Pyramids of Mars

Your evil is my good. I am Sutekh the Destroyer. Where I tread I leave nothing but dust and darkness. I find that good.

Pyramids of Mars is one of the widely known and celebrated stories. It does get the occasional bit of backlash for being overhyped though. Sutekh is also generally regarded as one of the best one-off villains ever seen on Doctor Who even with the famous snafu of "the hand of Sutekh". So the question is, does this story hold up to the hype it fosters, or are the nostalgia goggles a bit too thick on this one?

Plot Summary

An Egyptologist named Marcus Scarman enters an Egyptian tomb in 1911. His Egyptian workers flee when he tries to open a door marked with the eye of Horus. Scarman enters and is immediately felled in a wave of green light.

The Doctor and Sarah are journeying back to Earth with the Doctor in a foul mood as he doesn't like being at the Brigadier's beck and call. The TARDIS is suddenly thrown off and Sarah sees a jackal-like face appear briefly. The Doctor lands the TARDIS at the location of UNIT headquarters but finds they've landed in 1911 where a manor house stuffed with Egyptian artifacts is located.

The house is owned by Marcus Scarman and an old friend of his, Dr. Warlock, comes to check on him. The house is being maintained by an Egyptian servant named Ibrahim Namin. He tries to shoo Warlock off but they are distracted by the butler, Collins, being attacked and killed by something after warning the Doctor and Sarah out of the house. Namin feels Warlock has seen too much and shoots him, however the Doctor grabs him just before he fires and the shot only wounds Warlock rather than killing him.

The Doctor and Sarah help Warlock out of the house and into the woods surrounding it. Warlock collapses and the Doctor carries him while Sarah runs ahead to find Lawrence Scarman, Marcus' brother who was waiting in a guest cottage on the edge of the property. The group is pursued by Namin and three mummies, one of whom killed Collins. The Doctor and Warlock hide until they hear an organ playing, which recalls the mummies and Namin to the house.

Lawrence and Sarah find the Doctor and Warlock and carry him back to the cottage where they dress his wound. The Doctor is intrigued by Lawrence's experiment, an early form of a radio telescope. He activates it but a signal overloads it. The Doctor pulls out his own version and verifies that a strong signal is coming from Mars. The three of them head back to the house while Warlock rests.

Namin returns to the main hall and bows before a sarcophagus, which transforms into the end point of a time tunnel. A figure clad in black emerges and kills Namin, claiming that only he is the servant of Sutehk. The figure removes his suit to reveal the reanimated body of Marcus Scarman. Marcus pulls four pots out and orders them set up at the compass points to create a magnetic shield around the house.

After they leave, the Doctor, Lawrence and Sarah enter. The Doctor tells them that Sutehk was a member of a race called the Osirins who reveled in destruction. He was pursued across the galaxy before being imprisoned by his brother Horus. The battle was woven into Egyptian mythology and if Sutehk escapes his prison, he could destroy Earth. As he explains this, the Doctor steps too close to the time tunnel entrance and he is nearly sucked in. He tosses a fob aside and a small blast knocks him away and unconscious. Marcus and Sarah drag him into a priest hole nearby, fearing the return of the mummies.

Unwittingly trapped in the shield is a poacher named Ernie Clements who first observes a mummy pull himself out of one of his traps and then witnesses Marcus order a mummy to kill Warlock, whom he discovered while searching for Lawrence. Clements follows Marcus returning to the house and shoots him just before he discovers Lawrence, Sarah and the Doctor in the priest hole, believing him to be a burglar. The shot passes through Marcus but Sutekh reverses the shot, leaving him undamaged. Clements runs as Marcus orders two mummies after him and Marcus follows, allowing Sarah, Lawrence and the revived Doctor to escape.

The Doctor figures he can cancel Sutekh's information relay with Lawrence's machine and the control ring that Namin used on the mummies. They find his body and grab the ring but are forced to hide in the TARDIS when Marcus and two mummies enter to grab missile parts. The Doctor realizes that they are building a missile to destroy the power source of the field that is keeping Sutekh restrained. Sarah suggests they head back to 1980 to avoid everything. The Doctor transports the TARDIS forward in time to show a destroyed planet. He then takes them back to demonstrate that they must work to stop Sutekh.

