6. The Aztecs

Phew - my school's inspection is over, and so that source of stress, and distraction from the serious job in hand of watching every classic Doctor Who episode is out of the way. Good job too. 

Before Watching

“Doctor Who” was originally conceived by Sydney Newman as a show where stories involving the Doctor travelling back to witness and to an extent participate in some of the great events of Earth History would be just as important as those featuring Science fiction elements. It’s a matter of public record that he hated “The Daleks”, even though the success of this second story dictated the eventual path that the series would take. Still, the so-called Historicals were very much a part of the William Hartnell era of the show, and even if they have proven to be an evolutionary cul de sac in the show’s development.

As we’ve already seen, the first, and possibly greatest , of the Historicals, John Lucarotti’s “Marco Polo” doesn’t exist in the archives. This four parter, then , is my first chance to accurately assess what I’ve been missing with my previously dismissive attitude towards them. I really enjoyed “Marco Polo”, so this story has a lot to live up to.

After Watching

I’m glad that this isn’t the first Hartnell era story that I’ve watched. If it had been I might have spent so much time concentrating on what wasn’t in it, that I would have missed out on what is so good about what is in it.

I think that it’s a very good example of what Doctor Who could do well. I don’t think that you would ever see a story like this in the new series, or really in any other era. For one thing, the main motivation for all of the characters except Barbara is to find a way to open the tomb in which they left the TARDIS to enable them to leave. This is totally in keeping with what we’ve seen so far in this first season. It’s only Barbara who wants to do something else, to improve a situation, and right a wrong. She wants to persuade the Aztecs to abandon their custom of blood sacrifice. She is mistaken for the reincarnation of the Goddess Yetaxa since she is wearing Yetaxa’s bracelet that she picked up from inside the tomb. Barbara uses this mistake to try to impose her will upon them. Not only does she fail, she has to endure the Doctor telling her that she is doomed to fail, and that she is utterly powerless to change their doomed destiny. In case we didn’t get that point, the last we see of any of the Aztecs themselves is a close up of the manic face of Tlotoxl, the High Priest of the Blood Sacrifice, just as he is in the process of carrying out said sacrifice.

This sounds rather bleak, but it actually isn’t; rather it raises some interesting, almost philosophical questions. For example – what right do the Doctor and his companions actually have to go about changing the course of events? What right do they have to challenge the Aztecs sincerely held beliefs, however abhorrent those beliefs might actually be to us today? Answers on a postcard, please.

There’s a great deal to enjoy about this story. It’s all set in the studio, and although the painted backdrops are a little too obviously painted in some shots, the fact is that the designer has done a marvelous job with the sets. They get full value out of them too – I’m sure that every penny that was spent here is shown on the screen.

The regular and supporting cast are very good here too. Starting with the guests, John Ringham, a man best known probably for playing stuffy businessmen and civil servants, and Jan Francis’ character Penny’s well meaning father in “Just Good Friends”  puts in a wonderfully sly and oleaginous performance as Tlotoxl. Tlotoxl is the chief villain in the story, and yet such is the complexity of the plot that when you break down his actions and his motivations, you can’t help seeing another side to him. To whit, while Tlotoxl is a nasty bit of work, he does what he does because -

* He suspects that Barbara is not Yetaxa – he’s right! She isn’t!

* He fears that she means to try to get them to change their whole way of life and belief system – he’s right! She does!

In that light, his actions are totally understandable, and, if we judge his actions by the standards of his own society, then they are justifiable as well.

There’s a nicely observed portrayal of the High Priest of Knowledge, Autloc, by Keith Pyott as a counterpoint to Tlotoxl. Autloc is unswervingly loyal to Yetaxa, yet his doubt as she asks him to overturn his whole belief system is there in every word he utters and every expression on his face. In the end he accepts what Barbara tells him, and as a result he elects to leave behind his status, his family and all his worldly possessions and go out into the wilderness. Now, the Doctor at the end tells Barbara that if she didn’t save a civilization – which she didn’t – then at least she saved one man. Now surely the audience are expected to take this as irony, for its hard not to draw the conclusion that Autloc would have been far better off had she never appeared in the first place.

