The Aztecs

You can't change history, not one line!

The Aztecs is one of those stories that I set aside for special purpose. It was the second full story I ever saw after The Masque of Mandragora and it was quite jarring as I had only been exposed to pre-Romana Fourth Doctor stories at that point. You can imagine that going from those to the slow paced, full historical story where the Doctor takes a backseat to both Barbara and Ian was a real shock to the system. It didn't sit that well and I had a rather negative opinion of the story ever since. However, having gotten used to the style of the First Doctor stories, I wanted to give this one another chance and thought it fitting that I should close out the First Doctor with the first story of his that I ever saw.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS arrives in the tomb of an Aztec priest named Yetaxa. Susan examines the mummified body, takes a bracelet off and puts it on. Susan walks back to see the Doctor and Ian while Barbara passes through a hidden door. She is discovered by the priest Autloc who sees her bracelet and believes she is the manifestation of the goddess Yetaxa.

The Doctor, Susan and Ian find Barbara missing and go look for her. They pass through the same hidden door and find that it is a one way door, leaving them trapped outside the tomb and away from the TARDIS. They are also discovered by Autloc who takes them to Barbara. Autloc believes that Barbara has come to alleviate a drought that has plagued them and attends to her. His colleague, Tlotoxl, is more suspicious of them.

Barbara keeps Susan near her as a handmaiden while Ian the Doctor are free to go about the city. The Doctor is taken to the gardens where the older citizens relax and offer wisdom when asked. There the Doctor meets Cameca who knows the son of the man who built the tomb in which Yetaxa is buried. The Doctor asks to meet this man in hopes of finding an entrance back in.

Ian is taken and dressed as a warrior chief as he is the favored of Yetaxa. He is also introduced to Ixta, who will be his rival to decide who is to command the whole army. Tlotoxl informs both of them that they will hold down the man who is to be sacrificed to appease the rain god later that day. Ian then goes to the garden where he warns the Doctor of what is going to happen.

Concerned, the Doctor warns Ian to not interfere and then heads up to see Barbara and warn her to do the same. Horrified, Barbara decides to interfere in hopes that she can destroy this side of the Aztecs and keep their good qualities, potentially preserving them from destruction by the Spanish. She steps out and orders the sacrifice stopped before Tlotoxl can kill the man. Believing he has been dishonored, the sacrifice appeals to Tlotoxl who orders him to throw himself off the pyramid. As he does so, the rain begins to fall.

Angered at Susan's cry during the ceremony, Tlotoxl orders her punished. Barbara overrules him and orders Susan sent to be educated in the customs of the Aztecs. Tlotoxl then accuses Barbara of being a false goddess and vows to destroy her. The Doctor reproaches Barbara for her foolishness and then warns her to play Tlotoxl and Autloc off each other, which she does to buy time.

In the city below, Ian demonstrates cunning and superior knowledge by knocking out Ixta using only a pressure grip technique. Angered by this humiliation, Ixta and Tlotoxl plot revenge by having Ixta kill Ian in single combat. They arrange for the next man to be sacrificed to the gods to request the battle and his request cannot be refused by law. Ian agrees, thinking it will be a non-lethal fight.

Ixta, as the son of the man who built the tomb, is summoned by Cameca to speak with the Doctor. Having been warned by Tlotoxl, Ixta agrees to provide the Doctor with plans of the tomb after his fight. He warns the Doctor that if he loses, he will be shamed and not allowed to speak to anyone for days. The Doctor, unaware that the fight is against Ian, takes a cactus needle and punctures the stem of a plant with it. The sap coats the needle and the Doctor tells Ixta to simply poke his opponent with the needle in the wrist and he will become woozy, allowing Ixta to win easily.

The Doctor heads back to see Barbara, unaware that Tlotoxl had invoked solitude for Barbara during her godhood testing. Barbara warns the Doctor to leave but not before telling him that Ixta's fight is against Ian. The Doctor rushes to warn Ian but is arrested by Tlotoxl's men. Barbara appeals to Autloc who agrees to release him if he was ignorant.

