Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 429: Pyramids of Mars, Episode One

Dear diary,

Pyramids of Mars is another one of those stories which usually finds itself placing quite high on fans’ lists of favourite episodes. Indeed, in our recent poll, it came in at number 6 out of 239, which makes it one of the stories that people rate among the best that Doctor Who has ever produced. As usual, I’m slightly sceptical about such high praise, but considering how fan ‘wisdom’ on stories like Genesis of the Daleks and Terror of the Zygons has seemed to chime pretty well with my own feelings lately, I’m intrigued to see if things will continue their current good trend with this one.

This is one of those stories that I’ve seen before, and actually I’ve seen it a couple of times. When I first started out collecting the Doctor Who DVDs, I picked it up simply because of its high regard among other fans… and I have to say I recall being a bit bored by it! That’s all I can recall – no specific scenes or bits of dialogue at all – but it meant that I then spent years thinking of it as a bit of a duff story, one which I could never understand the love for.

I’m not completely alone in this. Nick Mellish – who I mention a lot during my Diary posts, but he’s usually fairly spot on with his assessments of Who stories, by which I mean that we’re usually in tune with our opinions! – pointed out to me when we released our poll results that he could never get his head around why this story always graced the tops of lists.

But a few years ago, when Elisabeth Sladen died, they included all four episodes of this story as a tribute to her on the DVD and Blu Ray release of The Sarah Jane Adventures Series Four. I love The Sarah Jane Adventures, so I was quick to re-watch the entire series when the discs arrived. Having exhausted the supply of episodes, I found myself popping this story on. I didn’t watch the full thing, but I can remember getting to the end of Episode One and being surprised by just how much I’d enjoyed it.

Thankfully, I’m pleased to say that the second viewing of the episode is the one which most closely resembles my thoughts on it today. It may not be an instantly perfect episode like some people would have you believe, but it’s a good strong start to the story, and it’s absolute dripping in atmosphere. I think the highlight for me comes a little over half-way through, when we’ve spent several (largely dialogue-free) minutes watching the Doctor, Sarah, and Dr Warlock being chased by Ibrahim Namin and his mummies. There’s lots of stalking about in the woods, hiding behind fallen trees and in bushes… and then the scene is cut through by the sound of the organ blaring up again from the house. It takes you completely by surprise every time, and it really is a wonderful moment.

Lots of what comes afterwards is very good, too. Namin seems to be set up as the villain of the piece throughout the episode. He’s the one who appears to be covering up Scarman’s absence. He’s the one occupying the house and performing weird rituals with the Egyptian artefacts. He’s the one who pulls a gun on anyone who dares to get in his way… so it’s a real shock to see him killed during the cliffhanger. It serves so well as a demonstration of Sutekh’s power, and that great line ‘I am the servant of Sutekh. He needs no other.’ is really rather wonderful.

And then there’s a multitude of little things that all come together to make this simply an enjoyable episode. Opening with stock footage of Egypt was a real delight (I had a vague memory that they’d used a still image of the pyramids - no idea there that thought came from!), and is actually quite impressive. It means that when we step into a BBC studio set for the Egyptian tomb, it feels exotic and remote - you really get the impression that you’re somewhere very new again.

And then we’re back to somewhere very… familiar. Almost, anyway. Large country houses always feel like a staple of the programme in the 1970s, and I love the idea of visiting the location of UNIT HQ many decades before it’s used by UNIT. In some ways, I find it a shame that we’re in a previous house, not the one they actually use for UNIT, but then their HQ changed so much throughout the Pertwee years that I’m not sure I’d notice them simply redressing the set that became more common towards the end of the run.

But for me, the highlight is in the Doctor and Sarah Jane. I mused during Planet of Evil that I was starting to see the ‘best friends’ aspect of their relationship coming out, but it’s even more obvious here. From the way she playfully teases him in the TARDIS (‘you’ll soon be middle-aged!’) to the way they laugh and joke during their initial exploration of the house, there’s just so much to love in this pair. it’s clearly two people (The Doctor and Sarah and Tom Baker and Lis Sladen) who really love spending time together, and are just having fun. If this is what their relationship is like for the rest of their time together, then I’m in for a real treat.

Hm? Sorry? What? Oh, yes. That. I managed to successfully avoid the whole UNIT dating topic for most of the Pertwee years, but then today we’ve got one of the elements which makes it such a contentious issue.

SARAH JANE
We travel in time, Mr Scarman. I'm really from 1980…

I suppose I’d better finally start thinking properly about the whole UNIT time line issue…Well… Um… I guess that… Wait. Hold on. Was that the doorbell? Yes, I rather think it was…