⭐9.25/10

😍Superb → Essential!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

Next up in Season 13 is the classic and beloved four-part adventure Pyramids of Mars, featuring murderous mummies and a creepy villain. It's one of the stories frequently brought up as a wonderful example of Doctor Who's Gothic era, as well as one of Tom Baker's finest stories. Needless to say, this story draws inspiration from the classic horror film The Mummy (1932).

PRIMARY NOTES:

Pyramids of Mars wastes no time setting things up or building tension. It throws the Doctor and Sarah Jane directly into the adventure, teasing the main villain and including a murder attempt and a mummy chase within its opening 25 minutes. The opening episode is excellent at establishing the threat and the stakes, leaving the remaining three episodes to resolve the problem and tighten the tension.

Stephen Harris’s script is a delightful mix of contemporary adventure, ancient history, and science fiction, and this is why it stands out so much: the strong characters, memorable villain, and dark and atmospheric tone support the narrative. I really like how it plays with the idea of alternative timelines and actually shows us what the future would look like if Sutekh returned in 1911 (as seen in the key scene halfway through Part 2). The show doesn't delve into this topic much.

The four-part story flows well and has little padding, focusing on the problem at hand and the key characters.

Part 1 ends in a wonderfully chilling and classic murder scene. On a similar note, the Sutekh reveal followed by an explosion and the torturing of the Doctor is such a great way to end Part 3. The build-up, with the Doctor impersonating a mummy and Sarah Jane carrying and using a rifle, is my favourite sequence in the serial.

The story puts an enjoyable spin on the classic English manor setting by incorporating elements from ancient Egyptian civilisation, strengthening the Gothic aesthetic while still making for a fairly economical setting production-wise (compare it to the previous story, Planet of Evil). Even though the story primarily takes place in and around the manor, it consistently maintains its intrigue through various means.

The period sets and costumes effectively add to the mummy horror aesthetic. The robotic mummy servants are also a simple concept that has been effectively realized. Sadly, Christine Ruscoe’s design for the titular pyramid on Mars isn’t quite as convincing, neither on paper nor in execution.

Tom Baker reverts to his joyous and wise-cracking persona, yet he infuses the script with a sense of earnestness when necessary. Elisabeth Sladen, meanwhile, is back to being a more passive player with fewer strong moments of her own, though she does get a couple of fine scenes in the second half.

I like the duality of the Scarman brothers here. Marcus (played by the late Bernard Archard in one of the GOAT Doctor Who villain performances; he previously appeared as Bragen in The Power of the Daleks, 1966) is a pale, cold-hearted, and altogether scary human vessel for Sutekh’s will, while his brother Laurence (as portrayed by frequent Doctor Who guest star Michael Sheard in his most memorable turn on the show) is a well-behaved and highly educated man with genuine concern for his sibling.

Unlike the theatrically booming voice of Stephen Thorne as Omega in The Three Doctors, Gabriel Woolf brings a chilling and metallic quality to his performance as Sutekh, one of the best (if not the very best) one-time villains (until 2024, that is) featured on the show. Sutekh himself has a cool appearance, and his immense mental powers make him a truly formidable foe, similar to Omega. This makes the meeting between Four and Sutekh in Part 4 an iconic and memorable moment. Granted, Sutekh himself does very little beyond sitting on his fancy throne, but his sheer presence feels strong on a more mental level.

Peter Maycock's portrayal of Ibrahim Namin, the Egyptian villain, is a clumsy attempt to add a bit more diversity to the cast, and he's almost stereotypically villainous just for the sake of it, with a distractingly similar appearance to British actor Richard Armitage.

The only truly superfluous character whose scenes are nothing but run-time fillers is the poacher, who appears throughout Part 2. This character is played by George Tovey, the father of Roberta Tovey, who portrayed Susan in the two Peter Cushing Dalek films.

Egyptian themes serve as the inspiration for Dudley Simpson's score, which is one of his most intense and distinctive compositions for the series.

Even though there isn't a lot going on all the time, the sheer presence of the robotic mummies and the constant threat presented by the presence of Scarman and Sutekh mean that Pyramids of Mars maintains a high level of tension all the time. And make no mistake, whenever this story displays action or excitement, it does so in an intense and surprisingly mature way, which is partly why it was considered so scary back in the day.

What adds to the tension is how the Doctor is seemingly helpless against Sutekh in Part 4 (all well performed by Baker and Woolf). The final stretch is then a rather lengthy and slow race to the finish, including a logic puzzle in the Death to the Daleks style (Sarah Jane seems to agree).

The climax is an iconically ambitious sequence that is easily memorable thanks to the yellow CSO background and Marcus Scarman’s crispy demise, followed by the silly but satisfying defeat of Sutekh.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

This is the first time we've visited Mars on TV. That won’t happen again until The Christmas Invasion in 2005.

This is the second consecutive serial where Sarah Jane is the sole female character.

Where Have I Seen That Face Before?: Michael Sheard later appeared in The Empire Strikes Back (1983) and, quite notably for all Indiana Jones fans out there, as Adolf Hitler in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

Gabriel Woolf later voiced Satan in the 2006 two-parter The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, joining the small group of actors who have appeared in both the classic and modern versions of Doctor Who. He then returned to voice Sutekh once again at 91 years old in The Legend of Ruby Sunday/The Empire of Death (2024).

Tom Baker was reportedly not thrilled about having to appear in a few scenes in Part 3 in the mummy costume, as he wasn't directly recognisable in those sequences!

This story claims that the TARDIS controls are isomorphic, i.e., they answer only to the Doctor. However, in The Planet of Evil, we saw Sarah Jane use the TARDIS controls just fine.