Ian and Ixta begin their fight at sunset. Ian drops Ixta several times but he gets up to reengage. The Doctor is brought in by the guards and he shouts to Ian to warn him. Distracted, Ian lets his guard down, allowing Ixta to stab him with the tainted needle. Ixta gets the drop on a drugged Ian and prepares to kill him. Barbara enters and demands that the contest stop. Tlotoxl refuses and orders Ixta to kill Ian until Barbara takes a knife and holds it to Tlotoxl's throat. Barbara states that if Ian dies, so will Tlotoxl and he orders Ixta to relent.

Autloc orders the Doctor released and he and Barbara retire to the temple. Ixta crows over Ian as he wakes up and Ian reluctantly admits that Ixta's plan was cunning. Ixta claims Ian's friendship but also vows to ultimately kill him to claim mastery of the army. Ixta also informs Tlotoxl of his arrangement with the Doctor, which was a lie as his father left no plans of the temple. As Ixta and Ian walk away, Ian overhears Tlotoxl plotting with the master of herbs Tonila to test Barbara via poison as poison would not hurt a god. Ian gets away from Ixta and warns Barbara in the temple.

Ian hides as he is not supposed to be there when Tlotoxl and Tonila enter with a cup offering atonement and friendship. Ian signals silently for her not to drink it and she offers it to Tlotoxl first as a test of his loyalty to her. When he refuses, she tosses it aside and rebukes them. Tonila runs away but Tlotoxl cowers. Barbara then confesses to him that she is not Yetaxa but will continue to play so to protect herself and her friends. Tlotoxl flees and vows to get proof of her lack of divinity.

In the garden, the Doctor sees Cameca with some cocoa beans and offers to make them drinking chocolate. Cameca, pleased, agrees to his proposal. The Doctor returns with two cups of chocolate which they share. Cameca then thanks him for his proposal and the Doctor realizes that the act was that of a marriage proposal. Flustered by what he has accidentally done, the Doctor still manages to learn from Cameca that Ixta's father disappeared a number of years ago after finishing the temple. He later informs Ian that he believes that there is a secret passage from the garden to the tomb and has a guess as to where it is located. Ian agrees to come that night to investigate.

Knowing that Barbara is too cunning, Tlotoxl decides to use her friends against her. He takes the man who is to be sacrificed during the solar eclipse a couple of days from now and takes him to see Susan, who is being educated in the customs of the Aztecs. The sacrifice is impressed with her knowledge and beauty and agrees to take her as his wife for the next few days of his life. Susan balks and refuses. Offended, the sacrifice storms out and Susan is deemed guilty of breaking religious law and sentenced to be punished.

Tlotoxl and Tonila go to see Barbara where Barbara forgives Tonila of his attempt to poison her. They pose the question of punishment to her regarding one of Autloc's acolytes, not revealing that it is Susan. Horrified at the nature of the punishment, Barbara objects and orders the person brought to her during the sacrifice of the eclipse along with her three servants. Tlotoxl readily agrees. Afterwards, Barbara learns from Autloc that Susan is the guilty party and that her punishment is to be carried out before the sacrifice, thwarting her plan of showing that the sun will return after the eclipse without the sacrifice.

Ian slips out of the warrior's quarters at night to meet the Doctor. He is unaware that Ixta has also awoken and is following him. The Doctor shows Ian the panel and Ian manages to lift the stone, revealing a passage. Ian climbs in, taking the Doctor's penlight to explore the passage. Ixta surprises the Doctor and offers to help him replace the stone, which the Doctor claims to have discovered while out for a walk. Ixta informs him that the passage is a means to divert water and tunnel floods on occasion. As he replaces the stone, Ian notices the water rising in the tunnel.

Ian dislodges a stone with graffiti on it and climbs out of the rising water. He follows a passage and emerges from the bier in the tomb where the TARDIS has landed. He takes a thin decorative rope from the mummified body and ties it to the fulcrum of the trick door, allowing the door to be opened from the outside. He takes the other end of the rope and exits the tomb to meet Barbara and the Doctor, who is greatly relieved to see Ian alive.

