of people, ignorant and self-centred as they (we) are, and it doesn't take long before Kneale's bleak view of human nature shows itself.

In fact, even in one episode, Quatermass and the Pit paints a far bleaker picture of humanity than either of its predecessors. The builders who find the skull are ignorant and venal; the archaeological work of Dr Roney is at risk because of others' greed and, worse, Quatermass' beloved British Rocket Group faces a military takeover, enforced by arrogant civil servants and personified by the arrogant and very soldier-like Colonel Breen.

Quatermass is alone in a room full of Civil servants (gasp, how awful!) who are happy to rubber stamp the military takeover of plans to build bases on the Moon and Mars within seven years, which are to see the militarisation of space a generation before Reagan: a horrible "dead man's deterrent" which will avenge a nuked Britain from beyond the brain. It's a horrible perversion of science and the spirit of exploration but, in Kneale's world, that's humanity for you.

Andre Morell, following the now well-established tradition of replacing a dead predecessor as Quatermass, is superb, rather eclipsing both other actors. Cec Linder, though, is also engaging and charismatic as Dr Roney, a brash and courageous Canadian palaeontologist.

Seemingly, the bones of four previously unknown early hominids have been found, but also a strange metal object, and we're left with the thought that this sat below remains which are up to five million years old...

This is gripping telly. It's the first time I've seen it in well over a decade and I'm already excited about the next five episodes.

Behemoth the Sea Monster (1959)

"Behemoth!"

In thought I'd announce the end of that mini-hiatus and the return of normal blogging with a true cinematic classic but, er, something went a bit wrong. Sorry.

Still, this film may be a typically melodramatic Fifties monster movies and oh-so-very-atomic age, played dead straight with dramatic musical stings in the right places, but there's some real quality here. Gene Evans may be a token piece of plywood to draw in American cinemagoers, yes, but Andre Morell, fresh from Quatermass and the Pit, gives a performance that is far more nuanced and charismatic than it needs to be, and the film is well-directed in a way that belies its tiny budget. Best of all, the elderly Willis O'Brien, he of King Kong and The Lost World fame, handles the monster effect and does so with real aplomb.

Mind you, Jack MacGowran's comedy paleontologist is the best thing in it, a welcome piece of comic relief. But, for all its straightforward genre plot, the film allows the tension to build until we have a massive and radioactive dinosaur-cum-plesiosaur in the Thames next to Tower Bridge, and what's not to love about that? I care not that the beast rampaging through London reminds me uncannily of a 1980s Chewits advert; this is a genuinely well-made film and worth seeing if you happen to be fond of this splendid genre.

The Black Knight (1954)

"I know I'm not a knight, but is it impossible to become one?"

I only sat through this film because it had Patrick Troughton, Peter Cushing and Andre Morell in it. I wish I hadn't. I can honestly say that this is the worst film I've blogged thus far. Even Teenagers from Outer Space was better than this.

The historical inaccuracies... where to begin? Obviously you accept a certain amount of artistic licence for the Arthurian genre, with the early sixth century setting typically being depicted as the High Middle Ages, but here we have Patrick Troughton as King Mark of Cornwall, leading an anti-Christian alliance of pagan Vikings and druids(!) with "Saracens" who apparently prefer associating with pagans than people of the book. Hmmm. One of these "Saracens" is Knight of the Round Table Sir Parmenides, who has his own castle in the English countryside. 

But that's not all. The centrepiece of the film sees our very silly alliance of baddies perform a comedy pagan ceremony of sacrifice at a matte painting of Stonehenge. After their defeat Arthur orders the monument to be trashed, a bit like Daesh in Palmyra. This is appropriate, I suppose, as Arthur spends the entire film behaving like a twat. Oh, and he's depicted as a King of "England"  the very country that any real life Arthur would have devoted his life to strangling at birth. Arthur didn't like immigrants much, a lot like most Britons today. This Arthur seems positively encouraging of diversity, notwithstanding his twattishness.

Even disregarding these frighteningly ignorant depictions of history- children actually watched this film!- the plot is annoying and relies on Arthur being stupid and thick-heatedly disbelieving for the plot to work.

