Leon E. Bender life

…forecast says rain, it’s…

The Aztecs

In which the travellers get marooned (and all because the
Aztecs never bothered to invent the doorknob); the Doctor is carted off to the
Aztec equivalent of Eastbourne (and hooks up with some old bird who wants to
get inside his trousers); Barbara spends four episodes on the throne; Susan
goes on a blind-date; and Ian shows an Aztec soldier what he can do with his
thumb…

- in the first few seconds of Episode One you’d be forgiven
for thinking the TARDIS has landed back on Marinus. Thankfully it’s just a the
reprise from the previous week’s episode. Thank heavens for that - it stops me
from having to take a steak mallet to the DVD remote control.

Oh dear, looks as if Yetaxa's

overdone it on the sunbed!

- once again the wrong door is used to exit the ship. I
always thought that was a Peter Davison era thing, but obviously not. Whatever,
it really bugs me!

- the opening shot of this new story proper is of a
desiccated corpse. Hmm, cheerful. This, combined with the doom laden music and
the name John Lucarotti flashing up are instant indications of an upsurge in
quality. Indeed, Barbara doesn’t seem in the least concerned that they’ve
landed inside a tomb - if this were a Terry Nation script she’d be chewing her
lip and climbing the walls at the first sight of a bit of bone (so to speak).
In fact, instead of seeing just a rotten body on a slab her attention’s diverted
to the mask of office covering the face which immediately tells her they’ve
landed in a period of history for which she has a particular passion and
familiarity. Though I wonder if it’s normal for her to go around stealing
interesting bits of jewellery from dead bodies?

I'd didn't realise until the release of the

cleaned-up DVD just how rough Cameca

really was. Still, nice earrings!

- as Susan goes to fetch the Doctor and Ian to tell them that
Barbara’s kleptomania has returned, Barbara steps through the swing door and is
greeted by an Aztec version of a heavily tanned June Brown (imagine Keith Pyott
with a fag hanging out the side of his mouth uttering the immortal words ‘Ooh I say,
ooh, Jim Branning’ in a cod cockney accent whilst carrying a large shiny
handbag over his forearm), who advances on her and has a bit of a
funny turn when he spots her newly acquired bracelet. He’s the High Priest of
Knowledge (does this mean he always wins at Trivial Pursuit). Next
thing she knows, she’s shoved into a fancy costume (it’s like something Mary
Tamm’s Romana would’ve worn), complete with a chicken’s arse for a hat, and is
being taken through the itinerary for her first public engagement (which, like
the Queen, probably includes having to cut the ribbon on a brand spanking new
industrial boiler of some sort then spending twenty-five excruciating minutes
listening to a bunch of five year old kids murder a few songs whilst picking
their noses with one hand and sticking the other down their pants to scratch
embarrassingly).

Tlotoxl is such a git! He

doesn't even have the

decency to tell Autloc

his hat's on fire!

- rather charmingly Autloc carries a posy of flowers with
him. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, eh!

- the Aztec guards appear to be wearing traffic cones on
their heads, which makes them look like a bunch of pissed Essex boys on a lads
night out.

- Aztec-land is a hippie paradise, isn’t it. Reams and reams
of woven cloth (you know - the type that looks as though it’d really make you
itch), raffia matting and more handmade clay pots than an arts and crafts fair
could shake a stick at.

- it would seem that the current holder of the title “Chosen
Warrior” has something of an unpredictable temper on him - smashing a shield in
an apparent rage during the show of strength he puts on for Ian’s benefit, then
telling him once triumphant ‘Six warriors dwelt here, only one remains. There
is no fear of you in me, rather I welcome you, for one day all men shall fear
Ixta - the Aztec commander who killed the chosen servant of Yetaxa’. At least
he doesn’t lack confidence! Maybe he had a pushy mother. The combat itself is a
bit lame, just lots of wild and wanton swinging of what look like butter
paddles.

'I think you'll find everything

you need here' explained

Autloc as he showed the

Doctor around the Garden of

Peace. 'On Tuesday's

the chiropodist visits,

blood pressure tests are

performed on a regular

basis. and should you need

it, a surgeon can be made

available to lance your

haemorrhoids.'

- meanwhile, the Doctor’s taken to the Garden of Piss…erm, I
mean Peace. There again, it’s full of incontinent looking old fogies, so I was
probably right the first time. It looks like a more senile version of The
Golden Girls. As Autloc sets about pointing out who everyone is, like some
dreadfully boring party host who’s preventing you from getting to the finger
buffet, the Doctor interrupts his flow to ask ‘And what about her’, pointing to
a classy young (okay…well past middle-aged) filly that’s caught his eye. The
old goat! And they’re instantly flirting with each other after introductions
have been made, although from the Doctor’s point of view it’s done with a
purpose, intent as he is on finding a means by which he and his companions can
regain the safety of the TARDIS. Nevertheless, ‘Charming person’ he says of
her, ‘So intelligent and beautiful’. Aw! Is that a pan-handle I see Billy?