Ian then sneaks down to the military quarters where Ixta is guarding Susan and boasting about killing Ian. Ian knocks him out and takes Susan back to Barbara. However, although Ian tied the rope well, it takes more strength than they have to lift it. The Doctor realizes they need a pulley but suggests that Ian just go back and reopen the tomb from the other side. He takes Susan as a lookout.

Ian and Susan reach the gardens but before they can move the stone, they find an unconscious Autloc having been attacked from behind with Ian's club. Ian and Susan are immediately arrested by Tlotoxl and Ixta, though Ixta actually attacked Autloc on Tlotoxl's orders, and Autloc proclaims Barbara a false goddess, giving Tlotoxl permission to have them punished before the eclipse ceremony.

Barbara appeals to Autloc once he has recovered, but his faith has been destroyed. He offers to try and save Susan but cannot do anything for Ian. He then goes to see Cameca, who has learned that the Doctor is planning to leave, though regretfully. She offers her help and Autloc gives her his badge of office and title to his possessions to help bribe the guard to free Susan. Autloc then leaves the city to wander in the wilderness to find his faith again.

On the day of the eclipse sacrifice Ian and Susan are taken to a waiting room. Cameca enters and offers the guard the badge to dismiss the guards which he does. She then informs him that she is to take Susan but Ian knocks the guard out while distracted. Susan and Cameca head up to the temple while Ian steals the guard's headdress and joins the sacrifice escort.

Cameca meets the Doctor in the temple where he is finishing a pulley he carved to open the door. He and Cameca say their goodbyes with the Doctor remaining stoic when Cameca asks if she could come with him. He and Susan hide when the guards come to escort Barbara for the sacrifice. Tlotoxl moves to kill Barbara but Ian comes from behind and pins Tlotoxl and his knife.

Tlotoxl calls for Ixta and he flees when Ian faces the new threat. Barbara retreats into the temple and the three of them use the pulley to start opening the door. Ian and Ixta fight with Ian eventually knocking Ixta off the temple, killing him. He then retreats through the door which the Doctor pulls shut, taking the pulley with them.

Tlotoxl moves to try and chase them but the eclipse reaches it's peak and he calls it off to perform the sacrifice, which he believes honors his victory over the false goddess. In the tomb, the Doctor comforts Barbara that the Aztec civilization must die as history says it did but that she did save Autloc from sharing that fate. They enter the TARDIS with the Doctor initially leaving the broach Cameca gave him but then changing his mind and taking it with him.

Analysis

The Aztecs was definitely much better a second time around, but it is still not without some issues. Some of those elements are just products of being a first season story (such as the city-scape backdrop), but there are a number of other things that are conscious choices by the actors or director and some of them just don't quite work.

One of the most basic things to discuss about this story is that it is one of the few stories where the bad guy wins. Tlotolx does not succeed in killing Barbara or Ian, but he does drive them away and Autloc retreats to the wilderness, leaving him free to replace Autloc with someone loyal to him. I think the villain of just about any story would be thrilled with that outcome. Of course, you also have to factor in that even though Tlotoxl is villainous in his actions, he is also right. He is right that Barbara is a false goddess and that she is wrong to try and change their culture via fiat. Distasteful as the Aztec practice of sacrifice may be to Barbara's modern sensibilities, it is still a vital component of their culture and to try and change it while leaving the other aspects alone will not work. If one changes, other changes will radiate outward. This might have been a touch more satisfying if Tlotoxl wasn't quite so sinister in his ways. If he merely moved to expose Barbara and preserve their culture, he would have been more understandable. But Tlotoxl does go out of his way to be as black a character as he can be.

Some of that comes from the take on Tlotoxl. I doubt he was fully written this way so there must have been some discussion between the director and the actor to turn him into Richard III. Tlotoxl even has a hump when none is ever called for so this was a clear choice made outside of the script. I'm of a mixed mind on it because while I enjoyed the performance for the most part, it did feed into one of my principle complaints about the overall story and that was it's treatment as a televised play.