Patrick Troughton gives us some top class moustache twirling but Alan Ladd phones it in as heroic blacksmith John. Then again, with a script as hopeless as this, why wouldn't he? A film not worth bothering with.

The Plague of the Zombies (1966)

"I should have drowned you at birth!"

"Thank you, father!"

Interesting that this enjoyable Hammer romp is pre-George A. Romero, if only just. But it's fascinating to see that, as late as 1966, zombies were still very much associated in popular culture with their Haitian origins. Thus we have voodoo dolls, and a rather incongruous-looking Haitian butler in a Cornwall country home. It's striking to see the negative portrayal of voodoo here, though: it's referred to, in Christian terms, as "witchcraft".

It's also amusing to reflect on how class-ridden the society in this film is. The baddie is the local squire who, naturally, firmly rules the village. Meanwhile our delightfully grumpy hero, Andre Morell's splendid Sir James, is a posh medical professor to whom everyone defers and whom all working class characters call "Sir". He even gets essentially let off when caught grave robbing by the fuzz because of how posh he is.

It's amusing to see a very young Jacqueline Pearce here. Servalan, it seems, was a Victorian/Edwardian zombie before she rose in the ranks of the Federation.

This is peak Hammer by numbers, but peak Hammer by numbers is a great way to spend ninety minutes. I enjoyed this film hugely.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot, stamping on a human face, forever.”

I should probably say at the start that this is the 1954 BBC teleplay, written by Nigel Kneale, directed by Rudolph Cartier and starring Peter Cushing. It’s rather interesting to see this for the first time just one week after seeing The Year of the Sex Olympics; suddenly the debt the later play, set in a future with a diminishing vocabulary, owes to Orwell’s concept of Newspeak becomes even more blatant.

This is first class telly, though. Yes, it’s of its time, with a rather blurry picture quality (although, to be fair, the prints could really do with a good clean), and technical limitations mean that a slow pace is sort of inevitable, but this is no bad thing. The cast is superb, with Peter Cushing putting in an outstanding performance, with honourable mentions also going top Yvonne Mitchell and André Morell. It’s quite a shock, too, to see Donald Pleasance in a television role. There’s also a nice little cameo from Wilfrid Brambell.

It’s not just the picture quality that dates this; it is, after all, the earliest piece of telly I’m likely to be reviewing on this blog except, probably, for the surviving bits of The Quatermass Experiment once I get to it. The fact that it was made live (apart from the many film sequence!) isn’t really too obvious, but lots of other things are, notably the plummy accents, Mr. Cholmondely-Warner strength, which are spoken by every character who isn’t a prole. And this is a future with things like valves in it It’s rather interesting, though, to see an adaptation made just five years after George Orwell’s novel was published; the general feel of austerity (how very topical!) seems very fitting, especially as 1954 was the year that rationing finally ended. I couldn’t help also noticing that, among the many sinister notices seen in the programme is one saying “Be ready to produce identity papers”. Orwell would have been horrified at the last Government’s plan to introduce identity cards, now thankfully off the table for now in a rare wise decision from our current lords and masters.

Cartier’s sets, with ever-present posters and pictures of Big Brother, are a triumph of design, and it’s a nice touch that everyone (except, again, the proles, who wear 1950’s clothes) wears what look very much like prison uniforms, while Winston Smith’s room looks awfully like a prison cell. This is a confining, utilitarian world, devoid of all beauty and ornament. The constant televised announcements, which cannot be switched off, remind me a lot of the 15 Million Merits episode of Black Mirror.

It’s a while, certainly more than fifteen years, since I last read the novel, so the sheer levels of totalitarianism on display here come as quite a shock. Big Brother is indeed watching everyone, even language itself is being perverted so as to render “thought crime” impossible, but the scenes towards the end, with Morell’s Obrien as the torturer, are more chilling still. The line asking how many fingers are being held up (blatantly ripped off / homaged, decades later, by Star Trek: The Next Generation), and the following dialogue, make it clear that the Party claims the right to dictate reality itself; there is no empirical truth. Rather cleverly, this is all foreshadowed by Smith’s job of “adjusting” past records to fit with current political convenience.