They make their way back to the cottage where the Doctor adapts Lawrence's machine. He makes an offhand comment that the knocking out of the field will free Sutekh's control and finally kill Marcus. Lawrence tries to stop the Doctor but he activates the machine. Marcus collapses and Sutekh orders two mummies to destroy the interference, having just killed Clements outside the cottage. They enter and one destroys the machine, though it is electrocuted in the process. The second attacks the Doctor but Sarah sends it back to the house with the now dislodged control ring.

Unable to jam the signal, Lawrence suggests destroying the missile with blasting gel that Clements kept in his shack. The Doctor and Sarah go to retrieve it while Lawrence removes the bindings from the mummy robot. The Doctor and Sarah find one of the power sources for the magnetic shield and the Doctor is able to deactivate it with his sonic screwdriver. They find Clements' shack and the blasting gel, though no blasting caps.

The failure of one of the shield generators alerts Sutekh to an alien presence and he sends out Marcus. He finds the empty vessel and then heads to the cottage where he finds Lawrence, having just finished removing the wrappings. Lawrence appeals to Marcus and Marcus' memories come back for a moment before Sutekh reestablishes control. Marcus then kills Lawrence before heading back.

The Doctor places the blasting gel in a safe spot and heads back to the cottage. Alerted, Sutekh has ordered the missile guarded by the mummy robots. In the cottage, they find Lawrence's body and the Doctor orders Sarah to wrap him in the mummy outfit. Posing as a robot, he places the blasting gel on the missile platform and after also installing the launch coordinates from Marcus, walks away, allowing Sarah to shoot the gel with a rifle.

The gel starts to explode but Sutekh contains the explosion with his will, ordering Marcus to remove the gel. Seeing this, the Doctor sneaks into the house and passes through the time-space tunnel. He materializes in Sutekh's chamber, distracting him, allowing the gel to explode and destroy the missile. Angered, Sutekh interrogates the Doctor, still powerful enough to control him with his will. Sarah is captured and knocked out by Marcus and brought in the house. Sutekh realizes her value to the Doctor and probes the Doctor's mind to discover the TARDIS. He takes the TARDIS key from the Doctor and sends it through the time-space tunnel to Marcus, ordering him to bring the TARDIS to his prison on Mars.

The Doctor counters claiming the TARDIS will only work with him flying it. Sutekh then takes control of the Doctor's mind and has him fly the TARDIS with Marcus, Sarah and a mummy robot to the pyramid on Mars (Sarah being brought along as a hostage should the Doctor break free of Sutekh's control). They land on Mars and Marcus orders the robot to kill the Doctor. He strangles the Doctor and the two enter the next chamber. Sarah checks the Doctor and he revives himself, having regained partial control over his mind enough to shift his body dynamic so the attack wasn't fatal. Now fully released, they follow Marcus.

Sutekh control Marcus through a series of traps and logic puzzles. The Doctor and Sarah do the same. They are slowed by one last logic puzzle, allowing Marcus to reach the central chamber where the eye of Horus supplies power to the field entrapping Sutekh. Sutekh's mummy engages with the guardian robot, allowing Marcus to grab the power source and destroy it, just as the Doctor and Sarah enter. With it's destruction, Sutekh let's go of Marcus and he collapses, his body turning into cinders on the ground.

As the doors to the prison open, the Doctor and Sarah run back to the TARDIS and rematerialize in the house, knowing that it will take about two minutes for the failure of the power source to register due to the speed of light between Mars and Earth. The Doctor grabs the time-vortex controls from the TARDIS and hook them up to the sarcophagus that is the end of the tunnel between Mars and Earth. Freed of the force field, Sutekh steps into the tunnel to travel to Earth. Once activated, the Doctor engages the controls and moves the end point of the tunnel, trapping Sutekh in the tunnel. Sutekh lashes angrily but the Doctor stretches the tunnel out further and Sutekh eventually vanishes, trapped at the equivalent of 7,000 years in the future.

The sarcophagus catches fire due to the stored heat energy and Sarah recalls that the house burned down, allowing a new building to be built on the land which became UNIT headquarters. Sarah and the Doctor head back to the TARDIS and take off as the mansion burns to the ground.

