“You can’t rewrite history! Not one line!”
Aaahh, now this is more like it!
After slogging through “The Keys of Marinus” it was such a treat to get to one
of my favorite stories. I’ll say it up front that I unabashedly LOVE “The
Aztecs”. It simply works for me on so
many levels. Characterizations are sharp and well done, with the guest cast
showing up to essentially do a Shakespeare play set in Mexico. Tlotoxl is just
an artificial hump away from full-on Richard III territory, but instead of
being over the top, it works. Like in John Lucarotti’s previous story, “Marco
Polo”, the setting is just as important as the characters themselves, and the
set and costume design more than do justice to the Aztec empire.
The
regulars also are treated well in this story. At the risk of sounding like a
broken record (or a skipping CD, I suppose) Jacqueline Hill is phenomenally
good here. The majority of the story’s
weight falls squarely on her shoulders and she plays it for everything it’s
worth. She knows what the Aztecs are and is determined to change them, to
rescue them from themselves. More than that, she really believes that she can
do it by herself, even after the repeated warnings from the Doctor. Her line
reading of “Not Barbara. Yetaxa.” is
a great moment and one of the best in the series so far.
I’ve not
mentioned William Russell’s Ian as often as I should have. Consistently good,
even when he’s not being the most scientific of science teachers, Ian really
shines in “The Aztecs”. He truly gets to be the action hero here, what with all
of the hand-to-hand combat and swordplay, not to mention some of his trash
talking to Ixta. There is even an application of the Vulcan nerve pinch a few
years before that other show made the scene. Susan also gets some good moments
here, although not quite up to the levels of the others. She is believably incensed
when told about an arranged marriage and suitably horrified at some of the
Aztecs more brutal practices. Just as a
side note, what was John Lucarotti’s obsession with arranged marriages? It shows
up as a topic in both this and “Marco Polo” just so Susan can talk about how no
one will tell her who to marry…. and I think I just answered my own question.
Let’s revisit this idea in a couple stories time, shall we?
Then there
is the Doctor. Damn, but Hartnell is great here. He’s likable, intelligent,
shrewd, yet also stern, sometimes belligerent, and romantic. Yup, romantic. It’s
been hand waved away that the Doctor’s “courtship” with Cameca was simply to
get the information he needed. Wrong.
Wrong wrong. The evidence is all there, from his interest in her before he
knows her strategic value, to the simple way he smiles when he talks to her.
Yes, he practically spit takes his cocoa after he “proposes” but he seems to
genuinely warm to the idea. He does keep her brooch before leaving in the
TARDIS, and is a little wistful when doing so.
PLUS here is my own pet theory/head canon (if someone else has mentioned
this I’d love to discuss!) In Episode 3, he and Cameca have a conversation
about possibly one day having “a garden of our own”. Now in both The Three
Doctors and The Five Doctors where is the First Doctor spending his time before
getting dragged into those stories? A
garden! A lovely garden, in fact, and not one seen anywhere else in the
series. I think that after his
regeneration, the First Doctor’s incarnation ended up in a garden with his fiancée
Cameca. That’s what the romantic in me thinks, anyway.
I’ve never
been a particular fan of the historical stories, but watching the series in
order helps put them into perspective.
It was certainly a welcome reprieve after “Marinus”, much like “Marco
Polo” was worlds away from “Edge of Destruction”. The fact that the story is so
good, is simply icing on the cake. “The Aztecs” is simply one of the best.
NEXT EPISODE: The Sensorites
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