It’s interesting, although somewhat patronising, that hope lies with the uneducated and ignorant proles, and the fact that their cultural fare is all written or composed by computer could be read all sorts of ways. Hope certainly seems to be closed up elsewhere; even Smith is not quite the pure hero, agreeing to commit all sorts of awful crimes. But the romance between him and Julia is rather sweet and lovely, but also profound. What they have is theirs alone, and it’s real. Nothing else is. And their relationship burns all the brighter for the fact that it, and they, are doomed, and they both know it.

The ending, with both Julia and Winston denouncing each other under torture, is devastating, but brainwashing was very much in the zeitgeist so soon after the Korean War. This is a first class piece of telly, whether in terms of script, directing or performances, but I think its view of the future is a little pessimistic. Totalitarian regimes always have a limited life expectancy. They always burn themselves out eventually; the world is a chaotic place, for good or ill. The future will be far more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

“I knew a Watson in Capri- a notorious white slaver. Nice fellow, though. A relation of yours?”

Yes, all right; it didn’t take me long to get back to Hammer. I can’t say there won’t be more in the near future, but there will be a diverse array of other films too, honest, guv.

We get the requisite lettering and weird, unsettling music as the film open with that familiar, Technicolor, stylised landscape which still manages to look unnatural in spite of the fact it was clearly filmed in your actual Dartmoor.

We open with Francis de Wolff narrating a tale of Sir Hugo Baskerville, presiding over a Hellfire Club-style decadent party during the eighteenth century. He’s evil, all right. Not only does he shove a bloke’s head into the fire for objecting to his daughter being kidnapped and abused, he also decides to have said daughter brought down to be gang-raped by all of his equally nasty mates. The girl has escaped, though, and Sir Hugo flies into a rage.

None of this detail is in the book; it’s clearly here to titillate, and makes uncomfortable viewing in our age. We may be less prudish now in 1959, but we’re far less comfortable with the use of implied sexual violence to titillate. Still, Sir Hugo is off hunting, with his sinister pack of hounds. In the dark, Dartmoor landscape we get a strong impression of the Wild Hunt, with its pagan associations of Woden or Herne the Hunter. In contrast to this, the girl takes sanctuary in a church, but this is no escape. Ultimately, though, Sir Hugo is killed by another, monstrous hound which is not quite of this world.

It is now revealed that all this has been narrated to Holmes and Watson by Dr. Mortimer, who seeks to engage Holmes on behalf of the new baronet, Sir Henry Baskerville. And here we meet Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Watson (Andre Morell). Oddly enough, the only real example of Homes’ deductive cleverness comes in his reasoning that Mortimer has really come about events on the previous Friday, glancing at a newspaper.

This film is very much in the house style of other early Hammers, although a little more faithful to the source material than most: the fast pace; the extra little moments of gore and excitement (the tense scene with the spider is a nice little addition!); and, most of all, the little digs at pre-1960s morality by the Angry Young Men generation who are making this film. It may be more deadpan and subtle than, say, the 1960s Batman TV series, but the same sort of humour is there, and Cushing is playing the part straight only in the sense that Adam West did.

Sir Henry is from South Africa, not Canada, presumably so that Lee doesn’t have to attempt a Canadian accent. He’s a rather arrogant, unlikeable, patrician sort. Then again, beneath the surface one suspects that he’s meant to be. Like The Mummy, this is conspicuously set in a world where country gentlemen hold all the power and can do whatever the hell they like. While The Mummy sees an absurdly deferential attitude on behalf of the police to the country gent hero, in this film the country gents decline to bother the pretty little heads of the constabulary at all, in spite of the numerous deaths and in contrast to Conan Doyle’s original novel. Holmes even takes it upon himself to ensure that Mrs Barrymore is not prosecuted. It’s hard not to see some class resentment in the script here; that Sir Henry is so unlikeable is, I suspect, no accident. On the way to Baskerville Hall he even expresses support for capital punishment, the bastard.

Holmes is, incidentally, very much one of these “gentlemen” here; she ostentatiously refuses Mortimer’s offer of a “generous” reward, insisting that his fees are “on a fixed scale, except where I remit them altogether”. Of course, he is in fact quite happy to accept a rather large sum at the end of the film, which rather undercuts this! This is very much the Sherlock Holmes film that Kingsley Amis’s Jim Dixon would have written.

Oh, and I love the way that everyone pronounces “Devonshire” as “Devonshaaah”!

