A pretty good story that has a lot of fun, memorable characters, but it also has wayyyy too many events.

The party lands in Florence and are immediately split up. While the Doctor meets with Machiavelli, Vicki spends some time with the pope. Oh, Steven is also there. He’s behind bars. Get used to that here.

The story is mostly about the pope’s brother, who has been given some power. Sadly, he’s quite bloodthirsty and the pope often has to step in. Meanwhile Machiavelli is plotting all over the place to get a position of power for himself.

And that’s what the story consists of mostly. Some smaller plots moving back and forth while the party meets with these characters and gets to know them.

That mostly works, since the characters are well written and interactions between them and the party are always a joy, but the overall story is not notable at all.

What is fun though, are the main cast moments. Like Vicki convincing the pope she’s a poet by reading the song “Daisy, Daisy” out loud. This is also a good moment to mention Peter Purves’s first Doctor. He’s way more jolly and energetic than William Russell’s. Which is fitting for this era of the show, so that’s quite a treat. Steven as a character gets absolutely nothing here, though.

While it really is a collections of moments, the biggest event it has, is a potential poison in the wine. This causes confusion and controversy among everyone. Who did the poison? Does the poison even exist? It’s quite a web. And while fitting of Machiavelli, gets the story a bit too deep in its own conspiracy.

And that’s all frankly. Loads of moments with a fun cast of characters, but the moments themselves are not that strong. Worth a listen? Probably. The cast carry it well and are enjoyable. If you have any interest in the time period, this would be pretty cool I imagine. But it is no hidden masterpiece. It’s a collection of webs and threads that aren’t all that solidly constructed, but well-presented and reacted to.