A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 27. The Temple of Evil (The Aztecs, Episode One)

There are two things that make me especially happy in this episode, and I can’t decide which I like best--Ian dressed as a big ol’ bird, or the Doctor having a crush.

The crew materialize inside the tomb of an Aztec priest.  Barbara, who it turns out specialized in MesoAmerican History, casually puts on a bracelet and is mistaken for the reincarnation of the priest Yetaxa.  Realizing her power, she decides she’s going to fix Aztec culture by, among other things, abolishing the practice of human sacrifice--which doesn’t really sit well with Tlotoxtl, the priest in charge of human sacrifice (John Ringham).  As the rest of the crew are mistaken for Barbara’s servants, Ian is assigned to lead the army, putting him in the path of the present leader, Ixta (Ian Cullen), and the Doctor is sent to spend time with the elders, who form a sort of advisory counsel--especially Cameca (Margot Van der Burgh).  When it is perceived that Susan interrupts a sacrifice, Tlotoxtl becomes convinced of what he’s suspecting--that Barbara is not their reincarnated priest, and the whole crew are frauds.

Let’s get the jaguar in the middle of the room out of the way first: all of the Aztec character are played by British actors in make-up.  Here is where I remind you that 1964 was not the same as 2020 and sensitivity towards other cultures was not as much a concern as it is today.  But in some cases, like with Ringham*, it’s hard to ignore and it can be a little unsettling.  There’s also a couple of moments with Susan that are a little winge-worthy (Stop modeling that helmet, girl!)

...which is a pity because, Barbara apparently not being okay with human sacrifice but not above a little grave robbing because she finds something pretty (I try not to think about whether she took this bracelet off of the corpse’s person) notwithstanding, this is a fairly decent episode with a lot more nuance than you’d expect thanks to writer John Lucarotti.  Apparently, Lucarotti researched Aztec culture, and I like how he never lose sight of the richness of the period.  He seems to approach this as a complex, vital society all their own regardless of what we’ve come to believe in regards to modern morality. 

Lucarotti uses the contrast between a 15th century Aztec city and then-modern society to introduce the thesis of the serial--namely that, as the Doctor himself tells Barbara, “You can’t rewrite history--not one line!"**  That he does so pretty organically is pretty impressive, and the conflict seems to arise naturally out of the characters.  And that naturalness does extend to most of the Aztec personages if, you know, they weren’t British and all.  I like both Cameca and Autloc (Keith Pyott), the priest of knowledge...who you suspect has figured out the pointlessness of human sacrifice but continues to go along with it.

Everyone, even Susan seems to have a character moment, but I am so charmed by The Doctor becoming smitten with Cameca, and it’s one of my favorite moments of the first season so far given how unexpected Hartnell’s reaction to her is.  I also like the way the Doctor and Ian’s relationship continues to evolve, with Hartnell being allowed to show some dark humor in his responses to Russell’s comment and questions.

Regrettable choices aside, this is a pretty great episode and a good template for what the ‘pure historical’ serials should be.  I’m looking forward to seeing this play out.

*--I know you expect me to comment on Ringham’s vaguely Joker-esque make-up job, but I’m more concerned with the way the wig he’s wearing looks vaguely Mod-ish.
**--I know, I know.  That rule gets bent, twisted, flaunted and out and out broken in later seasons leading up to and including NuWho.  At this point, just go with it.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#676

This week we honor the passing of one of the great genre icons by celebrating the career of John Saxon!  First up, Des and Chris takes a look at David Cronenberg’s....racing film? Fast Company.  Then I check in on the cheesy 1982 sword-and-sorcery (kinda) ‘epic’ Prisoners of The Lost Universe!

The trailers are below, as are a countdown of the thirty highest rated Saxon films, an excerpt from a 2014 interview where he talks about Marlon Brando and Bruce Lee, and versions of Lalo Schifrin’s Enter The Dragon theme by guitarist Chris Barker and The Korean Pops Orchestra!

Listen to Dread Media #676 here

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 26. The Keys of Marinus (The Keys of Marinus, Episode Six)

And in this episode, Terry Nation realizes he has to wrap up his cascade of ideas.  After having rambled through five episodes with ideas instead of stories, we get a lot of story to wrap up.

In reaction to last episode’s cliffhanging kidnapping of Susan, Barbara leads Sabetha and Altus into a search and rescue.  The crew--along with Tarron, who is beginning to believe that Ian’s been set up--lay a trap to locate the remaining conspirator and the micro-key, free Ian and head back to Arbitan’s.

Now we know Arbitan’s been killed, and the leader of the Voord is wearing his robes with the hood pulled up to conceal that Tokasatu helmet thing, and he tricks Ian into giving him the final micro-key...but Ian has pulled a switch (remember that fake key from part three?), causing the MacGuffin Mind Control Machine to blow up.  The crew all escape before the pyramid is atomized, and the Doctor and company leave Marinus in the hands of Sabetha to rebuild.