Analysis

I like Pyramids of Mars a great deal. It has a dark, gothic edge for most of it, feeling very close to a genuine classic horror movie at certain points. It slips out of that horror towards the end of Episode Four, but you can forgive it somewhat as you still feel the menace brought in by Sutekh in the earlier parts of the story. The major key though is that even when the tone shifts, the story never feels like it drags and the ending doesn't feel too rushed, although I wish there could have been a better way to film Sutekh's destruction as his fading up the tunnel didn't feel quite satisfying enough.

The Doctor was very good in this story. Right from the start, there is a high level of seriousness and you buy the menace of Sutekh in the first two episodes almost solely on his reaction alone. He has moments of levity as you can see the huge amount of pleasure he gets from showing Lawrence around the TARDIS, but he doesn't pepper in that many jokes so as to take away the seriousness of the situation.

I also enjoy his straight-forward assessment of the situation. Sarah occasionally gives in to emotional shifts, clearly unaware of the true direness of the situation. This allows her to get overly emotional over things like Lawrence's death. The Doctor, quite correctly, takes a pragmatic approach and reminds her that other people have already died and more will if they don't move on from Lawrence. It's an important thing so as to not get overly sentimental and it's also a lesson I wish other Doctors (such as the Tenth) would have taken in.

Sarah is very good here. She runs the gambit of emotions all through the story but never allows herself to descend into a helpless damsel. She is adventurous throughout but also reserved enough to decide when to retreat, thinking that as it all happened in the past, it's not their concern. The emotional weight of seeing a destroyed Earth is also impressive as she doesn't get hysterical or argumentative. Once shown what the consequences are, she takes it in stride that it's up to them to stop that from happening.

Sarah also provides some levity. The Doctor stays mostly serious as he is fully aware of Sutekh's power. She however, doesn't have a frame of reference and so gets back to being cutesy on occasion. Her cavalier attitude about tossing the blasting gel is a good example of that. But she is also quite useful, saving the Doctor during the mummy robot attack and shooting the gel to destroy the missile. In every sense, Sarah fits the perfect role of a companion, having to have things explained to her (and the audience) but also being a useful helper to the Doctor.

The extras do alright in their limited roles. Warlock and Clements mostly serve as fodder to show the seriousness of things. Lawrence is likeable and you feel real sympathy in how he refuses to believe that his brother is truly dead and in how he is proven wrong. They even give you that glimmer of hope as Marcus fights off Sutekh's control for a half a second before he kills Lawrence.

The villains escalate throughout the story. Namin functions much as the low level you would expect. Marcus is more menacing but there is still the limitations of him as a tool that show through. Sutekh is above them all and that is solely due to the voice acting of Gabriel Woolf.

Much like Omega, Sutekh is nothing more than a man in a mask with eyes that light up on occasion. This actually should make him less menacing than Omega because at least Omega could move and act in a threatening manner. But while Omega was over-the-top loud and clearly on the edge of insanity, Sutekh is calm, collected and in complete control of his mind. He's actually at his most menacing in the beginning of Episode Four when, thinking himself trapped still, he does not get angry with the Doctor, but calmly talks about the pain and suffering he will inflict upon him. It's the coldness of someone who has no value for life or the feelings of others and it is genuinely menacing.

The production values of this are quite good with lots of nice exterior filming. The sets on Earth are well done and even Sutekh's chamber is done well with a sense of ambiguity as to it's true nature. There is some padding regarding Clements' death but aside from that, the story pretty well hums along, keeping the tension up for nearly the entire story.

The production does start to fall apart a bit in Episode Four as the CSO on half the sets looks very out of place and is rather distracting. There is also the fact that it calls back to Death to the Daleks so much that Sarah actually comments on it, despite the fact that she did not actually go into the City of Exxilion and wouldn't have any idea of what that particular puzzle looked like. Of course, given that Death to the Daleks is often overlooked, I doubt anyone would have worried much about the similarities in the puzzle.

Another shortfall in the production is Sutekh's true form. In the mask, he is properly scary as the mask is something we're used to and looks good. The thin jackal head looks as though it's made of paper-mâché and undermines nearly all of Sutekh's menace. It's not killing but it's a bit of a let-down after the fear Sutekh inspired at the beginning of the episode.

Overall, I think this story is excellent. All the characters do well and it is engaging from the get-go. There are a couple of minor shortfalls in it, but they are so outweighed by the quality of the acting and overall story that I think they can be considered of little consequence. It is easily a story that could be popped in and watched for repeat viewing on any occasion.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5