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Production Code CC
Cast
Crew none : Incidental Music Plot Outline from Wikipedia Hours later the discovery of the church warden’s body leads the locals to suspect the three strangers at the inn. The local Squire is called to intervene and adjudicate, and ends up charging Ben and Polly with the murder. Employing trickery to obtain their freedom, they split up. Ben hides at the church as a safe haven until a revenue man, who is tracking the local smugglers, Josiah Blake, disturbs him. In the meantime Cherub and some pirates have kidnapped the Doctor and taken him to the Albatross. He attempts to bargain with Pike, a cleverer man than Cherub, and finds himself kept aboard ship while the captain goes ashore. Pike also decides to try and make an alliance with the Squire to protect himself while he searches for Avery’s treasure. Cherub accompanies Pike ashore. The greedy Squire is the organiser of the local smuggling ring and offers to cut Pike and his pirates in. They are interrupted by Polly, who has come implore the Squire to help her find the Doctor – and is shocked now to see him in the company of the kidnapping pirate Cherub. The Squire, Pike and Cherub now concoct a 2am beach landing for the smuggling loot. After an altercation in the cave used for the smuggling, Ben is reunited with Polly but they are handed over to Blake, who pretends to be convinced they are the smugglers. In truth he knows the Squire to be crooked. The Doctor has meanwhile escaped from the ship and finds his friends in the churchyard. Blake works out a smuggling drop is due soon and heads off for more revenue men to break the smuggling ring. The smuggling alliance has by now fallen apart: the Squire has realised he is dealing with a ruthless pirate who will not honour any bargains with him while Cherub has decided to locate the main prize, Avery’s gold, for himself. The Squire too sets off to the find gold, as do the time travellers since the Doctor is convinced the rhyme of the church warden is the key. He works out the names Ringwood, Smallbeer, and Gurney pertain to graves in the crypt but before he can find the treasure the other seekers arrive. Cherub wounds the Squire, and then forces the Doctor to confess the rhyme – but not their grave significance – and concludes that Deadman too is a name of one of Avery’s former pirates. Cherub in turn is slain by a vengeful Pike, who now threatens to pillage the entire village in his search for Avery’s treasure. The Doctor bargains with Pike for the lives of the villagers if he shows him the treasure and, with this agreed, they identify the four graves and triangulate between them to reveal the location of the gold. But the treasure is indeed cursed, as Longford and Avery foretold. No sooner does Pike have it than Blake and an armed patrol of revenue men arrive. Aided by the injured Squire – who repents of his sins – Blake kills Pike, and the pirate force is routed. As the battle dies down, the Doctor and his companions slip away to the TARDIS.
Analysis By Cuisle Polly and Ben's first experience of the past is an attempt at a sort of romantic swashbukling story. Cornwall in the seventeenth century was, of course, a place where pirates DID ply their dubious trade, but the idea must have seemed a bit clichéd even in 1966. The first thought really has to be 'what were they thinking of'. Well, what they were thinking of was visual spectacle. The reason pirate stories were popular in the early years of cinema is their visuality. Interesting costumes, ships, treasure, sword fights etc., all make for good visuals, and its easy enough to hang a plot onto it. One good thing about this plot is they don't overcomplicate it too
much. The Doctor knows the secret of where the treasure is. He tries
to stop the pirates finding out, but when his friends are threatened
he has to reveal the secret. But by then the militia are on the case
and the pirates are killed or captured. Although the historical stories were coming in for some flak at this stage, and the producers quietly dropping them in favour of more straightforward science fiction, this one was well received. The colourful and larger than life characters of pirate captain Pike, squire Edwards the smuggler, and the revenue man Blake who is out to bring both down, worked well. And the fact that much of the show was filmed on location in Cornwall, giving it a more realistic feel than studio based stories, made it a popular first episode of the new series. Sadly, it is one of the missing episodes so we can only go by the
contemporary accounts as to how good it actually was. |
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