In Nazi-occupied Paris, the Eighth Doctor and Lucie face the horrific and the grotesque at a rather unusual theater in ‘The Scapegoat’.
The Scapegoat is an unusual story. In some ways, it has a nice mix of familiar Doctor Who elements. The Eighth Doctor and Lucie arrive in German-occupied Paris in World War Two. Along with Nazis, they also encounter an alien race.
But there’s also a strong sense of the bizarre and the macabre to this story, too. The Theatre des Baroque always has shows designed to horrify and disgust the audience. The people running the place strongly resemble talking goats on two legs. Even the reason for the violence itself is an unusual one.
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It’s perhaps not surprising that a story so bizarre has been written by British comics legend Pat Mills. It was mentioned in the review for his previous Eighth Doctor Adventure, Dead London, that a lot of the stories he writes tend to share similar themes. A commentary on society and fascism mixed in with science-fiction and lots of violence. The Scapegoat is no exception.
The horror and the humor
It also has to be said that Samantha Bond is absolutely loathsome as Mother Baroque. She’s literally the kind of villain that only hears what she wants to hear. But at the same time, she’s someone trapped in ancient tradition, an absolutely frustrating character who just can’t see reason. Due to both Mill’s writing and Bond’s performance, she works very well as a villain that you just love to hate.
However, it’s far from being completely doom and gloom. In fact, one thing that stands out about The Scapegoat is how it mixes the horror with a great deal of humor. Lucie gets so many great lines, especially as she was hoping to go to Moulin Rouge, and keeps expecting Ewan McGregor to turn up.
Surprisingly, even the scenes with the Nazis leads to a lot of scenes of pure farce. How evil they are is acknowledged, but neither the Doctor (nor Mills, it seems) can resist the chance of making them look foolish.
The grim and the tragic
And yet mixed in with both the horror and the humor is grimness and tragedy, too. Not too much, but enough to make you think. And with a title like The Scapegoat, you can expect that. It’s not just Max Paul, a man who continually suffers so much for the worst reasons, that you feel sympathy for. It’s for all the scapegoats in the world. All the victims, and all the people who go through too much suffering for no reason.
But what’s really wonderful about this story is how it shows hope for those people, too. That some people do escape their fate of being “the scapegoat”. That they can avoid being the victim.
Next: Review: Eighth Doctor Adventures: Wirrn Dawn (audio)
Re-listening to The Scapegoat was a great experience. It wasn’t a story that came across as a favourite before, but it’s one of those rare stories where, like The God Complex, the more you think about it, the more you enjoy it. A rather excellent entry for the Eighth Doctor Adventures.