Ian’s story is simple: he is sent to the Auto Da Fae for judgement, which to the Inquisition means execution. We follow him and Esteban as they go through the indignities, leading them to the stake to be burned to death.
Susan’s story involves the Doctor’s plan to pose as a cardinal and intervene in Ian’s impending demise by appealing to the very old and quite out of it King Felipe II. Felipe buys it...but Felipe‘s secretary and the Inquisition don’t, leading to him being added to the upcoming bonfire.
Most of Platt’s script for this half hour is based on his description of what Ian is going through at the hands of the Inquisition. This seems to be further shoring up what appears to be the theme of the story--namely, the previously stated contention that Earth’s history is just as brutal as some of the planets the Tardis has visited. What ends up being discordant is Susan’s side of the story. Yes, there are elements of this theme, even though those elements are mainly filtered through Felipe’s Secretary who is, like, Eeeevil and Such, but there are also moments of humor that seem out of place. The best moments of humor are those with a dark tinge--as when Catalina’s husband describes his present situation with the church with sarcasm that goes totally over Susan’s head--but some of the sequence with The Doctor and Susan doing their thing in the kind’s court just seem off. And there is also a number of callbacks to previous adventures--a number of which are from previous Companion Chronicles--that I felt didn’t fit with the ‘feel’ of a First Doctor Adventure.
Maybe it’s because I expect a Platt story to veer into the weird, but this second part of this doesn’t work as well for me as the first part did. But I do appreciate that he’s managing to keep the theme consistent, and am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
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