Nearly every aspect of this story put this into more of a play dynamic rather than a regular television story. Tlotoxl has a breaking the fourth wall moment at the end of Episode One, he hams it up the way you would expect in a performance of Richard III and even the staging reminded me strongly of scene i to scene ii transition. Again, the backdrop didn't help much either, but I expected that level of limitation. Of course, they were still finding their feet, but a television story that does little things to remind you that this is staged takes me out of the action far more than it draws me in.

Like most early stories, Ian is front and center in this one. He is "man of action" the whole way and much of the plots and plans require his central involvement. Of course, he also draws a lot of the drama to himself as well. Ixta is an asshole but Ian also goes out of his way to constantly bait him. I'm actually not even sure why Ian constantly does draw attention since he should be trying to deflect attention from himself and Barbara as much as possible. Yet he shows off the ability to disable a man using pressure point techniques (which I doubt the British Army taught to it's National Service members) and also spends far too much time toying with Ixta rather than dispatching him immediately. In the fight at the end of Episode Two, Ian manages to drop Ixta several times, always letting him up to try again until he manages to sting Ian with the cactus needle. Ian, for showing off that technique, should have held Ixta down the first time he flipped him and knocked him out, ending the fight in thirty seconds. Yet it goes on so we can get the cliffhanger. I like Ian and he is important but this is probably the most arrogant and silly we've seen him so far and that is a bit out of character.

Barbara is also somewhat out of character, though she is clearly meant to be shown as empathetic. Still, Barbara is smart enough to know that one can't just cancel out one aspect of a culture and expect the "good side" flourish in the absence of the "bad side." What's more, even if she had succeeded, did she still expect that a flourishing culture would have resisted Cortez's invasion? This is drama to create drama and I don't believe that Barbara would have made such foolish decisions in a vacuum. Nevertheless, her performance is quite good and it allows the further development of the respectful relationship she has with the Doctor. Ian and Susan might have been highly berated by him, but although he does lecture, he does show more empathy towards her and talks softly in how they may work to fix the problem. I do also enjoy the performance she gives when she is in complete control of the situation and not held to any standards that might have affected her earlier situations.

The Doctor is actually rather pleasant in this one. Susan is taken away for two episodes and even when she is around, she is in either Ian or Barbara's company, leaving the Doctor to do as he likes. Despite his ulterior motives in trying to get access to the tomb and back to the TARDIS, his affection for Cameca seems genuine. His comedic reactions when finding out he has actually proposed marriage are quite funny and add some much needed levity to the story as everyone else is very serious. But it is still one of his most pleasant performances and although his involvement is less than future Doctors (as what caught me off guard the first time I saw it) he is still very much involved in the whole plot.

Susan was again the weakest of the group. Carole Ann Ford was on holiday for Episodes Two and Three so her two short scenes were filmed inserts. While she showed herself as independent, expressing the modern idea of choosing a partner for herself, she still went to pieces when confronted with a minor bit of resistance. It makes her whiney and she does effectively nothing in the plan to get back into the tomb. She actually is a liability since it is her punishment for expressing the modern ideas that draw Barbara further into Tlotoxl's plans to destroy her. Once again, the story would have been better without her.

The direction was pretty decent although the lack of space in the studio becomes apparent in the fight scenes, especially the one at the end of Episode Two. But aside from the problem with the fight scene, the pace and manner of the direction was pretty good. Again, there were those play moments, such as the fourth wall break at the end of Episode One, but even with that in mind, there was nothing that I caught as being a problem.

Overall, I'd say this was pretty decent but with some small flaws. It is a bit slow to get started but once the plan to get back into the tomb is set in motion towards the end of Episode Two, the story rolls along and draws you in. Unlike other stories, the end doesn't feel rushed and that is appreciated. So it's only real limitations is the play-like aspect and the somewhat unsatisfying feeling of Tlotoxl winning. Even though it's necessary, Tlotoxl getting some level of comeuppance would have been satisfying. Yes Ixta's death felt satisfying, but a setback for Tlotoxl would have felt better. Perhaps if it were clearer that Cortez would be landing in a short span of time and that Tlotoxl would be destroyed through him, that would have sat better, but it's unfortunately vague on how soon it will be before the Spanish invade. So I think I can say that it's a decent story, but not fully satisfying at times.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5