Pyramids of Mars is the third serial of the 13th season of the British science
fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly
parts from 25 October to 15 November 1975.
Plot In Egypt in 1911, Marcus Scarman
excavates a pyramid and finds the door to the burial chamber is inscribed with
the Eye of Horus. Scarman's Egyptian assistants panic and flee, leaving the
Professor to enter the chamber alone. As he holds a light up to see the tomb, he
is blasted by a green ray. The TARDIS is forced out of its flight
path as Sarah sees an apparition of a jackal-like face in the console room.
The Doctor lands the TARDIS in the Scarman family home in England, which is
filled with Egyptian artefacts. Discovered by the butler, they are told
that the house has been taken over by a mysterious Egyptian by the name of
Ibrahim Namin. In another part of the priory, Namin is confronted by Dr.
Warlock, a friend of Professor Scarman. Namin sends a robot disguised to look
like a mummy after them. The three make their way to a hunting lodge used by
Laurence Scarman, Professor Scarman's brother. Laurence is an amateur
scientist whose marconiscope has intercepted a signal from Mars. The
Doctor decodes the signal as "Beware Sutekh". He explains that Sutekh is the
last of a powerful alien race called the Osirians. He was pursued across the
galaxy by his brother Horus, and was finally defeated on Earth.
Namin and the mummies greet the arrival of Sutekh's servant who travels to the
priory via a spacetime tunnel, the portal of which is disguised as an
upright sarcophagus. The Servant burns Namin to death, and is revealed to be
Marcus Scarman. Sutekh orders him to secure the perimeter of the estate and
construct an Osirian war missile. After Scarman and the robots leave, the
Doctor, Sarah and Laurence Scarman enter. The Doctor disrupts the tunnel
using the TARDIS key. Hearing Scarman return, Laurence hides the three of them
in a priest hole. In another part of the estate, a
poacher, Clements, finds a mummy ensnared in a man-trap. He is prevented
from escaping the estate by a deflection barrier. Meanwhile, Marcus Scarman finds
Warlock and kills him. The Doctor retrieves Namin's ring from his corpse
and he and Sarah hide in the TARDIS to avoid detection. When Sarah suggests
they should just leave, the Doctor moves the TARDIS forward to 1980, revealing it
to be a blasted wasteland. They must return to 1911 and stop Sutekh or the
future will be lost. Back in 1911 the Doctor makes a jamming
unit that will will stop Sutekh's servants, Marcus Scarman included.
Laurence attempts to stop the Doctor from activating the device. The robots
find and kill Clements and overrun the hunting lodge. Sarah, using the ring
they took from Namin, orders the robots to return to Control.
The Doctor decides to blow up the partially assembled rocket. Laurence
suggests using blasting gelignite, which Clements kept in his hut. The Doctor and
Sarah leave to obtain the gelignite, ordering Laurence to strip the bindings
from a deactivated robot. Marcus finds Laurence, who reminds his brother of
their childhood in order to revive his humanity. The conditioning proves too
strong, and Marcus kills Laurence. The Doctor and Sarah detonate the
explosives, but Sutekh telepathically suppresses the explosion. The Doctor
uses the spacetime tunnel to travel to and distract Sutekh, allowing the rocket
to be destroyed but trapping himself. Sutekh interrogates the Doctor and
discovers he is a Time Lord. He locates the TARDIS and decides to use it to
transport Scarman to Mars in order to deactivate the Eye of Horus, which is
holding him prisoner. Sutekh subjects the Doctor to mind control and returns
him to the priory. He orders Scarman to bring a robot and Sarah into the TARDIS
to travel to the pyramid of Mars. On their arrival, Sutekh orders Scarman
to dispose of the Doctor and the robot strangles him. Scarman leaves the first
chamber beneath the pyramid. The Doctor regains consciousness, his respiratory
bypass system having allowed him to avoid death. They set off in search of
Scarman through a series of chambers which are dependent upon solving logical
and philosophical problems. Reaching the central chamber first,
Scarman destroys the Eye, then falls to the floor and decays to dust. The Doctor
realises that Sutekh will not be released for two minutes, that being the
time that radio signals take to travel from Mars to Earth. Sarah and the Doctor
return to the Priory and use a module from the TARDIS to move the other end of
the tunnel to a point 10,000 years in the future, ensuring Sutekh will not
escape until he dies of old age. The Doctor and Sarah leave in the TARDIS as
the priory is consumed in flames. = Continuity =
Sarah wears a dress which the Doctor says belonged to Victoria. She remarks
that the puzzles are similar to those in the Exxilon City in Death to the Daleks,
although she personally never entered the City.
Production The story as originally written by Lewis
Greifer was considered unworkable. As Greifer was unavailable to do rewrites,
the scripts were completely rewritten by Robert Holmes. The pseudonym used on
transmission was Stephen Harris. Pyramids of Mars contributes to one of
the contradictions in the Doctor Who universe: the UNIT dating controversy.
The exterior scenes were shot on the Stargroves estate in Hampshire, which
was owned by Mick Jagger at the time. The same location would be used during
the filming of Image of the Fendahl. The new TARDIS console, which debuted in the
preceding story Planet of Evil, does not appear again until The Invisible Enemy.
