Episode 3: "Priest of Death"(Using Loose Cannon Recon on Dailymotion)No recap of the "Sea Beggar" speech - and we instead are at the fictitious Preslin's shop while Anne is "rummaging around", while Steven is having a nap. After what seems to be the heavy sound of a door creaking shut followed by the faint clatter of Anne knocking something over - which we will never(?) see - although it sounded like a plate to me - she wakes him.
Oh, they got the "Sea Beggar" quote in there after all, with Steven wearily, sadly reciting it. Crafty.
Steven has decided that he must go back to the Abbott's house - much to Anne's panicked dismay. They are getting their money's worth out of these sets. The background to Preslin's shop is very nicely done in the reconstruction. I could almost believe that these are photos taken on the set - or telesnaps. Good work from these LC guys.
I am definitely enjoying this serial more while imagining it as that spin off series with Steven on post-Doctor solo time travel adventures.
Steven puts on clothes and a hat which we will never see. Loose Cannon have taken a good stab at it at 2:05.
Now we move to a council chamber with a full blooded debate going on.
This scene is thundering along, with Leonard Sachs giving it some shouty welly as they are all sat around the table- even though I have no full grasp of what he is kicking off about - but it's great to see some fine acting on display.
Because there are so few photos of the Queen in this story, she tends to sit and stare with the same expression - regardless of the arguments going on around her, which can't be helped - and she's probably that kind of character anyway. :?
I got bogged down in trying to guess who the man sat at the table on the far right at ... was.
Two wrong guesses I made were Keith Marsh of "Love Thy Neighbour" - "I'll have half!" fame.....
And Kenneth Kove, who was the librarian at the British Museum at the end of the Tony Hancock episode, "The Missing Page".
Checking Black Orchid's helpful photo cast listing (which I should have done in the first place)....
LinkAll of the council members are listed. Doh!! But which one he is I have no idea.
Moving on, and back at Preslin's shop, Steven is getting bossy with an overwraught Anne.
I think it's impossible to tell whether she would have worked as a companion as she seems to be pernanently stressed - and I don't think we will see any other character beats out of her. No humour. No real chemistry with Steven imo. Just a doomed person trapped inside a horrible historical event. It's difficult to tell what else the character could have been as that's all we have seen so far of the character - and I don't think she will surprise us in the rest of this episode or the final instalment.
I am suddenly reminded of Edith Keeler from Star Trek. Doomed to die. If this was Tennant, Donna would have lectured him and Anne would have been saved. But this is the first Doctor we are dealing with here. I know that he flees the story at the end, without a thought for saving any of the players - and that feels horrible, but I think it also feels right? This Doctor isn't going to do a Barbara - or a Tennant - and try to save people who shouldn't be saved, for fear of future horros he may set in motion by doing so?
Back in the council chambers and the worthy debate is going on. Still excellent, old school theatre acting. At one point Andre Morell says "You speak treason!" - and I could not help but hear Peter Davison's voice saying "fluently!" - one of the perils of audio-taping the Fifth Doctor's era and learning a lot of the episodes off by heart.
The meeting ends with a decision to play tennis - as one of the characters has a new racket. Not something I would expect to hear in Doctor Who: The Massacre.
Steven (accompanied by Anne) is back at the Abbot's pad and chatting to the priest ("of death?) and wanting to speak to who he thinks is the Doctor.
Wow, Hartnell's entered the scene at 08:50. As the Abbot. Let's see how he plays this. I have heard varying reports of how he plays it brilliantly differently, showing that he was by no means an actor on his last legs - and other reports that it's just played disappointingly like the Doctor. Zero difference. Time to find out which it is.
Sad to report, I don't think there's any chameleon like acting going on. Just the First Doctor sounding a bit more haughty than usual - and slightly bunged up and nasal, as if he has a cold. For a moment I felt he sounded verbally a little like Richard Hurndall, ironically.
So slightly different, but it still feels like this is the Doctor posing as someone. No wildly different Salamander type antics here. But I get the sense that Hartnell is taking the dual role very seriously, bless him - even if he is not seeing it as a licence to go for broke as Patrick did.
Steven frantically warns Nicholas of a plot to kill someone.
Indeed, elsewhere a would-be assassin called Bondot is preparing to do a Lee Harvey Oswald and shoot someone from a high vantage point.
Leonard Sachs gets shot. Hey, "The Good Old Days" wasn't that bad!
And I have identified my mystery man, thanks to the good old scrolling Loose Cannon caption at the bottom of the screen. His character is Teligny, played by one.... Oh, it's Michael Bilton, whom Black Orchid already noted had no photo reference in the Massacre cast list.
Not his only Who credit either.....
IMDBBack at the Abbot's place and Bill's in bad favour for screwing up somehow. Andre Morell is not happy with him.
I feel that Hartnell was making an effort to be cautious and correct as he said the name "de Coligny" at 14:28.
We have lost Bill's reaction to Andre Morrell refusing to let him retire to his chambers. There is a silence that suggests Hartnell did a typical facial reaction?
Andred from "The Invasion of Time" is now reporting that the attempt to cancel "The Good Old Days" has failed - and it is consequently curtains for the Abbot who is taking the rap for this failed assassination.
And again we have lost a Hartnell reaction to summoned guards entering the room who are going to take him away to his death. All we have is silence. What was Bill doing in those moments?
Teligny brings bad news of the assassination attempt to Charles IX, who goes into a right strop, vowing vengeance.
The wounded Leonard Sachs is being put to bed for a recuperative rest and Steven and Nicholas are mates again now. Another well acted scene - and then the corker of a shock for Steven when Teligny walks in and says that - as far as Steven is concerned - the Doctor has been murdered.
Barry Justice as Charles IX seems to be playing it as if the man is perhaps mentally unstable, just holding his insane, paranoid rage in check? Lovely scene between him and the - loftily serene in comparison - queen as they have a showdown of sorts near the episode's end. But both dangerous individuals, not to be crossed - and the Queen just ended the scene with a sudden venomous outburst about being "within grasp of the throne!!!!"
And so the episode ends with Steven arriving at the scene of what seems to be the Doctor's death. The crowd are blaming the Huge nose or something, which suggests that Pertwee's Doctor has recently passed through perhaps.
The crowd turns on Steven as if he were "A Frankenstien!!!" in one of the Universal movies - and he legs it. Steven seems to be doing a lot of running away in this story.
And Loose Cannon would have us believe that the episode ends with a shot of the Doctor dead on the ground. I guess that makes sense. :doc1:
If this were the only episode of The Massacre ever to return, I would not complain. It has some well acted scenes by some real old pros. It is the one episode where Hartnell is the Abbot for longest - and has a great ending.