Doctor Who: "The Aztecs"
Apr. 24th, 2010 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pmcrayAnother John Lucarotti script. It is a pity that we only have one of his three stories in the archive because he was certainly one of the two strongest of the early Who writers (the other being Dennis Spooner). OK, it's cod Shakespeare, but it's cod Shakespeare in C15th Mexico (cf. The Royal Hunt of the Sun,which involves the Inca and does have Conquistadors; although the story was commissioned before the producers could likely have seen the play, it is possible that Lucarotti saw it when he was writing the story: it would be interesting to see a Compare and Contrast). We are in a completely alien society: this is pre-Columbus and there are no Conquistadors for us to provide some kind of reference point with the Aztecs. I wonder if a modern version of the story would have the self-belief to do the story straight (leaving aside the fact that there is always an SF element in Who pseudo-historicals).
We have to, according to the Doctor, take the Aztecs on their own terms, human sacrifices and all. Barbara gets to the prophesied goddess and the Doctor manages to have a rather sweet romance and get accidentally betrothed thanks to a cup of cocoa. Interesting to contrast One here with RTD/Moffat's Doctors. Of course, in 1964, DW still wasn't quite the children's programme it would soon become, but then there was no reason why a widower (as we would assume) shouldn't have a chaste romance even in a children's programme. Hard to imagine this kind of autumnal dalliance in many modern shows. Ian gets to be in pretty good fights. So everyone has plenty to do except for Susan who gets sent off to a ladies' seminary. There could have been some interesting possibilities for a sub-plot there, but it's not developed in the way that might hope. It would be interesting to read a post-colonial analysis of "The Aztecs". We are inevitably skirting the boundary of exoticism here.
But still what we have here is something much closer to DW as we know it than was the case a few weeks ago. In particular, the Doctor is now recognisably the Doctor (it's possible that he is in "The Keys of Marinus": it's just that the whole thing is such a mess that once can't really tell). The Doctor projects avuncular charm and authority. He can still do spiky, but he is no longer the sinister, potentially malevolent figure that he came across in the first couple of stories and the viewer is no longer worried about what Babs might stumble across in the TARDIS broom cupboard (to be fair, very few viewers probably expected that at Saturday teatime in 1964; we are still a look way off a world in which Dexter or even Ashes to Ashes could exist). It would be interesting to know how much of this is the scripts and how much to the Hartnell and the rest of the team gelling together. By this point, DW is a very palpable hit and one especially among children. That's going to constraint what the show is and where it can. For the next 46 years.
If perhaps not that surprising that "The Aztecs" was the first One DVD the BBC released. In a sense, what came before was the prologue; now we begin the series proper.
Now Write On...
The obvious NWO settings are the Maya (Mel Gibson) or the Incas. I recall a mid-70s ITV children's series about the Inca (I think it was the Inca) from the days when they made children's programmes for teenagers (I'd have been about 9). Other interesting possibilities would be Cahokia or Chaco Canyon. Several of these would work as ecological fables. But in the case of Inca, we could do a very interesting comparative critique of the Inca and Spanish societies (to what extent is this done in The Royal Hunt of the Sun?).
We have to, according to the Doctor, take the Aztecs on their own terms, human sacrifices and all. Barbara gets to the prophesied goddess and the Doctor manages to have a rather sweet romance and get accidentally betrothed thanks to a cup of cocoa. Interesting to contrast One here with RTD/Moffat's Doctors. Of course, in 1964, DW still wasn't quite the children's programme it would soon become, but then there was no reason why a widower (as we would assume) shouldn't have a chaste romance even in a children's programme. Hard to imagine this kind of autumnal dalliance in many modern shows. Ian gets to be in pretty good fights. So everyone has plenty to do except for Susan who gets sent off to a ladies' seminary. There could have been some interesting possibilities for a sub-plot there, but it's not developed in the way that might hope. It would be interesting to read a post-colonial analysis of "The Aztecs". We are inevitably skirting the boundary of exoticism here.
But still what we have here is something much closer to DW as we know it than was the case a few weeks ago. In particular, the Doctor is now recognisably the Doctor (it's possible that he is in "The Keys of Marinus": it's just that the whole thing is such a mess that once can't really tell). The Doctor projects avuncular charm and authority. He can still do spiky, but he is no longer the sinister, potentially malevolent figure that he came across in the first couple of stories and the viewer is no longer worried about what Babs might stumble across in the TARDIS broom cupboard (to be fair, very few viewers probably expected that at Saturday teatime in 1964; we are still a look way off a world in which Dexter or even Ashes to Ashes could exist). It would be interesting to know how much of this is the scripts and how much to the Hartnell and the rest of the team gelling together. By this point, DW is a very palpable hit and one especially among children. That's going to constraint what the show is and where it can. For the next 46 years.
If perhaps not that surprising that "The Aztecs" was the first One DVD the BBC released. In a sense, what came before was the prologue; now we begin the series proper.
Now Write On...
The obvious NWO settings are the Maya (Mel Gibson) or the Incas. I recall a mid-70s ITV children's series about the Inca (I think it was the Inca) from the days when they made children's programmes for teenagers (I'd have been about 9). Other interesting possibilities would be Cahokia or Chaco Canyon. Several of these would work as ecological fables. But in the case of Inca, we could do a very interesting comparative critique of the Inca and Spanish societies (to what extent is this done in The Royal Hunt of the Sun?).