- people rave about the Doctor/Barbara scene in which he
tells her she can’t change history, and rightly so. But it’s the last shot that
sends a chill up my spine. As Barbara makes it clear she’s going to disregard
all he’s said with three words - ‘Not Barbara, Yetaxa’ - it’s suddenly clear to
us that she’s absolutely lost it. She’s so immersed in the role of saviour she’s
become deaf to all the Doctor warnings. It’s an incredible moment. And as the
story progresses her behaviour gets more and more like that of the nuns in Black
Narcissus, as if being forced to live in isolation at the top of her
pyramid is sending her ever so slightly doolally, carried away by the ideology
of becoming this nation’s saviour - like a big bouffanted superhero with a God
complex. Even her language changes - referring to herself as ‘us’.

Barbara's stay in Aztec

times is ruined when she

realises she's allergic to

feathers!

- the final few minutes of The Temple of Evil are
the most dramatic since those leading up to the cliffhanger of The
Dead Planet - it’s just absolutely stunning, bringing home as it
does the true horror of the situation the travellers have found themselves in.
The moment when Barbara is called forth to the pyramid’s edge so that she can
be seen by “her people” is spellbinding, while the Doctor protecting Susan from
seeing what’s going on as the sacrificial victim is laid out on the altar is
heart-thumpingly horrific. So strong is this production that even the obvious
camera trip that happens as it closes in on Tlotoxl as he’s about to strike the
killing blow is forgivable. What a difference to the previous six episodes!

- Barbara’s quite prepared to use Autloc as a pawn in her
game of constant one-upmanship with Tlotoxl, which is quite ironic really as it
means he ends up becoming her own private sacrificial victim. He might not lose
his life but, by the end of the story, he's lost everything else.

Barbara wondered whether

she'd dare tell Tlotoxl he'd

made a right hash of

applying his lipstick

this morning...

- Tlotoxl questions Barbara on her knowledge of Aztec
culture, trying to find a chink in her story to exploit. Thank heavens she
decided to specialise in Aztec history then, she’d be buggered if she’d
concentrated on the Industrial Revolution instead.

- Ixta’s a bit of a boring braggart, isn’t he! Insisting on
showing off his spear chucking abilities to a clearly unimpressed Ian…who
responds by declaring. ‘This is all I need’ whilst brandishing his thumb. Ouch!
But not to worry - he’s not going to poke it up some orifice! It turns out he’s
a master of the Vulcan nerve pinch! Who’d have guessed? ‘What weakness have I
that is vulnerable to your thumb?’ demands Mr bloody Perfect. Actually, serves
him right if Ian did shove it up his arse, the smug bastard.

- Perfect Victim -
just imagine hunky investigative reporter Donal MacIntyre in one of
Kate O’Mara’s old wigs. It’s another hideous performance to add alongside those
of Basil Tang and Edmund Warwick. Quick, sacrifice him now!

Ian had had enough of

Ixta and his "I'm better

than you" attitude. So much

so he'd decided to thumb a

lift outta there.

- proving himself to be a master manipulator, Tlotoxl manages
to get the future sacrificial offering (whose every wish must be obeyed) to
order a rematch between the two candidates for Chosen Warrior (Ian and Ixta).
He’s such a slime-bag. Yet he’s only using people in the same way the
travellers themselves are, and, ironically, for the same ends - to remove them
from the equation…it’s just that his means are far more bloodthirsty. He wants
to get rid of them just as much as they want to leave. In fact, you could say
his motives are far more honourable than the TARDIS crews, after all, he’s only
trying to preserve his society’s way of life from someone who is indeed a fraud
and acting on purely selfish motives. He’s intelligent and slippery and can
quite easily match the Doctor in the games he plays. In fact I’ve a suspicion
he could even outdo him merely for the fact he doesn’t have the Doctor’s moral
values holding him back, which is something I never thought I’d hear myself
saying when the show first started. In this respect he’s something of a
reminder of how the Doctor appeared to us in the very beginning. Tlotoxl though
is a true expression of malevolence and in comparison we realise the Doctor was
never this unscrupulous. He’s a sort of anti-Doctor. Although for the time he
lives in, and the position in society he occupies, he’s really quite normal.
He’s just doing his job, in the same way that those who preceded him in the position did in years past. We’re as guilty as the Doctor and his companions for judging
him on appearance and actions which seem primitive and unnecessarily cruel in
comparison with our own.

