"Evil? Your evil is my good. I am Sutekh the Destroyer. Where I tread I leave nothing but dust and darkness. I find that good."
Doctor Who's descent down the Hammer Horror rabbit hole continues. Pyramids of Mars borrows slightly different aspects from the same "Curse of the Pharaohs" playbook that Tomb of the Cybermen plumbed several years earlier. This time, the production team goes all-in with borrowing pieces of ancient Egyptian mythology and aesthetics for its most grand and gothic production yet. I must confess to a degree of discomfort with the overt Orientalism of the story (in the Edward Said sense), the less than sensitive portrayal of the Egyptian Ibrahim Namin, and I'm as fed-up as always with ancient aliens nonsense insisting that non-Western ancient cultures owed their achievements to alien races.
Of course, some or all of these problems are present in the original material that Doctor Who is aping here. I would have liked if they'd been more critical of the tropes they were pastiching anyway. But for all Holmes's skill with satire, racial/post-colonial commentary doesn't seem to have been his forte.
All this complicates my feelings on Pyramids, which is otherwise a fantastically scary story. The Doctor is at his most ancient and unknowable, before being rendered absolutely impotent by the infinitely older power of Sutekh. This feels like a predecessor of The Curse of Fenric in many ways, between the period setting and the omnipotent horror from the dawn of time. It has to be said that while this story equals or even surpasses Fenric in style, it somewhat lags behind in substance.
The closest thing that comes to redeeming this particular shortcoming is the relationship between the Scarman brothers. Poor Laurence's vain hope that a part of his brother still remains is sweet, and very heartbreaking. Sarah's obvious distress at the situation is likewise quite compelling, especially when it founders against the Doctor's cold, alien detachment. "The Earth is not my home," he tells us at the beginning of the serial. Coming a little over a year after one of the Third Doctor's last lines, "The TARDIS brought me home," coming to terms with belonging on the planet he had so hated being confined to, it feels like a bit of a reversal - but perhaps an appropriate one.
I'm interested to remark upon the scene where the Doctor takes Sarah back to her own time, erm, 1980, where their decision not to act upon Sutekh's plan has rewritten history and produced a blasted hell where Earth used to be. The question of to what extent one can actually alter history certainly seems to be decisively answered here. As it happens, history is changed all the time. Maintaining the future that the Doctor and Sarah know is, in this instance, a conscious choice.
Gabriel Woolf deserves plaudits for his performance as the voice of Sutekh. That echoing, inhuman hush is infinitely more terrifying than just another booming, shouting villain, and also a good deal more understandable than the similarly hushed dialog of the Zygons a short time ago. I think this story's towering reputation just might be built up on this performance alone.
Because let's be honest, while a good story I don't think this really deserves to be in the big leagues. On top of my aforementioned moral quibbles, the plot really falls apart hardcore in the final episode. I don't think we particularly needed a restaging of the puzzles in the Exxilon city - which is even lampshaded by Sarah Jane - but nevertheless, it is what we get. Like Terror of the Zygons, this is a story which is candy for the eyes and ears, but somewhat of a sedative for the brain.
Anyway, The Android Invasion is next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 20 April 2021.)
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