This was a disappointing end, and a disappointing serial overall.  The Voord are just people in funny suits, given no personality whatsoever.  There are two big reveals in this episode, both of which are telegraphed.  And there is an anti-climatic feel once everyone returns to Arbitan’s pyramid.

I say that to say this.  I just watched this serial over the course of a week and change at the age of 56.  This was designed to be watched primarily by children over the span of six weeks.  What I see in this does not necessarily make it a failure.  I will say it’s a big drop from ‘The Daleks,’ and that it is a little too scattershot to be successful as a coherent whole--once again, I wonder if this story could have been condensed/restructured so that it flowed a bit better.  But I also see something which implies that the Doctor was planning on destroying that MacGuffin all along, giving the end and the bit of trickery a somewhat Cartmell-ian feel to it.

And there are still enough nice bits--in this wrap up, I liked the way the relationship between the Doctor and Ian seems to have been restructured to the point where they genuinely like and trust each other while still getting on each other nerves, and the way the Doctor trusts Barbara enough that he doesn’t scold her for holding back information about Susan from him.  I will say this is the serial where I’m beginning to wonder if Ian and Barbara are busy knocking boots in between episodes, but that may just be my twisted mind (wait until we get to Tegan and Nyssa’s shared bedroom....with only one bed....).

So this serial didn’t work for me....but it must have worked for British families in 1964, because I’m still talking about it, and the series as a whole, today.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 25. Sentence of Death (The Keys of Marinus, Episode Five)

There’s an interesting idea here--an idea that I feel actually earns the need for more than one episode.  It’s sloppily, at spots out and out ineptly explored...but it’s interesting.

Ian, as we learned in last episode’s cliffhanger, found the last micro-key just in time to be coshed into unconsciousness and framed for the murder of the micro-key’s guard (who just happened to be one of the agents Arbitan sent out to find said keys).  Since the city in this sector assumes the guilt of accused, the burden is on Ian to prove he didn’t do it.  He is allowed to enlist an advocate on his behalf, and he chooses the Doctor.  The Doctor sends Sabetha and Altos to hit the law books and Barbara and Susan to do some detective work.  Nation realizes he should get Susan to do something useful, and has her trick baddie Tarron (Henley Thomas) into implicating himself, which leads to a Perry Mason stunt to out him.  However, since the crew has nothing to prove that Ian wasn’t in cahoots with Tarron, he is sentenced to die....

I really think the idea of a society of law based on guilt until proven innocent (something I think several countries around today still follow) is interesting, even if I don’t agree with Ian hissing about how barbaric it is.  The only nasty people involved in this trial are the ones who are in on this conspiracy to steal the micro-key; if it wasn’t for their rather silly hats that make them look like they’re wearing turkey frills on their heads, I would have no problem taking the adjudicators seriously.  Their conclusion--that the Doctor proved Ian didn’t kill the guard, but did not prove he wasn’t complicit with Tarron in the crime--is actually reasonable.  It’s this angle that appeals to me.

Of course, this being a Terry Nation script, there are things that annoy me.  The mystery of the actual killer is obvious on a Scooby-Doo level, and not helped at all by Thomas’ pantomime performance.  The sketchy nature of their forensics seems a bit handwavy.  And Altus and Sabetha are reduced to a single scene of them going through books together, which makes me wonder why Nation created these characters in the first place.  But the pluses outweigh the negative this time out, and the serial as a whole seems to be gaining momentum again after a couple of rambly, ill-conceived segments.  It’ll be interesting to see if this serial, which has been mixed so far, sticks the landing.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 24. The Snows of Terror (The Keys of Marinus, Episode Four)

They say a hero is defined by his villain.  I say this because this episode--the halfway point of this serial--is made by the villain of the piece.

His name is Vasor, played by Francis De Wolff, and he is glorious in his self-centered misanthropy.  Before the half hour is up, we will have seen him commit attempted murder, lie outright solely for profit....and attempt to rape Barbara.  His delightfully evil antics--wrecking a rope bridge so the group can’t return; hiding a bag of raw meat in the furs he sells to Ian so the Stock Footage Wolves will come after and eat him; tying up Altos so he will die of exposure to the extreme cold of this place--are the lifeblood of this story because when you strip his influence away, there’s not much here.

Vasor comes into Ian and Barbara’s lives when he takes them into his hut.  When asked, he tells Ian of a stranger who broke into his abode demanding he help him look for his friends.  Ian goes off in search of this stranger--as well as Susan and Sabetha--and has to exchange his travel dial for furs to protect him from the cold.  It is outside that Ian finds the tied-up Altos and the bag of meat, and learns that the remaining members of their crew is in a cave in the mountains.  Ian forces Vasor to lead them to the cave and discovers a chamber where the third micro-key is secreted in a solid block of ice....protected by three figures wielding elaborate weaponry.

