Pyramids of Mars

Pyramids of Mars
by Stephen Harris
Originally Broadcasted: October 25th-November 15th, 1975

The Doctor and Sarah Jane land in a Victorian Gothic mansion on the future site of UNIT headquarters, where there are some very strange happenings. Sutekh, the last of the Osirians, is developing a plan to break free of his eternal tomb, to bring his gift of death to all humanity. Will the Doctor be able to defeat the supreme mental power of this Osirian god?

When you think of classic Doctor Who, Pyramids of Mars could quite likely be one of the stories that immediately pops into your mind. It's considered to be one of the greatest stories of all time, written by one of the shows most prolific writers, Robert Holmes. I am one of the few that isn't all that taken with this episode. It's certainly not a bad story, but I don't think it deserves the supreme praise it always receives. There's some truly fantastic stuff with the Doctor pitting his might against Sutekh's supreme power in Part Four. Tom Baker's brilliant acting really shows the severity of the situation. If Sutekh were to succeed in his plan, life would cease to exist. But the first three episodes mainly consist of a lot of running, hiding, and setting up. There's a lot of good atmosphere, but the story seems a trifle lacking to me. And it really pains me to say that, because Robert Holmes is one of my favorite Doctor Who writers of all time. He penned my absolute favorite story, The Caves of Androzani (which also tops many other Doctor Who fans lists). Perhaps it was because this was a re-working of a script that proved unusable, hence why the show credited the writer as Stephen Harris (a pseudonym). The amount of forms of Sutekh confused me a little. You have the black hooded Sutekh, Marcus Scarman as Sutekh, the sitting Egyptian form of Sutekh, and the dog-like god head. Why are so many forms of one villain necessary? Another detriment to this story is some really poor acting. The gentleman that played Marcus Scarman seemed to have been top of his class in overacting, and many of the deaths in this story were so obviously fake. A good actor should be able to make even death seem convincing, not just screaming like a girl and falling to the floor half-assed. Fortunately, most of that is made up for by Gabriel Woolf's brilliant performance as Sutekh, and the always excellent Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen. Pyramids of Mars is definitely a good Doctor Who story, but not a great one as it is so often applauded as.

Luke's Rating: 6.5/10