- back in the garden there’s yet more flirting going on as
Cameca pointedly tells the Doctor that the sap of the plant leaf he’s examining
is used by the Aztec medicine men to induce sleep (clearly hoping that his sap
is on the rise too!) She also explains that the son of the man who built the
temple may know the answer to the questions he’s been bombarding her with ever
since they first met. You can sort of see where this is all going, can’t you.
It’s a very cleverly constructed episode, owing much to both Elizabethan and
Jacobean drama, for the very person who may hold the answer to his search for a
way out is the same person Ian must fight a duel to the death with over
leadership of the Aztec army.

- Susan’s having to spend the rest of the story attending
finishing school in what looks like an Aztec shed, reading up on the code of
practice all married Aztec women must follow, which basically comes down to -
do the gardening, wash-up, don’t spend the old man’s dosh like it was going out
of fashion coz he works too bloody hard for you to go and piss it up the wall,
don’t dress like a tart - unless he tells you to because he likes a bit of that
and probably spends the money he doesn’t give to you on women who do this
anyway (I’m guessing at this last bit, but I bet you I’m right) and finally,
you owe everything to the male of the species and if you think otherwise you’ll
be ostracised from society and pelted with rocks. Hmmm…makes “love, honour and
obey” seem positively tame in comparison, doesn’t it.

Ian wondered just what

the hell Tlotoxl had been

feeding his cat!

- the Doctor apparently being quite prepared to sacrifice
another life to get what’s important to him (until he realises just who it is
who he’s imperilled) leaves me in a real quandary. I’ve never thought he was
going to kill Za in The Forest of Fear, but do his actions
here mean I was wrong to think that? Is he, in fact, prepared to go to any
lengths to secure his own safety and that of his friends? Am I wrong to think
he’s mended his ways by this point in the series? Okay, so the drug he prepares
won’t kill, but it’s going to be used in a combat situation, so it doesn’t take
a genius to work out what the outcome is more than likely going to be! His
actions here are further proof that there’s an edge to his personality, a
dark side, that’s always been there but can be difficult at times to accept;
one which after all these years we’re still trying to come to terms with. It’s
not hard to see that the man who offers to help Ixta is the same man whose
intervention was crucial to the opening of the tomb of the Cybermen on Telos
which resulted in the loss of a number of expeditionary members, the man who
seemed so cold and remote when looking on the deaths that occurred during
Sutekh’s attempt to free himself from his prison and the infection caused by a
Krynoid pod at an Antarctic base, the same man who callously looked on as two
workers died horrifically in an acid bath on Varos, who pressed the button in
the Time War, and watched unblinking as a drying out Cassandra begged for help
on Platform One. But we know that the Doctor’s good side far outweighs the bad.
He has to make choices in his life that we can never imagine having to face,
and at least he has the courage to meet such challenges head on. He knows that
sometimes the end has to justify the means and that sometimes you have to look
at the broader picture rather than the individual brush strokes. Nevertheless,
it doesn’t make the choice any easier, and importantly, he never forgets the
innocents who die. But this is something that he learns as he gets older and
becomes more experienced. I think the greatest wrongdoing he can be accused of
at present is allowing himself to panic, which causes him to act without really
thinking things through properly. In this scenario I can only assume that so
great is his desire to acquire the means of regaining access to the TARDIS he
becomes blind to all other things around him. The problem is, he’s not used to
getting involved, but since Ian and Barbara came along he’s found himself
having to more and more. He’s like someone who’s sat at home reading lots of
books suddenly finding himself living amongst the subjects he’s been reading
about - he’s very knowledgeable but clueless when it comes to interaction.

Tlotoxl had never noticed

it before, but Tonila

appeared to be wearing a

necklace made from

Jacob's Cream Crackers!

- The Bride of Sacrifice arrives (does the title suggest they’re going to
chuck Susan off the top of the pyramid? We can but remain optimistic) and
although it’s clear that Barbara’s determined to stamp out the practice of
offering up sacrifices in order to save a civilisation that otherwise has a
great deal of gentleness and beauty associated with it, it’s also now beginning
to feel as if it’s coming down to a personal grudge against Tlotoxl. The end of
one will see the end of the other, but is she beginning to blur the lines? It’s
only when Autloc begs her not to prove false to him that she seems to remember
that the High Priest of Sacrifice is not the only one who may get hurt in this
“game” she’s playing - and a very dangerous game at that. She’s like a method
actress becoming too involved in her role.

