1.6: The Aztecs
- Doctor: William Hartnell
- Companions: Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright
- Creators: Verity Lambert (Producer), John Lucarotti (Writer)
- Season 1
What's the rating?
Must See. Or so I think now. See below for how my rating has changed over time.
What's interesting about it?
Our travelers materialize among the Aztecs, and the story takes off quickly. Barbara continues to grow -- that is, she becomes a god. Or so the locals believe. And a do-gooder god at that, like a politician believing that she can drop into a complicated socio-political situation and make a couple of decrees and fix everything. In particular, she believes she can wave a hand and do away with human sacrifice in the Aztec culture. But, to the story's credit and as politicians throughout history have discovered, it turns out reality is more complicated.
Similarly, we see The Doctor being uncharacteristically naïve. Following the (admittedly not-yet-existent) Star Trek concept of the Prime Directive, he is willing to support human sacrifice in the name of non-interference. "But you can't rewrite history, not one line! What you are trying to do is utterly impossible!" is certainly a sentiment that won't stand up to the next 50 years of hopping around time…it also defies the concept of the series itself, since clearly history is not written in stone if time is just another traveler's dimension and if The Doctor is forever (thankfully!) foiling the plans of the Daleks to destroy humanity.
We also see something else rare (certainly in the classic series): The Doctor forges a relationship. He meets a mature widowed woman and they establish a mutual bond, to the point where she maneuvers him into unwittingly proposing marriage. While marriage is probably outside the bounds of The Doctor's interest, it's easy to see that he'd like the association to continue.
In an interesting twist, the main villain of the story is the one who perceives that these strangers are not what they claim and who acts to protect his society from their hidden agenda; the most sympathetic and supposedly enlightened character is the one who believes their lies and is manipulated by them, resulting in his banishment and the ruining of his previously successful life.
The story is marred by often-poor visuals, such as the attempt to display breathtaking visuals that are clearly cloth vistas that occasionally wave and get bumped into. Fight scenes are somewhat silly, and it's often simply hard to suspend disbelief.
But our heroes undergo character development and there are interesting characters among the Aztecs, so it qualifies as worth watching, if not required viewing.
How has your opinion changed?
The previous sentence was my original ending to this review. When I first watched this story I thought it was Crap. When I watched it a second time, I elevated my rating to Worth Watching. And on third watching, it has moved to Must See.
Why? I had to get past the cloth vistas and the silly fights before I could see the qualities of the story.
First, it's a very tight story with not a wasted moment. No extended "running through corridors" scenes here to stretch the story out for an extra couple of episodes. The story starts immediately after the TARDIS lands and doesn't let up until they leave. (If only more classic Who stories were four episodes or less!)
Perhaps more importantly, the story touches on the Prime Directive, and more relevant to modern society, the critical question of whether well-meaning intellectual elites can "fix" society by taking over and simply ruling as they wish without subjecting themselves to the inconveniences of the democratic process.
The acting is strong, and the actors playing the Aztec roles are much better than I originally gave them credit for.
So I'm more impressed each time I see the story, and I now declare it to be required viewing for the Doctor Who fan.
What are others saying?
How can I see it?