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A review by geoff
The Massacre by James Cooray Smith
3.0
"The Doctor and the Abbot are both real within the fiction. But on a metafictional level they are both the same person, in that they are both played by William Hartnell. It is not stretching the point to see the duplication of characters played by William Hartnell as serving the duality of Christian religion with which the serial concerns itself.
"Both the Huguenot and Catholic figures spend ‘The Sea Beggar’ and ‘Priest of Death’ seeking the Abbot; the former because they believe he’s the Doctor, and the latter because they lack faith in his abilities despite knowing him to be the Abbot. Throughout the televised story Steven struggles to reach the Abbot, believing him to be the Doctor and thus his salvation. His attempts to assert a personal relationship with this figure are wholly unsuccessful and very nearly get him killed. They do, or so it appears to Steven for nearly 24 anguished hours, get the Doctor killed.
"Then, just when Steven is in absolute despair, the Doctor reappears. He is not dead. He was never dead. Steven was wrong. The Doctor was never a false Abbot. The Abbot was a false Doctor of Steven’s own making. For Steven, the Doctor’s reappearance is a resurrection. Until the old man walks into Preslin’s shop, he is wholly convinced that the Doctor is dead and believes that he has seen his brutalised corpse.
"Resurrection is the central mystery of all variations of Christianity. And The Massacre is a story explicitly concerned with variations in Christianity, which ends with the Doctor’s apparent resurrection three days after the audience last saw him, and which begins with Steven being turned away from an Inn.
"Just putting that out there."
-James Cooray Smith, The Massacre
"Both the Huguenot and Catholic figures spend ‘The Sea Beggar’ and ‘Priest of Death’ seeking the Abbot; the former because they believe he’s the Doctor, and the latter because they lack faith in his abilities despite knowing him to be the Abbot. Throughout the televised story Steven struggles to reach the Abbot, believing him to be the Doctor and thus his salvation. His attempts to assert a personal relationship with this figure are wholly unsuccessful and very nearly get him killed. They do, or so it appears to Steven for nearly 24 anguished hours, get the Doctor killed.
"Then, just when Steven is in absolute despair, the Doctor reappears. He is not dead. He was never dead. Steven was wrong. The Doctor was never a false Abbot. The Abbot was a false Doctor of Steven’s own making. For Steven, the Doctor’s reappearance is a resurrection. Until the old man walks into Preslin’s shop, he is wholly convinced that the Doctor is dead and believes that he has seen his brutalised corpse.
"Resurrection is the central mystery of all variations of Christianity. And The Massacre is a story explicitly concerned with variations in Christianity, which ends with the Doctor’s apparent resurrection three days after the audience last saw him, and which begins with Steven being turned away from an Inn.
"Just putting that out there."
-James Cooray Smith, The Massacre