Owing to the cost of setting up the TARDIS console room for the filming of
only a handful of scenes, a new console set was designed for the following
season. Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen improvised a number of moments in this
story, most notably a scene in Part Four where the Doctor and Sarah start to walk
out of their hiding place and then when they see a mummy, quickly dart back into
it. Baker based the scene on a Marx Brothers routine.
Several scenes were deleted from the final broadcast. A model shot of the
TARDIS landing in the landscape of a barren, alternative 1980 Earth was to be
used in Part Two, but director Paddy Russell decided viewers would feel more
impact if the first scene of the new Earth was Sarah's reaction as the TARDIS
doors opened. Three scenes of effects such as doors opening and the Doctor
materializing from the sarcophagus were removed from the final edit of Part Four
because Russell felt the mixes were not good enough. These scenes were included
on the DVD, along with an alternate version of the poacher being hunted down
in Part Two, and a full version of the Osirian rocket explosion.
Although the name of Sutekh's race is pronounced "Osiran" throughout the
serial, the scripts and publicity material spell it as "Osirian" in some
places and as "Osiran" in others. Many fans use the "Osirian" spelling, as do
some reference works such as the Battles in Time collectable card game and the
Virgin Missing Adventures sequel novel The Sands of Time. Another member of the
Osirian race also appears in the Big Finish Productions audio drama The Bride
of Peladon. = Cast notes =
Features a guest appearance by Michael Sheard; he was cast by director Paddy
Russell without any audition, purely on the recommendation of production
assistant Peter Grimwade. Sheard previously featured in The Ark and The
Mind of Evil and would later appear in The Invisible Enemy, Castrovalva and
Remembrance of the Daleks. Bernard Archard previously played Bragen in The
Power of the Daleks. Michael Bilton previously played Teligny in The
Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve. George Tovey was the father of Roberta Tovey,
who appeared as Susan in the films Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion
Earth 2150 AD. Gabriel Woolf reprised his role as
Sutekh in the Faction Paradox audio dramas Coming to Dust, The Ship of a
Billion Years, Body Politic, Words from Nine Divinities, Ozymandias and The
Judgment of Sutekh, from Magic Bullet Productions. He also provided the voice
of Sutekh for the comedy sketch Oh Mummy: Sutekh's Story, included on the
DVD release of Pyramids of Mars. Woolf would go on to provide the voice of The
Beast in the 2006 episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit".
He also provided the voice of Governor Rossitor in the Big Finish Productions
audio plays Arrangements for War and Thicker than Water.
Outside references The Doctor, Sarah and Laurence Scarman
hide in a priest hole in the priory. This is an anachronism that even the
Doctor comments on, since priest holes were a feature of the Elizabethan era
and earlier, and not of Victorian architecture. The puzzle in which Sarah
is imprisoned in a tube is a variation of the classic logic puzzle, Knights and
Knaves. Broadcast and reception
Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping gave the serial a positive
review in The Discontinuity Guide, praising the "chilling" adversary and
some of the conversations. In The Television Companion, David J. Howe and
Stephen James Walker described the first episode as "an excellent scene-setter"
and the story as "near-flawless". They wrote that Pyramids of Mars gave the
"fullest expression" of the Gothic horror era and had high production
values and a good guest cast. In 2010, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times called it
"a bona fide classic" with "arguably the most polished production to date", and
praised the powerful plot. However, he disliked how UNIT was dismissed in the
season, and found "minor, amusing quibbles" with the plot. Charlie Jane
Anders of io9 described Pyramids of Mars as "just a lovely, solid adventure
story", highlighting the way the Doctor seemed outmatched, the pace, and Sarah
Jane. In a 2010 article, Anders also listed the cliffhanger to the third
episode — in which the Doctor is forced to confront Sutekh — as one of the
greatest Doctor Who cliffhangers ever. In a 2014 Doctor Who Magazine poll to
determine the best Doctor Who stories of all time, readers voted Pyramids of Mars
to eighth place. Commercial releases
= In print = A novelisation of this serial, written
by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in December 1976. The
novelisation contains a substantial prologue giving the history of Sutekh
and the Osirians and features an epilogue in which a future Sarah
researches the destruction of the Priory and how it was explained. An unabridged
reading of the novelisation by actor Tom Baker was released on CD in August 2008
by BBC Audiobooks. = Home media =
The story first came out on VHS and Betamax in an omnibus format in February
1985. It was subsequently released in episodic format in April 1994. It was
released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 1 March 2004. It was also released on 31
October 2011 as an extra on The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 4 DVD and Blu-ray
boxset as a tribute to Elisabeth Sladen who had died earlier in the year.
In 2013 it was released on DVD again as part of the "Doctor Who: The Doctors
Revisited 1-4" box set, alongside The Aztecs, Tomb of the Cybermen and
Spearhead from Space. Alongside a documentary on the Fourth Doctor, the
disc features the serial put together as a single feature in widescreen format
with an introduction from current show runner Stephen Moffat, as well as its
original version. References
External links Pyramids of Mars at BBC Online
Pyramids of Mars at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time
Pyramids of Mars at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
Reviews Pyramids of Mars reviews at Outpost
Gallifrey Pyramids of Mars reviews at The Doctor
Who Ratings Guide Target novelisation
Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
On Target — Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars