The Ravelli Conspiracy

Early Adventures #3.3

Released: 10 November 2016

Listened: 2/8/20

Another Early Adventure, which means full cast and a longer running time, with Peter Purves playing the Doctor. It’s also a pure historical, but instead of massacre and plague, we’ve got 16th Century Italian politics, which means the Medicis and Machiavelli, because why not go all the way? It’s not nearly as grim as one might expect from that setup; in fact, nobody dies at all, not even minor characters. Aside from all the machinations, the plot could almost be described as silly, with guards regularly giving up on understanding what’s going on and just doing whatever the nearest character tells them. As far as the TARDIS team is concerned, it’s one of those “get back to the TARDIS and leave without upsetting history” stories, where they just happen to fall into the middle of things. And the plots are very complicated, as you’d expect, given the historical characters. Giovanni de’Medici (Pope Leo X) seems to be portrayed accurately, as a great lover of the arts and interested in keeping the peace at all costs, whereas his brother Giuliano is painted as a bloodthirsty villain. It’s not the most memorable of stories, mostly because the TARDIS crew spend much of it reacting to events.