The Eighth Doctor takes Lucie to Paris, and immediately regrets that decision when Those Wacky Nazis show up and the TARDIS is kidnapped. Lucie is still a bit keen to check out occupied France and see what Le Moulin Rouge was really like. However, she's also kidnapped and ends up in a theatre of horror staffed by bleating goat people.
Lucie's made to perform in the play, which ends with the lead actor (Max) being beheaded. As it turns out, he's a rather literal scapegoat: a goat alien whose sacred ritual job consists of taking damage instead of his other alien family members. The group can murder him again and again by using a time gimmick, and using that trick, they've been making a regular living as actors for centuries now. They had to leave their planet after it was struck by disaster.
Max is honored to have that sacred duty, but the immortality machine is running low on energy, which is why the TARDIS is needed for spare parts. The Doctor won't have it and decides to con the Gestapo into taking him to the TARDIS, crashing the play and letting him give a magnificently hammy performance while he explains the goat people's history. He tells them that their home planet is actually safe to return to by now, and that they can stop the whole scapegoat business too, since that's just a silly tradition. There's no actual need for a scapegoat in any society. In fact, he should know, because he was a damned hated one for the Time Lords once but he managed to make all eight of his lives quite nice so far in the end.
Lucie's a bit anxious about leaving the goat people's time reversal equipment with the Nazis, but the Doctor shrugs her off — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Tropes
- All Part of the Show: Helped by Eight's outfit, since he's dressed as an "aristo" anyway.
- Bad "Bad Acting"
- Damsel in Distress: Both Lucie and the TARDIS, as usual.
- Gorgeous Period Dress: Lucie, with a side order of Of Corset Hurts.
- Gratuitous French: The Doctor and Lucie toss some out at the very beginning. The Doctor's quite good at it, but to call Lucie's French bad is an understatement.
- Immortality Hurts
- Just a Stupid Accent: The German characters speak German-accented English among themselves.
- Of Corsets Sexy: Subverted. It's what Lucie was going for, but the Doctor doesn't quite know what to say, and she tells him that if he says she looks cheap she'll smack him.
- Shown Their Work: The German accents are very good in this episode, as opposed to last time's disaster.