- the whole reincarnation thing and people questioning if
this really is Yetaxa reborn in a new body is something that we’ll be asking
ourselves when William Hartnell steps down from the part (or rather has his
fingers prised from the rungs).

Cameca's shopping list...

- the scene in which Barbara reveals the truth about future
events to Autloc and the ultimate fate of his people is mesmerising and
extraordinarily poignant, she actually becomes the prophetess she pretends to
be. The imagery here is also wonderful - with the serpent still coiled around
her arm as she passes on forbidden knowledge to the High Priest, tempting him
in the same way the snake did Eve. And, for him, the information she imparts
will end up having an equally destructive effect.

- Cameca (who dresses like an arthritic Pocahontas)
deliberately spills the beans she carries in order to bring the Doctor’s
attention to them (she’s hoping he’ll be spilling his next) in a test to see
just what his feelings are towards her, the naughty girl - it’s a slightly more
dignified version of opening the front door to the milkman in just a see
through nightie. ‘You wish him to prepare it’ asks Autloc with regards to her
purchase as she lies in wait. ‘Yes’ she replies absolutely gagging for it.

- perhaps the Doctor shouldn’t be so surprised at the fallout
of having made Cameca a cup of cocoa, after all it is a beverage you have just
before going to bed - and that’s just where she thinks their next stop is going
to be!

- for years now it feels as though no one has been able to
decide whether or not the costumes in this story are authentic or not. One
minute you read somewhere they wear far too much for it to have been
comfortable in the Mexican heat, while the next someone else is saying they
were based on actual Aztec designs. The DVD info text tells us the women
should’ve been topless! It wouldn’t have been the same though would it…having
to watch the Doctor chat up Cameca with her tits hanging down into her bowl of
cocoa.

- ‘We must have a garden of our own’ says Cameca. I wonder if
this is where the Doctor was when he was kidnapped in The Five Doctors,
perhaps a garden he founded in her memory.

- pity the slab of stone guarding the secret entrance to the
tomb sounds like polystyrene - close your eyes and listen and it sounds as if
Ian’s taking a new DVD player out of its packaging.

- ooooh, lovely close-up of Ian’s sandals at the end of the
episode. What with these, his cardigans and his school tie, could he get any
more middle-aged?

- the jewel encrusted death mask of the real Yetaxa looks a
bit like a very well decorated cake that might just have been knocked up by
Jane Asher (well, the Jane Asher of today perhaps…she was too busy shagging one
of The Beatles back in the Sixties to be knocking out themed
bakery items).

- the whole breaking into the tomb makes me think of
Tutankhamun and curses. Is the curse of Yetaxa being visited upon the
travellers for desecrating his tomb?

It might just be the gin talking, but the design on the

secret entranceway to Yetaxa's tomb looks an awful

lot like the illustration on the front

of Paul Leonard's Venusian Lullaby. Or do I just

need to book an(other) appointment at

Specsavers?

- the “Day of Darkness” arrives and the atmosphere seems just
a little too quiet for such a big day. Some crowd noises-off wouldn’t have gone
amiss. Such effects are played in when Barbara is first presented to the Aztec
people, so why none in the last episode.

- like the New Series, I almost expect one of the
regulars to come to a sticky end pretty much at any time throughout this story.
It’s all so ominous. ‘I just feel sometimes as if all the people who died here
are watching…waiting, for me to die too’ says Barbara in The Day of Darkness.
This is really strong stuff. There’s no fluff or dressing it up - this is a
character speaking from the very centre of her being, laying open her fears and
dread, and confiding that it’ll be no great surprise to her if she doesn’t make it.
She’s a mortal who dared to play a god being exposed to the truth of her own
futile mortality. Even the Doctor is speechless at what she says.

- Death-O-Meter: 36. Sacrificial
Victim - well, with a name like that your days are bound to be
numbered, aren’t they. Still, thanks to Barbara’s interference, he’s denied his
intended fate - so chucks himself off a tall building instead. Maybe you should
have kept it buttoned, dear; 37. Guard on Ian and Susan -
killed by Ixta for letting them escape, and just after Cameca had given him all
of Autloc’s possessions - although that would probably only have amounted to a couple of earthenware pots, a pair of earrings that Pat Butcher and Bet
Lynch would fight each other to the death over and the promise of a warden
controlled bungalow on the outskirts of Tenochtitlan city on hitting retirement
age, so I guess he’s not missing out on much; 38. Ixta -
killed by Ian. The murdering bastard! Maybe the Black Guardian should have
employed him instead of Turlough, he’d have got the job done in no time.

(The perfect Victim is also presumably sacrificed - for
crimes against the acting profession, if nothing else - though we don’t see it,
so he doesn’t make the “official” list.)

