Bell of Doom (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve Episode 4)

The one where Steven goes into a strop and storms off the TARDIS...

Steven Taylor thinks his friend the Doctor is dead. He is a space pilot from the far future lost in the folds of history, in a strange time and country where it seems everybody wants you dead because of what you believe in. The only thing I reckon Steven Taylor truly believes in is himself. He is a very self-assured, self-confident character, which probably explains how he accepts the death of the Doctor so quickly and turns his attentions to self-preservation. He and Anne search Preslin's shop looking for the Doctor's clothes, and with them, Steven hopes, the TARDIS key. Because as a self-assured space pilot from the far future, he seems sure he'll be able to fly the TARDIS and escape 16th century France on his own.

I used to think Steven Taylor was a cookie-cutter replacement for Ian Chesterton's Dan Dare heroism, simply a younger incarnation of the requisite masculinity and brawn that formed a key part of Sixties Doctor Who (Ian, Steven, Ben, Jamie). But as I've watched and listened to his episodes through I've come to realise that Steven Taylor was actually quite a selfish, mildly unlikeable man whose stubborn confidence in his own thoughts and opinions never allowed him to become as endearing as his predecessor or successors. Peter Purves performs the written character well, but also gives Steven a certain cocky demeanour which I find slightly irritating.

Priest of Death (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve Episode 3)

The one where the Abbot of Amboise is murdered (or is it the Doctor?)...

I find it odd that Steven should care so much about the Sea Beggar. I mean, the audience must barely care at all, but Steven has no real reason to care either way if he lives or dies. By his own admission, he knows next to nothing about this period in French history, so how does he know that the Admiral de Coligny isn't supposed to be assassinated in the Rue des Fosse St Germain? To try and prevent the assassination might be the automatically humane response, but he is a time traveller - he needs to take a step back and consider the impact of dabbling with established events (it's not as if he hasn't got experience in such things - his run-ins with the meddling Monk should have taught him enough).

The truth is, Coligny didn't have a very pleasant final 48 hours on this earthly plain - the assassination attempt depicted in Priest of Death resulted in him losing a finger and shattering an elbow, and he was finally dispatched during the infamous St Bartholomew's Day (not Eve!) massacre by being run through with a sword, thrown out of a window into the street, and finally beheaded.

The Sea Beggar (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve Episode 2)

The one where Steven falls out of favour with both the Catholics and the Protestants...

I've got to seriously question the Doctor Who production team for scheduling a story which features two characters played by William Hartnell, and then let their star go on holiday for a week right in the middle of it all! It doesn't make sense, and might well be indicative of the turmoil going on behind the scenes at this time. Hartnell and producer John Wiles were not getting on at all, and the star's health was beginning to fail him more and more. Maybe Hartnell deserved a week off after the exhausting slog that was The Daleks' Master Plan, but all the same - why make a story which would potentially feature more Hartnell rather than less?

In the event, of course, The Massacre features an awful lot less of William Hartnell than the average story, which is bizarre when you consider he's supposed to be playing both the Doctor and the Abbot of Amboise. The Doctor disappears midway through War of God, and the Abbot only appears in episode 2 in a pre-filmed reprise from episode 1. It's laughable, really... Some might say the production team were being edgy and taking risks. I just think it smacks of ineptitude.

War of God (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve Episode 1)

The one where Steven gets mixed up in 16th century French politics...

As War of God begins, no mention is made of the previous adventure's legacy, of Sara's horrific death, the ravages of the Time Destructor, the devastation of Kembel, or the disintegration of the traitorous Galactic Alliance. The narrative is reset, with the Doctor and Steven stepping out of the TARDIS as if nothing ever happened. The Doctor seems his usual twinkly self, and Steven seems to be his usual slightly dissatisfied self (Steven is always moaning about wanting to move on or questioning why they're doing something - it can get quite tiresome at times).

As we learnt from The Reign of Terror, the Doctor loves French history, and as soon as he discovers they've landed in Paris in the year 1572, he's on the trail of "that strange brotherhood of apothecaries", in particular the scientist Charles Preslin, who it transpires is ahead of his time when it comes to germ theory. Now, I'm no student of French or scientific history, but a quick Google makes it clear to me that Preslin was not a real person, and germ theory wasn't actually proven until Louis Pasteur came along in the 19th century. It's true that a rudimentary understanding of infectious agents was put forward by the scholar Girolamo Fracastoro in 1546, but he was Italian, not French.