Pyramids Of Mars: Ranking - 179

 Pyramids Of Mars

(Season 13, Dr 4 with Sarah Jane,25/10/1975-15/11/1975, producer: Phillip Hinchcliffe, script writer: Robert Holmes, writer: Stephen Harris (aka Robert Holmes and Lewis Griefer), director: Paddy Russell) 

Rank: 179

'𓀓👽💤𓀁𓀄𓀒𓀠𓀡𓀫𓀿🌎🤯💢 

It’s the Mummy’s curse story with scifi overtones, the one where Tom Baker and Sarah Jane Smith facing down a giant mummy and an alien buried in a pyramid who turns out to have God-like powers. As a fully signed up Egyptologist and Whovian (though some people don’t like that term. Whoover? Whore? What is the proper term these days?) this story sounds right up my street. It’s certainly not bad: the regulars give their all, Gabriel Woolf’s whispery turn as Sutekh is why sofas were made for hiding behind despite being in a mask throughout and only really having his voice to work with and as 1970s production values go I’ll happily soak up all the mummy costumes, model shots of pyramids and alien spaceships (even if, for once, the modern series did mummy effects quite a bit better). Given that this is another one of those DW stories conceived, written and shot to order in a ridiculously short space of time after other ideas fell through at the last minute as they so often did, it’s a wonder its as good as it is. To many fans it’s the best single story DW ever did and pharoah nuff as it were – it does feature one of the best Doctors, one of the best companions and one of the best baddies after all. I’ve always felt there was something slightly hollow about this story though, that it doesn’t give you the extras DW usually gives you especially in this golden era, that there are no shiny b-plots, no little bits of magic dialogue to make things sparkle(despite being written by Robert Holmes under a pseudonym whose usually so strong on that sort of thing), no twists or turns to keep the thing going. Like the pyramid itself this story only has one point throughout and that’s a straight fight between the Doctor and Sutekh; every scene pretty much revolves around this, without the usual DW storytelling brilliance of detail, background and motivation. It’s just a bad guy whose been asleep for several centuries who wants to take over the world, stopped by a good guy in a long scarf who wants Humans to be free. Even this basic story is recycled from Egyptian folklore, a little too obviously: there really was a war between Set (aka Sutekh) and Horus (Osiruses’ father and thus the founder of the Osirians, Sutekh’s home race) that ended up with the former being imprisoned for 7000 years. As far as I know he never did arrive in England in 1911, but an awful lot of Egyptian texts revolve around the fact that he will one day and what that might be like so it’s not that big a leap to make it a DW plot. Now that’s not unique to this story. A lot of the Hinchcliffe years are recycled from some other source and this is no different to the other popular stories around it that riff on Frankenstein or Dracula or Sherlock Holmes or (endlessly) Quatermass, but this one seems even more of a cheat than usual. I mean, even the scifi elements are in the original Egyptian text as their Gods all came from outer space. In short, if I had to write a DW story to order in a short space of time because nothing else was working and I had no ideas then that’s exactly what I’d do too: look for a suitable text that already exists and embellish it. The thing about ‘Pyramids’ compared to other stories that do the same is that there aren’t really that many embellishments though and for once with Holmes even the dialogue isn’t as strong as normal, perhaps showing what a rush-job this was (the only real comedy is the bit Tom and Lis Sladen added, the farcical bit where they nearly walk into the mummy then back off and walk away, something they added despite despite the director telling them not to!) For a story that spends so much time discussing tribophysics (the idea of friction being three things in movement at once) there’s only one source of friction all story – everyone but Sutekh might as well have gone home. For all that though I can see why so many people love this story as they do. The acting is superb, every last person making the most of their part and making things seem a hundred times more frightening than by rights they ought to be on paper. There are so many striking images that stick long in the memory too: the mummy let loose in the grounds while Sarah Jane desperately tries to shoot it to no avail, the mummy that turns out to be the Doctor (the director persuading Tom Baker to be in the costume himself when none of the extras could copy his distinctive walk!), the organ that continues to play even after manservant Ibrahim has left it and been reduced to a smoky pulp by Sutekh, the destroyed parallel Earth when the Doctor nips forward in time to show Sarah exactly what’s at stake if Sutekh gets his way (why doesn’t the Doctor do that in more stories then eh?), Mick Jagger’s beautiful Stargroves estate doubling as Scarman’s estate, err the much loved fan moment when the production assistant’s hand holds down Sutekh’s cushion on screen when he gets up to rant (even Egyptian Gods can’t control their own cushions, I have the same trouble). There’s enough action and spills and thrills and classy cliffhangers to keep you watching every week for a month and re-watching in an hour and a half quite happily. It’s only afterwards, when you stop to think about it, that you see the inconsistencies and plotholes. Admittedly all DW stories have gaps in logic if you look at them and squint long enough, as with most fiction, but this one has more issues than most (How come in all this time no one has noticed the mummies on patrol outside? There isn’t even a rumour about something strange going on. I mean, surely they had a paper boy or a visit from the council? How come sending Sutekh through a time corridor ages him – shouldn’t it be like the Weeping Angels in reverse so he just comes out the other side the same age? Why are we in England in 1911 after all? Shouldn’t we be in Egypt?!? And why didn’t the Ice Warriors intercept the beam from Mars before us? – it’s their home planet after all). DW still hasn’t quite done Ancient Egypt properly in other words, even though it seems the most obvious time and place for him to go to, which is a crying shame as with the mythology and the scifi leanings there’s a potentially brilliant story waiting to be written there rather than the slightly rushed one we get here. Even so, a great breathless runaround with Tom Baker at his peak facing off one of the best baddies the show ever had is more than worthy of a place mid-tier in this ranking, if maybe not quite as high as other fans would put it.

+ Sutekh. It’s not everyone who can pull off a 7000 year old alien with magic powers even though their face is hidden by a mask but Gabriel Woolf is the latest in a long line of whispering Who villains who manage to be all the creepier for the fact they speak in low voices not shouted rants. Sutekh nonchalantly offering ‘my gift of death’ as he kills off most of the cast alone puts him in the top tier of creepy Who villains. For a while there he really does seem unstoppable. If the ‘real’ Set was like this no wonder Ancient Egypt built so many pyramids in his honour.

- Talking of which, where are the pyramids? I know Sutekh has one for a spaceship but...this is a story about ancient Egypt and all we see of the ancient wonder of the world is one blooming door of a boring tomb with the eye of Horus on it (no guessing what symbol most DW fans would pick on ‘Only Connect’!) Instead of the really interesting backstory and discovery of the tomb in one of the most fascinating places on the planet, we’re stuck for four episodes in one English estate in 1911 that badly needs some decorators (no don’t be cross Mick, I meant the set of the inside not Stargroves which looks gorgeous). We don’t even get to see Mars properly and we’ve been there so many times by now they could have mocked the planet up in five minutes.