- Cry-Watch - the
Doctor’s treatment of Cameca brought a tear to my eye on a couple of occasions.
He’s using her as a means to an end, of course and to begin with he seems to
think nothing of it - she’s just another human stepping stone to use as a means
to an end. But the affecting thing is just how much he really does come to care
for the woman. The moment when she tells him she doesn’t know what it is he’s
carving, only that it’s something that will end up taking him away from her is
absolutely heart-breaking. And the pained look which crosses his features on
hearing this speaks volumes. In Cameca he’s allowed his emotions to surface and
who knows what memories their relationship has sparked…of the family he left
behind, possibly of a wife or children. But the moment just before the TARDIS
departs and he finds himself unable to leave behind the brooch she gave him as
a memento of their time together is the real money shot. Bill plays it
beautifully, initially intending to leave it behind in the tomb but giving in
to his closely guarded emotions and going back for it at the last moment - it
says so much about the real man that lies beneath the exiled time traveller
with the brusque and crotchety façade. And what’s lovely is that, for those who
follow wider canon, the Seventh Doctor - the most manipulative of the bunch -
wears this gift again in The Left-Handed Hummingbird. To discover
he always kept it safe is incredibly touching.

- The History Bit - The
Left-Handed Hummingbird dates the story to 1454, placing it during the
reign of Moctezuma (or Montezuma) I, but no matter who the head of state is,
isn't it a bit odd that they don’t get wind of the fact that there’s a
reincarnated priest chucking their weight about on top of one of the city’s
pyramids telling all and sundry that their way of life is wrong and should stop
forthwith. I’m presuming this all takes place in Tenochtitlan, although this is
never confirmed on screen; it could be any city-state within the Aztec Triple
Alliance. However, most, but not all, sacrifices were made in the capitals
temples. It’s likely, therefore, that the TARDIS lands in the Great Temple of
Tenochtitlan - a double pyramid with two temples on its summit, one of which
was dedicated to Tlaloc, the rain God whom Tlotoxl serves. A date of 1454
actually fits rather well. Between 1446 and 1453 there was an era of
devastating natural disasters which resulted in widespread starvation and
emigration; furthermore the years 1452 to 1454 saw famine strike (at such a
difficult time it’s no wonder Barbara’s actions don’t go down very well; they
were probably seen as tempting fate). As a result of these events, Tlacaelel  (Montezuma’s
half-brother and one of the primary architects of the Aztec Empire) advocated
large scale human sacrifices as the solution. Children were sacrificed to
Tlaloc - another, unspoken, reason behind Barbara’s stand against such
practices taking place, no doubt. Naturally we don’t witness any such slayings - I
guess that would’ve been overstepping the mark for a kid’s TV show (before any
killings the priests and those watching would’ve performed auto-sacrifice -
stabbing, piercing and bleeding themselves - something else we’re spared). In
1455, after such large scale sacrifices had been carried out (the largest ever
held) abundant rain led to a wealth of crops. Interestingly, the Aztec
government forbade the slaying of captives from distant lands at the capital’s
temples in 1454 - maybe, because of the way the TARDIS crew suddenly
disappeared, the Aztec priests ultimately believed Barbara and her companions
were who they claimed to be and the edict was put in place to stop the wrath of
the gods being visited upon their civilisation should they mistake other deities for mere mortals
and try and do away with them in a similar manner.

Score on the TARDIS Doors - 8 - definitely the most theatrical story of the
series so far. If Inside the Spaceship felt a bit like
watching a Play for Today then The Aztecs is
like sitting in the centre of the front row of the stalls at your local
regional theatre. The whole production is fairly heavily stylised, from John
Ringham’s performance (complete with soliloquy’s to the audience) - with its
nod to Olivier’s Richard ІІІ (although it puts me more in mind
of Peter Sellers’ comedy sketch interpretation) - to its homage to the themes
of revenge tragedy (murder, violence, disguise and corruption set against a
backdrop which reeks of the supernatural)…even Ian’s scratch with the infected
thorn emulates Hamlet’s last minutes. And the idea that the TARDIS crew have
angered the gods through their heretical actions and must therefore inevitably
meet their doom at the end is straight from Greek drama. For much of the story,
the Doctor and his companions are guilty of being a right smug bunch of
so-and-so’s - looking down on the “savages” with an irritating sense of
superiority and a surety they’ll be able to easily out-fox these simple-minded
people with their vastly superior intellect. Serves them right that it doesn’t
turn out to be quite as easy as they were expecting. A great story, just
somehow not quite as involving as Marco Polo.

Apparently Jackie Hill was very fond of her Aztec costume...can't think why...