It’s two in a row for Hinchcliffe & Holmes. This one is more standard fare: no Doctor off playing Bruce Willis1, just Tom & Lis out having a lark. It’s as classic as Tom Baker’s run gets.
Holmes & Hinchcliffe inherited a half dozen scripts from Letts & Dicks for their first season, and while they were able to put their own stamp on these, come Season 13 they were making the Doctor Who they very much wanted to make. It’s stylishly dark2, explores the universe while not forgetting Planet Earth, and makes the most of the talent it has in front of and behind the camera.
While Letts & Dicks had Pertwee & Manning as the core of their stories, H&H have Baker & Sladen. If you took a poll of which Doctor/companion pairing are the best, I doubt you’d get a cigarette paper between them. Tom & Lis have an effortless chemistry between them, with Lis being the “old hand” that helped Tom settle. Having found their feet together along with Ian Marter, cut loose they get to really enjoy themselves.
The Hinchcliffe Era owes as much to Hammer Horror as it does anything sci-fi related, and there’s no story that typifies that as much as this one (though maybe The Brain of Morbius, with it’s storm lashed cliffs & mobs with torches comes close). Hinchcliffe was very clever in playing to the strengths of the BBC: period drama is bread & butter, so with this, Morbius, Mandragora and Talons of Weng-Chiang he knows he can deliver something that looks utterly superb and just the part with less of a strain on the budget.
Doctor Who does Stargate & Ancient Aliens here – I don’t know when the idea that our old Gods are aliens first came into the public consciousness, but it does seem ahead of its time to me that Doctor Who is suggesting the Osirans built the pyramids; if it’s not, then surely it’s a clever twist that they built them as prisons? Doctor Who also does The Mummy, as we have all the trappings of Egyptomania front & centre: pyramids, animal headed gods, men in fezzes, archaeologists in white suits, sarcophagia and, of course, mummies – all be it robotic ones with deadly bosoms3. There are sci-fi explanations for all of these things, but they never lose sight of their inspiration or ever feel anything less than authentic, and for me it manages to stay on the right side of offensive. Costume & set design need to take a bow here, this is a superbly realised story.
Speaking of clever twists, though, one of the key things that make this story a success for me is the direction it takes in Part 4. Bob Holmes had to do a lot of the writing on this one as he couldn’t get the rewrites from Lewis Griefer; there is a real sense that there is only so much plot to go around, and with the cramped setting & limited cast the story plain runs out after Part 3. Rather than try to pad three episodes to four, Holmes takes the bold move to shift the story off Earth & onto Mars, turning our Hammer Horror into a game of Space Crystal Maze. He also makes it look for all intents & purposes that Sutech has won, with The Doctor left scrambling to say the day at the last minute: no deus ex machina here, just a very well thought out solution to the story. Not everyone will agree with me here4 but I think the final part is every bit the equal of the other three.
Speaking of Sutech, he’s a great creation brought wonderfully to life by Gabriel Woolf. Can you think of any other character that exhibits such malevolence and menace without actually moving AT ALL? Stock still, behind a mask, yet he still scares us. Part of that comes from The Doctor’s reaction to him; Paddy Russell seems to be able to get a brooding, intense performance out of Tom Baker when she directs him which is always a joy5, but here he’s a cut above. He’s intensely alien, almost callous to poor Lawrence Scarman, but still has flashes of wide eyed charm. It’s a blistering performance, one of his best, but Lis Sladen is able to match him. She brings a vulnerability to Sarah Jane – the scene where the Doctor takes them to the ruined future is an all time great – but doesn’t lose the steel when she’s tasked with firing the rifle. She’s the one that keeps The Doctor right when his compassion falters. Stories like this show why the Fourth Doctor without a companion just isn’t sustainable. And let’s not skip over Scarman either: beautifully written by Holmes, hauntingly brought to life by Michael Sheard, he’s one of the series greatest ever supporting characters: a truly tragic figure.
If there’s a failing with the Hinchliffe Era it’s that the stories can sometimes be too intense, too dramatic. I don’t think it’s fair to say Hinchcliffe lost sight of the family when making the show, I think he just gave kids more credit for what they can enjoy and deal with. Who is 750 year old Mary Whitehouse to say what will be too much for a 7 year old? Hinchcliffe & Holmes never talk down to their audience. That said though, stories like this I need to be in the mood to watch, rather than, say, a Letts or a Moffat, which are easier rewatches. That’s not to say they’re not great – they are, and there’s more to come – it’s just they’re sometimes best savoured like a fine wine, rather than chugged like a refreshing beer on a hot day. Either way, Pyramids is a classic, one easily deserving its place on this list
COMING TOMORROW: ” just rub your magic lamp over there and shallimegallimezoop, there it is..
Skies Full of Diamonds 