The Aztecs

The TARDIS returns to Earth in the 15th century, having landed inside an Aztec tomb. Barbara emerges from the tomb and it hailed as a reincarnated spirit and worshipped accordingly, and when the Doctor, Ian and Susan follow her they are greeted as her servants and honoured by the Aztec people. The door to the tomb, however, is a one way affair and the crew are cut off from the ship and have to bide their time while the Doctor tried to find a way back in. Sickened by the practise of human sacrifice, Barbara tries to intervene and lands the group in peril, making an enemy of the local high priest of sacrifice who swears to defame Barbara and have them all killed.

A certain formula has started to develop now with the Doctor and company separated from the TARDIS and having to focus on surviving while they get back to it. As a plot device it's handy enough I suppose but it's only since I have started experiencing the show and all it's multimedia again that I have seen it as less of a deus ex machina and more of a deus minus machina situation, at least insofar as three of the so far six televised adventures (and one novel set amongst them) have shown. Still, every problem has a solution and if the Doctor has to flirt shamelessly with a lonely widow to get what he wants (in this case a meeting with someone who has insight into the tomb's design) then so be it. Poor Cameca, led on by the rascal Doctor and his slippery ways. He's not the only one deceiving people though; Barbara is playing off the vengeful high priest of sacrifice, Tlotoxl, against the more rational high priest of knowledge, Autloc, in her attempts to keep her friends safe, but her knowledge of history keeps her ahead of the game, despite her desire to change it.

Oh yeah, changing history, that old thing. The Doctor swears up and down that it cannot be done, and not out of some cause and effect sort of logic but the simple truth that history is set and they as travellers cannot hope to do much more than observe. He implies that he knows this from his personal experiences, but doesn't go into them; by contrast in the new series history will get changed left and right as it suits the writers (some clever, some just lazy cop-outs).

Ian tangles with the warrior thug Ixta who is motivated to kill him by Tlotoxl's urging and his fear of losing his position of commander of the armies. Ian isn't interested in the job but still has a role to play and gets into a few dust ups with Ixta, some better choreographed than others. WWF it ain't. But originally when the character of Ian was drawn up for the show he was supposed to be athletic and use gymnastics, so here he gets to be a bit of what he might have been. I just know that some of that close quarters wrestling might have been a bit... ahh.. whiffy in a hot climate before the evolution of Speed Stick. And speaking of close quarters, interesting to see in episode three that Ian and Ixta share sleeping space despite knowing that they are going to fight to the death one day.

Susan lands herself in it real bad though. Back in Marco Polo she was horrified to hear that her friend Ping-Cho was going to be in an arranged marriage with a much older man, so when she finds herself in a similar position she's not happy. The Perfect Victim, as it turns out, gets to have anything he wants in his last days before he is sacrificed to the gods, and Tlotoxl engineers a meeting between he and Susan. And he likes and wants her. And aside from one moment in the first episode, Susan doesn't really lose her shit this time. Much.

Like Keys of Marinus, The Aztecs was an adventure I first enjoyed in print before seeing it on TV and I feel that the translation to printed page doesn't really harm the enjoyment of the TV serial. True there is a sense of the Aztec city being far more grand, and having more than 12 citizens including the bored looking personal guards in Barbara's throne room, and the Ian vs Ixta brawls are more dramatic on page, but small beans in the end. The DVD version I watched was a "special edition" with extra material from its original release and a few new things including a newly (at the time) discovered episode as a bonus. What I found most interesting of the extra material was a vignette about how the original prints of The Aztecs were restored for DVD release, including the clever VIDFire process which recreates the smooth flow of studio video quality, although it really makes it obvious which parts were done on film in other studios. That's nothing new if you've seen any of the 1970s episodes where the picture quality changes from video clarity to slightly murky film for exterior shots. It's not so jarring in The Aztecs but it's still noticeable with regards to the lighting and the film grain.

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