It’s a joy to see John Le Mesurier as Barrymore but then, of course, it’s a joy to see John Le Mesurier in anything. And, much as Francis de Wolf may be playing Mortimer in a slightly red herring-ish sort of way, it’s obvious that Stapleton is a baddie as soon as we see him. Bishop Frankland, on the other hand, is a figure of pure comic relief, and reminds me very much of the sort of pomposity-puncturing absurd authority figure soon to be seen in the likes of Beyond the Fringe and the rest of the “satire boom”. There’s a particularly hilarious camp moment, played dead straight, where Holmes assures this bibulous, forgetful old dunderhead that he, Holmes, is “fighting evil, as surely as you do”.

The adventures of Watson and Sir Henry as they encounter the escaped convict on the moor leads Sir Henry to start having those heart palpitations that the plot occasionally requires. Watson, of course, prescribes the traditional Hammer remedy of brandy. What else? And, given the amount of alcohol we see being drunk, most of the characters in this film must spend a fair amount of the time half-cut.

I love Holmes’ absurdly dramatic behaviour here; threateningly brandishing a dagger around in front of Mortimer, casually announcing his survival from the collapsing mine, and being deliberately rude to Sir Henry just so he can use him as bait for his final trap for Stapleton.

The conclusion is dramatic, although there is an extra twist from the book; Stapleton’s daughter (as she is here), here named Cecile, is a deliberate conspirator who relishes taunting Sir Henry at the climax, and it is she, not Stapleton, who drowns in the mire.

Another enjoyable Hammer, this, although the format is now becoming amusingly familiar.

Doctor Who: The Massacre

War of God

"But you promise me you won't get into trouble?"

"Yes, of course!"


After several of the excellent more recent recons, it's somewhat frustrating to go back to static pictures, and even more frustrating that there are no telesnaps! Still, Loose Cannon have done an excellent job, as always.

Its quite surprising that apparently Charles Preslin was just a made up character, especially as its a little odd for the Doctor, without pausing to find out exactly where or when he is, to blithely leave Steven in a tavern while he goes to hobnob with a local scientist. This hardly seems to fit well with his more active characterisation of late; John Lucarotti seems to be writing the Doctor of Season One. Not that it matters much though; he won't be writing much of the Doctor at all!

Steven's bewildered by the situation right from the moment the Doctor sets off, as are the viewers. Preslin's comment that he hopes the Doctor "succeeds" is especially confusing in that it isn't followed up. And what happens to Preslin anyway? A good episode nonetheless.

The Sea Beggar

"You are an extraordinary man, Tavannes. You see shadows where there is no sun."


Steven is caught up in an increasingly dangerous situation without a clue what's going on; this is extremely effective, and becomes even more so as events continue to spiral slowly out of control. His confusion over whether the Doctor is the Abbot of Amboise or not is shared by the viewer (although not by me, sadly, having seen it before). The script plays this up, making the Abbot a mysterious and less than trusted character even to his fellow conspirators. And Steven, of course, puts his foot in it; now almost no one trusts him, as the swordfight scene with Eric Thompson's splendidly hotheaded Gaston demonstrates.

Hartnell's hardly in this episode, incidentally, and he's credited only as the Abbot.

Priest of Death

"War is so tedious."


We're finally introduced to the childlike King and Catherine de Medici, silent for the moment. But once she does speak, her words have real power and we're left in little doubt that she means ill and will get what she wants. De Coligny gets a nice line: "Kings are recognised only by the power they wield. The Queen Mother seems to claim that power."

Hartnell is a revelation as the Abbot, playing a character sharply distinguished from the Doctor. Yet we're still left unsure whether or not they're the same person, which makes his death a very powerful scene. With the Doctor seemingly dead Steven ends this episode alone, apparently stranded, fleeing a mob which wants him dead. Has there ever been a bleaker ending?

Incidentally the lack of reprises works well, with no cliffhangers as such but each episode covering a day and punctuated by the tocsins. Each episode ends on a dramatic high rather than a cliffhanger, but this works.

Bell of Doom

"Now, they've all gone. All gone. None of them could understand. Not even my little Susan. Or Vicki. And as for Barbara and Chatterton... Chesterton... they were all too impatient to get back to their own time. And now, Steven. Perhaps I should go home, back to my own planet. But I can't... I can't..."


