“I always did. Victoria wore it. She travelled with me for a time.”
”Well so long as Albert didn’t wear it”- The Doctor and Sarah Jane.
Phillip Hinchcliffe did love his horror, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising that one of his greatest stories makes it into my Top Five horror stories.The Pyramids of Mars initially started out as something totally different. Space grain and crocodile headed Egyptian Gods were the original plot, but were heavily edited (well, changed entirely really) before they were put into production.
As it is the episode pitches the perfect air of mystery that is so captivating about the ancient Egyptian mythology of Gods and mummies, so turning mummies into insulated robots is a stoke of genius on this part. The main plot of the story is the Doctor, being oddly moody is summoned to Earth by the Brig when pulled off course by a face. Yup, a face. But never mind that there are more important issues as the Doctor soon tries to get his hands dirty in an adventure involving a moody Egyptian.
Namin adds a very threatening level to the whole story, that of a stark raving mad worshipper who is oddly proficient in organ playing. I don’t know why he’s playing the organ either – don’t panic, but it adds such a spooky atmosphere that you can’t help but enjoy the recital.
Despite the consistently excellent reviews of the episode, watching through it can be a somewhat slow experience. The plot itself is excellently hung together, with the excellently conceived Sutekh, brilliantly voiced by Gabriel Woolf is a menacing and threatening creation and makes for a great foil to the Doctor’s character, who under his normal stride spends his time being suave and energetic is here reduced to the supplicant of an overwhelming power.
Sutekh is not the only menace to the Doctor and Sarah however, as the reanimated corpse Marcus Scarman. The mere idea of the walking dead is a terrible thought in it’s self, however the character also offers a chilling perspective into the power Sutekh hold over the whole situation and to how much the protagonists are near powerless in the drama.
I’m rambling, and that’s mainly because it’s difficult to put into words why this is such a good episode, it’s mainly just how the whole thing hangs together.that makes it so enjoyable, which sounds like a real cop out way of describing it. Which I guess it is….
1 comment:
Personally, I think Pyramids of Mars is one of the most overrated Dr. Who stories. I think it is trying too hard to be an Hammer horror. The idea of robotic mummies is such a banal idea.
I think Gabriel Woolf is fantastic as Sutekh, but even with his great performance, Sutekh comes across as too much like a man in a mask. Its hard to think of the character as an almost all-powerful being. It would have been much better to have made Sutekh like Fenric; a kind of unseen and ethereal presence, rather than a character that we see in his own form.
The story is also full of really clumsy plot-holes.
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