I’ve known a few meatheads like Ian Cullen’s Ixta in my time as well. I’ll be honest, I haven’t known many Science teachers who would have been able to defeat him in a fight to the death the way that Ian does, but William Russell has enough credit in the bank with me by this time that I’m perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief.

I absolutely loved the sub plot of the Doctor’s ‘romance’ with Cameca, played beautifully by Margot Van der Burgh. She would return to the series in one of my favourite Tom Baker stories , “The Keeper of Traken”. The Doctor, not understanding enough of Aztec customs, ends up proposing marriage to Cameca, and you get the idea that he is not totally dismayed when he finds out what he has done. The romance is of course doomed, for the Travellers have to leave, and more than that, they need Cameca’s help to do so. She knows that they must leave, and that she will not be marrying the Doctor, yet she helps them anyway, and shows true nobility of spirit. There’s a touching little Hartnell scene where he considers discarding the keepsake that she has given him before entering the TARDIS, but cannot quite bring himself to do so. He has never seemed more human at any earlier time in this series.

“The Aztecs” is certainly very much a Barbara show. How fortunate the team were to cast Jacqueline Hill in the role. In every story we’ve seen so far, and practically in every scene in which she is given something meaningful to do she is compelling, and a very good actress indeed. So a Barbaracentric show is usually going to be a winner. If they’d renamed the Aztecs something alien – like the Dorgs or something, and set this on a different planet, it would probably rightly be remembered as one of the classic ‘alien’ stories.

It’s a terrific story, and difficult to fault. For the first time we, the audience, are asked to seriously consider the effects that contact with the Travellers has on the people that they meet. It’s impossible to avoid the conclusion that two good people have had their lives made worse – Cameca through heartbreak, and Autloc through losing everything. This is not the same as the Thals who made the decision of their own free will to join the fight against the Daleks and were killed during the attack on the city – they at least had something to gain.

It also tries to deal with the question of changing History, and this is more problematical. You’ll have to give me time for a little digression with this one.

“You can’t change History – not one line!” thunders the Doctor. Now, as wonderful as this line is, and as well as it does fit this story, it doesn’t actually bear close analysis.  It doesn’t even work when you consider what has already happened in this first season. Work with me on this one. Let me give you an example: -

In “The Daleks”, it is crystal clear that the Thals would never have attacked the Dalek city had Ian not made the threat towards Alydon’s lady friend, and shaken them out of their pacifism. Therefore, Ian has changed the history of Skaro, QED.

So . . . either you CAN change History . . . or the Travellers’ actions are actually part of History, and are meant to happen. If that is the case, then this introduces the vexed question of predestination. This basically says that what is going to happen has already been decided, and whatever we might think about free will, we have none, and are acting according to a script from which we can never deviate, even if we have no awareness of it whatsoever. In which case nobody is good, nobody is evil, and nothing has any point. This is certainly not what Doctor Who has ever said.

It’s only really since the 2005 revival that this issue has been attacked head on. What we’ve ended up with is the only sensible model of History in which Doctor Who can work. The current attitude towards changing History in the show is that you can change SOME of History, but there are fixed points in Time which cannot be changed without the whole of reality falling part, as was articulated during the Tenth Doctor’s tenure in several stories. This gives the Doctor the leeway to change events on Skaro, for instance.

So, in terms of retrospective continuity, you can suggest that maybe the Doctor knows that this is a fixed point in Time, and so rather than having to go into long, involved and complicated explanations uses the simplified line of argument that you can’t change any of History, knowing full well that Barbara should not be able to change this point, and probably confident that he can counteract anything she achieves if he needs to.

Of course, the real reason why he said this is that we know that Barbara can’t make the Aztecs give up blood sacrifice, because they didn’t. Which is the real reason why changing or not changing history only really matters in the Historicals – for who knows what the history of Skaro was going to be anyway?

What have we learned ?

That you can’t change History, not one line of it (as long as it’s Earth History, and it happened  prior to the year in which the programme was made. As far as anything else is concerned, play  ball).

·         As I’d suspected for a while now, the Doctor DOES have a heart. (although it is a while before he will come clean about having two of them)