Easily the finest individual episode of Doctor Who yet, and that's saying something. Hartnell is quite breathtaking in this. We start with Steven lost, despondent, entirely defeated by events, until the Doctor suddenly turns up and takes charge. On my original viewing of this story I liked it a lot but marked it down for the non-explanation of the Doctor's whereabouts. But seeing it now in context I think I originally missed the point; the story is focused on Steven as he gets hopelessly tangled up in a situation hopelessly out of his depth. The absence of the Doctor is the point; we see how much he's needed, otherwise things can go very, very wrong. This is a Doctor Lite story, and better even than Blink.

The Doctor and Steven are in no physical danger from this point onwards, but the drama lies elsewhere. We get a foreshadowing of the later TARDIS scene as the Doctor, to Steven's bewilderment, quickly dismisses Anne to her aunt's. Steven asks him firmly "But Doctor, what is going on?" but the Doctor dismisses him in typical style: "There's no time for me to explain. Come along". This exchange may seem typical, and it is, but it's pivotal. The Doctor may not be acting unusually, but the wider situation makes the moral consequences of his acts far more serious than would normally be the case. This week we're in no light-hearted adventure serial.

Even Tavannes (the great Andre Morell) is horrified by Catherine de Medici's plans to use the mob rather than targeted assassinations to attack the Huguenots; this is genocide; "The innocent? Heresy can have no innocence". This is truly horrible. Fittingly, the Doctor and Steven leave at the exact moment when the massacre is about to start.

This story is part John Lucarotti style historical (something wonderful in itself of course, but...), and part radical experimentation with the format (Donald Tosh?). So the Doctor's comments about not changing history are, if anything, too reminiscent of The Aztecs and a little outdated post- Time Meddler. But the circumstances are very different here; Steven's anger is hardly unjustified. In sending Anne to her Aunt's, where she's certain to be searched for, the Doctor most probably has sent her to her death. The Doctor isn't really behaving differently to the way he always does here- his justifications of his actions on the grounds of not changing history are nothing new and, in another context, hardly controversial. But in a situation of such horror as this we feel very differently about it: "My dear Steven, history sometimes gives us a terrible shock. And that is because we don't fully understand. Why should we? After all, we're all too small to realise its final pattern". Hartnell delivers these words despondently, with restraint but also with more emotion than we've ever heard from him before. The Doctor firmly believes in his principles but doesn't feel the horror any less than Steven; he's just too world-weary to be shocked by it. It would be nice to see Steven's expression as he wordlessly leaves the TARDIS.

The Doctor's soliloquy that follows is the most revealing character moment the Doctor's had, and a triumphant performance from Hartnell, made all the more effective by well-judged silences, which will surely prove the highlight of his tenure. Forty years before Tennant, the Doctor's essential loneliness is laid bare. This is powerful stuff.

I'm actually quite tolerant of the final scenes, if we ignore Dodo's extraordinary accent. The policemen are a flimsy excuse for Steven to return, but I suspect they're supposed to be; Steven's made his point, but doesn't really want to leave the TARDIS this way. This lets him save face, and the Doctor lets him. Still, there's no excusing the glibness of Dodo's introduction or the carelessness of the fact that the TARDIS just takes off with this new passenger who, conveniently, has no friends or family to miss her. Dodo is poorly served by her introduction, but she actually provides a nice bit of catharsis for both the Doctor and Steven. The Doctor's comment that she looks like Susan is really just indicating what he wants her to be, as he's rather raw emotionally and afraid of being alone at this point. And Steven's ridiculous theory about Dodo proving Anne survived is no more than desperate straw clutching, but again it helps him get over his trauma and save face, and once again the Doctor lets him.



This is the best story so far by a long way- it works superbly as a historical but it's also a brave experiment with the format in this fantastically experimental season, with the absence of the Doctor, and the closing dramatisation of the core emotional themes of the show. And up to now Steven's been a vaguely defined character- a little stubborn, not too bright, but little else. Not any more. But the incredible thing about this story is that the Doctor has never seemed so three-dimensional and real. Hartnell is a revelation in the final scenes. 5/5.