Time Stream #20 - The Myth Makers

          Back on familiar ground with the reconstruction of an historical adventure, “The Myth Makers” drops the TARDIS and crew into the middle of the Trojan War. Swordplay! Intrigue! Comedy! Well, after a fashion.

          I had watched a recon of this story years ago, 3^rd generation VHS and the quality was pretty poor. But hey, to me it was new Doctor Who, so I was excited about it. When it was done, I had almost immediately forgotten most of what I watched. I chalked it up to my lack of familiarity with recons and let it go. Watching this reconstruction, I’ve come to the conclusion that some lost stories don’t make for good recons, and sadly “The Myth Makers” is one of them. The story is *listenable* particularly when the TARDIS crew is in the thick of the action, I just didn’t find it particularly *good*.

          When Doctor Who is being played for comedy, as ostensibly happens here, it has to walk a fine line between over-the-top, winks to the audience kind of nonsense and genuine humor arising from the situation, particularly when it’s a situation which may be familiar to the audience at home. I found the attempts at humor to be so broad, so ridiculous, that it simply stopped being funny. One of my notes reminds me that I thought Paris was straight out of a lost series of Black Adder. This would be fine if I was watching Black Adder (which I do enjoy, FWIW), but it seemed wholly out of place in Doctor Who. The music was wrong throughout the story, many of the characters, even the ones whom we are supposed to like are tedious, Vicki gets a horrible exit, and Katarina is barely introduced as a replacement companion.

          As is probably clear after my 19 previous Time Stream entries, I love this program, and I hate to be negative about it, even when it’s deserved. So: Steven and Vicki are still a great companion team and it is a crime that they weren’t paired up longer. This isn’t Hartnell’s best performance, but he’s particularly enthusiastic when he’s masquerading as Zeus. It is such a far cry from the beginning of the series when he was so much of an anti-hero. Aaand… that’s all I’ve got.  Positivity can only go so far. The story is over-acted (Cassandra in particular – I know she’s a soothsayer, but I feel like they ignore her on general principle because she’s so annoying), weirdly paced and directed, and it needed at least one more pass on the script before shooting. The last minute addition of Katarina as a new companion isn’t going to make anyone forget Vicki (excuse me, “Cressida”) any time soon. So why bother? Knowing the fate in store for Katarina, ho w monumental a moment would that have been if it was Vicki in her place?? 

          I’ll admit to feeling discouraged about this entry as I was writing it. “Galaxy Four” recently became my “least favorite” story, but the problems with “The Myth Makers” blow that one out of the water. “Galaxy Four” is bad but perhaps salvageable.  I’d have a hard time seeing anything come out of “The Myth Makers” that would make me think it could be anything better. Two duds in a row, but coming up, an epic Dalek story – and one with some full episodes! Farewell, Ancient Greece. So far, you are the Achilles Heel of my favorite show.

NEXT EPISODE: The Daleks' Masterplan

"The Myth Makers" novelization cover, courtesy The TARDIS Data Core at tardis.wikia.com