There is a puzzle aspect of this segment like the segment before it, but it’s rather simple.  And I found the figures, unlike those of the Voord, neither alien or scary, as for the second time in the row we’re presented with medieval knights in armor (albeit in this case, rather comically too-big armor ).  But I was so entertained at Vasor’s misbehavior that I was willing to forgive the flaws and lack of continuity (Behold the automatically reassembling rope bridge!).  And I was more than willing to forgive the nature of those guardians when they come for Vasor as the crew blinks out.

Even though Barbara does stand up to Vasor’s lusty attentions, at one point getting ready to bean him with a poker, Ian is the Action Star here.  Altos and Sabetha don’t do much and Susan...Susan gets to turn the knob on a steam pipe.  There’s still lots of Susan sobbing and fretting and crying that gets on my nerves, and I’m beginning to wonder what our temporary companions--the first of many throughout the series’ history--are actually contributing.  Surely someone other than Sabetha could have kept hold of those micro-keys?

I liked this segment better than the last, and all of that is due to Francis De Wolff.  He shows up in another role in a later Hartnell serial, ‘The Myth Makers,’ and I cannot see what he’ll be up to next.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#675

It’s time for another dive into obscure horror franchises with Des and Tom!  This time out, we looked at The Mangler Trilogy!

You remember The Mangler, don’t you?  That weird-ass Tobe Hooper adaptation of an early Stephen King story that arguably should not have been adapted?  Ted Levine as a Maine police detective with a Texas twang?  Well, there were two sequels, and we cover them...and discover that each film is a microcosm of the state of horror at the time they were made.  Plus Lance Henrickson not giving a fuck, Reggie Bannister being totally oblivious to the nastiest stairwell ever and, for fans of our review of Verotika a few weeks back, a really bad ‘French’ accent!

The trailers are below, as are a list of the best ‘worst’ Stephen King films, and music from Billy Idol (in a video directed by Hooper) and White Skull!

Listen to Dread Media #675 here

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 23. The Screaming Jungle (The Keys of Marinus, Episode Three)

With this episode, I am now officially annoyed with Susan.

She’s only in the first quarter-to-a-third of this half hour, and her time is spent screaming, crying and whining.  She contributes nothing to the flow of the story.  Carol Ann Ford is a lovely person, I’m sure, but if Susan is supposed to be our identification character, she is failing something fierce at her job.

That being said...

Ian and Barbara investigate the site of the second key, a building in the middle of a dense jungle.  The denizen within is a dying biologist whose experiments in....plant growth?...has caused the foiliage outside to literally come alive.  As the jungle breaks through the walls of his lab, the two must figure out the seemingly random series of letters and numbers and obtain the key before it overwhelms them.

According to my esteemed colleague Dave Probert of Jackdaw Meanderings, this and the next episode in the serial is the 60‘s equivalent of NuWho’s Second Unit Episodes--Hartnell was on vacation, so Altos and Sabetha serve as the companions for the original companions, who do the heavy lifting in Hartnell’s place.  Of course, imagine my consternation when these five characters proceed to...split up into smaller crews, thus making me ask why they couldn’t break up into three teams last episode.  It’s all Ian and Barbara--Ian, incidentally, still wearing that really suave Asian get-up--as they dodge various traps set by the biologist (who I don’t think ever introduces himself, but is called Darrius in the end credits) and puzzle out the problem as plants break through the walls.

This leg of the search...isn’t very good.  I was a little pissed, especially after her display of Action-tude last episode and her wish Ian wouldn't treat her as 'Dresden China', at how Barbara is a little too reliant on her screams once the couple take center stage.  Between this and ‘The Daleks,’ Terry Nation has not shown much use for female characters as a whole and, while I acknowledge that 1964 is a way different mindset than ours, it’s beginning to stick out strongly. And evidence that Nation was a little on the lazy side grows with the use of the travel dials to vroop our school teaching friends out before things get too dire.

There is a wonderfully low-tech bit of business near the top of the show, when Barbara triggers a secret entrance way by retrieving a false key from this funky-looking dog idol.  I did not realize the hands of the idol were the arms of an actor, stained to match the idol, until the trap was triggered.  It’s a nice solution to a problem that I found kind of charming, a way to make things happen within the constraints of a very small budget.  The phony vines being led by strings...well, not so much.

I am getting more and more convinced that ‘Keys to Marinus’ was a major inspiration for Graham William’s ‘Key To Time’ arc that encompassed the series’ sixteenth season.  The business with Barbara finding the false key could be seen as an inspiration for the opening of ‘The Androids of Tara,’ arguably the best serial Williams ever produced.

You would think that the literally episodic nature of this serial would better disguise the length of this serial...and yet I’m tiring of this a lot quicker than I did ‘The Daleks.’  I guess we’ll see if I continue to tire as I slog towards its conclusion.