4.8: Pyramids of Mars

In which I do not fully appreciate a well-known classic.

Broadcast: October-November 1975

Watched: June 2020

Pyramids of Mars, Part One

Okay. This one has always been difficult for me because it’s the one everyone says is a classic that I always found incredibly boring. 

This time I... kind of enjoyed it? It’s incredibly well made, possibly the best made serial yet; the iconography, mixing Egyptology with space sh*t, is brilliant. The pseudo-pre-credits sequence, of Scarman in Egypt, is fantastic. I love the Doctor using his scarf as a weapon, and the ducking down below the windows. 

But I can also see why I don’t really get on with it – the entertainment is all in scares and suspense; in the later episodes, without the world building, I’ll probably be bored. The superstitious/sinister Egyptians aren’t great either.But I do like the raising of the stakes at the cliffhanger, when the villain gets killed by a bigger villain. That’s cool.

Other things: there is no wriggle room whatsoever about what year Sarah is from, she says, quite explicitly, “I’m from 1980”. I’d never really noticed before that the reason the Doctor is in a funk is because he’s bored of UNIT and doesn’t have the heart to tell them, I sort of imagined they just dropped that entire setting without ever commenting upon it, but no it’s properly foregrounded.

Also, if this is the site of UNIT HQ, and in 1911 it’s a village, where the hell is it?

Most importantly of all – why do the mummies have tits?

Pyramids of Mars, Part Two

Yeah was a bit bored here. I can still see it’s good, but without jokes and with the only character drama coming from Lawrence being sad about his brother, there’s not much to get my teeth into. It’s shiny but empty. I realise this is just me.

The trip to the alternative 1980 is a weird trick and I’m not sure why it’s there – to raise the stakes, sure, but no other Doctor Who story bothers with this. Is it because it’s so long since we’ve regularly had stories set in the past, they feel the need to say “No this could still end the world”?

Sort of weird that the previous cliffhanger is “gift of death” and not “bloody hell it’s Marcus”.

I enjoyed the mummy stuck in the trap, and the bit where Marcus expels the gunshot. Also, the use of the poacher sublot to fill space.

Lawrence is doomed the moment he steps into the TARDIS.

Pyramids of Mars, Part Three

“I shall mingle with the mummies but I shan’t linger.”

When this one began with Sarah being attacked by a mummy, it suddenly hit me how weird it must have been to tune in mid-story without any recap to explain what’s been going on.

Ha, the doomed poacher turns out to be relevant because he poached by blowing shit up, nice.

I do love the utterly unhinged way Sutekh starts by saying he wants to kill the Doctor and all humanity, as per usual, and then goes onto “And don’t get me started on birds and reptiles, the c*nts”. Also, that the Doctor gets the explosion to go off by basically yelling, “Oi!” at him so he breaks his concentration.

How the f*ck does Sarah know how to load a rifle?

Michael Sheard – who is really good in this, by the way; you can properly see him revert to the younger brother role – was 36-7 when they filmed this. Fuuuuck.

Pyramids of Mars, Part Four

That was fine, I guess, but [co-writer and script editor Robert] Holmes really can’t do endings can he? He’s good at making sure his episodes are all different... but the ending very rarely seems to justify the build up. After all the talk of Sutekh being a threat to the entire universe blah blah the Doctor technobabbles him to death in under two minutes.

Ah, another entry for the “Doctor Who as crystal maze” genre. Death to the Daleks, Five Doctors, this – it’s always a bit rubbish, why does the show keep doing it? Ha, Sarah comments on it, fair play.

The interiors of the Pyramids of Mars are weirdly reminiscent of 1990s video game classic Doom.

If Marcus is just an animated cadaver, why does he talk to Sutekh like he still has his own agency? Is he actually just possessed like the Doctor is here? Was the Doctor lying to Lawrence about how much of him is still Marcus?

Anyway, I enjoyed that, which I wasn’t really expecting to. It’s well made, but I still don’t really understand why it’s considered a classic to be honest.