Doctor Who, season 3 continues …

The Massacre is another early Doctor Who adventure that doesn’t exist in the BBC archives anymore, and so I’m “watching the audio” thanks to the CGI created by the clever people at Who Recons.

The CGI of this story benefits from having more sets and street scenery for the scenes to be decorated with, plus some costumes (not all of which are convincing).  The limitations of not recreating the scenes precisely enough, and not being able to properly show what’s actually going on, are not a huge distraction this time, but they are there.

The story is far more of a historical/educational exercise than a traditional adventure, and this makes you wish we could see the live-action version.  There’s precious little to hook your attention on, although there is *just* enough to keep you watching.  The “Royal Court” scenes play a lot like the ones in The Musketeers on BBC1 right now.

Hartnell is on holiday for episode two which, given that he’s playing two parts (the Doctor, and the Abbot), means that two primary characters of the story are missing from a crucial episode.  Throughout episode 2, no one really cares what’s happened to the Doctor (something that suddenly becomes important in episode 3).  By the time the Abbot gets on-screen, it’s episode 3 and he’s barely around long enough before getting killed off.

In short, this is one story which does not work in the absence of Hartnell and I can’t help but wish they could have worked out something better.  The sprawling 12-part Dalek Masterplan could probably have spared an episode without the Doctor given the much larger cast (plus two companions, plus the Daleks) to keep things going until Hartnell returned.  Although, that said, it did “appear” as though Hartnell was missing for great chunks of the latter episodes as it was.

I wonder if this was Hartnell’s illness showing, or Hartnell himself was just fed up with the show by now?  It’s certainly starting to feel like “Doctor Who without the Doctor” in this story.  Whilst I’ve no doubt that Peter Purves could easily cover for Hartnell for a week or two, given a sidekick/companion of his own, the stories just aren’t written to give him that opportunity.

Next time … Bell of Doom