Doctor Who - The Aztecs (Story 6)
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Movie Reviews of Doctor Who - The Aztecs (Story 6)
Movie Review: Rewriting History
Summary: 5 Stars
It seems naive to keep declaring every new "Doctor Who" DVD release the "best one ever", but I think "The Aztecs" actually fits the bill this time. I mean, compared to one of the earliest releases ("Spearhead From Space", about which I raved), this disc really seems to have an impossibly high numbers of features and improvements.Most notably is frame-by-frame restoration of the story. Part and parcel of being a "Doctor Who" fan is accepting the show's poor visual look. Not poor as in aged special effects or wobbly sets, but poor as in picture quality. "Who" was always recorded on videotape, but the tape from the show's entire 1960s run has long since been destroyed, and those episodes are only available now on ancient, scratchy film transfers. "The Aztecs" DVD doesn't miraculously unearth the original videotapes... but it does run the film through a special restoration process which mostly restores the old video look. No scratches, no jumps, this time. Now you can see the original sets and flimsy decorations in all their harsh studio-light glare, and you can see those lights reflected in all the actors' foreheads.
Now, while I'm sure most people who still watch "Doctor Who" don't watch it for picture quality, these DVDs do serve an extreme niche market, and it's nice to know that someone on the DVD-production end is actually trying to put out a worthwhile product.
Apart from the story (which is so brilliant that I won't do it the injustice of a 3-sentence plot summary), the DVD also benefits from the inclusion of the original actors in the special features. The audio commentary track is a major disappointment. Actor William Russell (Ian) is so old that he doesn't seem to realize he's watching a younger version of himself. Carole Anne Ford (Susan) was on vacation for most of "The Aztecs", so her comments are limited to several variations on "Oh, that's pretty!". The star of the commentary is the show's original producer, Verity Lambert, though there was slightly less insight on "Doctor Who"'s beginnings than I expected. I do hope she'll be included on future Season 1 DVDs
Three actors from the "Aztec"'s secondary cast take part in a 30-minute "Remembering the Aztecs" featurette. Ian Cullen (Ixta) sits at a table in a garden, reading from a very visible script, although his glasses are off. Walter Randall (Tonila) and John Ringham (Tlotoxl, a name not pronounced the same way twice throughout the entire story) sit together on a couch, Randall with his shirt unbuttoned and navel revealed. What's up with that? Best of all, Randall and Ringham provide *new* character voices for a hilarious animated short ("Making Cocoa") done in South-Park style, and all three record in-character voice introductions when you select the "Play All" option. And look for the easter egg hidden on the Special Features menu.
There's also a nice 5-minute history lesson on the Aztecs, thrown in from a 1971 children's TV program. The half-hour interview with the episode's set designer, Barry Newbery, goes on a bit too long, but again, these DVDs are aimed at the kind of audience that might appreciate this sort of excess.
Happily, the usually interminable photo gallery now plays by itself, so you don't have to stab the "next" button on your remote every 3 seconds. The photos are mostly useless, but the color snapshots are fun, since you can see what the costumes were actually supposed to look like, before the 1964 story was recorded in glorious Black-&-White-O-Vision.
Movie Review: Opposing eras showcase The Doctor
Summary: 5 Stars
BBC Video has released two further adventures from their long running TV series Doctor Who on DVD. The two stories come from the very early days of the programme, and one of its much later seasons, twenty two years later. Comparing the two stories now, 1964's The Aztecs and 1985's Vengeance on Varos, it's very hard to accept that they are even part of the same series.When William Hartnell first stepped before the cameras as the original Doctor in 1963, so little was known to the viewers about this enigmatic character, and indeed much of what we know about the Doctor now was invented years after the series began. The initial brief for the producers was to inform as well as to entertain, and as such the Doctor and his travelling companions often found themselves going way back into Earth's history to encounter real events. The Aztecs is the second of these purely historial stories to be broadcast. I for one was never very fond of these stories as a child. Ironically, the things that bored me then are what really makes this story stand up so well nearly forty years later. As with all early TV drama in the UK, the show had a tiny budget, miniscule TV studios, a limited cast and was recorded "as live" with no room for editing. Despite these handicaps, the story is still remarkably enthralling to watch.
The DVD is packed with extras, many of which go a long way to perhaps explaining why this four part story has aged so well. Producer Verity Lambert, and the two surviving members of the original Tardis crew, Carole-Ann Ford (Susan) and William Russell (Ian) provide a genuinely interesting commentary, where they recall many of the production issues they faced at the time, with on-screen captions filling in the gaps from their memories. Also here, other members of the cast have been interviewed for a separate 25 minute extra "Remembering the Aztecs" and set designer Barry Newbery appears in another 25 minute special "Designing the Aztecs." You'll also find an animated feature describing how to make Cocoa (in a very "South Park" style) and a clip from another BBC classic show "Blue Peter" telling the story of Cortez and Montezuma. And that's not all! There's an Arabic dub of episode 4, subtitles, a look at the restoration process, an easter egg and some standard photo galleries and character backgrounds.
The story is very reliant on characterisation and performance, and played dead straight by all the actors involved. Sadly, this cannot be said of the tongue in cheek camp playing of the sister release, Vengeance on Varos.
The quality of the images are astounding. The original master tapes were destroyed back in 1967, and only a washed out film print exists in the BBC archives. However, it has been painstakingly restored, cleaned and improved, and finally the restored print being "Vid-Fired" to recreate almost exactly the original quality of the video tapes. It's an amazing technical feat, and the results are very, very impressive. I just wish they had applied the technology to the earlier released "Tomb of the Cybermen."
It's a terrific piece of TV drama, but I admit it may not be to the liking of fans of the sci-fi based Doctor Who. If you like Vengeance on Varos, you almost certainly won't like The Aztecs. I however give it the full five stars!
Movie Review: Highly Reccomended
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been re-acquainting myself with DOCTOR WHO through the continuing DVD releases, and I found this one to be a revelation. Amazon already has the plot synopsis on this page, so I won't repeat the story details, but I will say that this one is far, far more exciting than I was expecting. It's like a mini-Shakespeare play inserted into the fantastical world of DOCTOR WHO, but it works surprisingly well. The BBC has a reputation for classy drama productions, and I'm guessing they instinctively know how to pull something like this off much easier than one of DOCTOR WHO's more usual way-out alien environments.
Unlike most DOCTOR WHO stories, the science-fiction elements are minimal; aside from the Doctor's time machine that gets them to the past, there's next to none at all. The story begins when the travellers are seperated from their time-machine; from there, it's about the local intrigue they get involved in out of necessity, to stay alive long enough to get back to it and escape. Like all DOCTOR WHO stories, it's broken into multiple episodes, with cliff-hanger endings that defy you not to watch the next installment.
Of course, this is a very old set of episodes, from an entirely different country with its own style of TV and in black & white. I imagine it's quite different to anything American viewers are used to, even ones who like old-school TV shows. In fact, it's *very* like a stage-play written for television - but what a great play it is! It reminds me of a great episode of "Masterpiece Theatre", full of double-crosses, court intrigue, and all the staples of classic drama. If that sounds appealing to you, by all means get this. It's actually a shame that this is filed under sci-fi in a way, because it's a much richer production than a lot of what gets dumped in that genre.
The bonus features are impressive for something 40+ years old. There's a making of documentary with the guest stars; a commentary by the surviving regulars; optional on-screen captions; and a feature on restoring the picture quality - all of which describe how productions like this were made. I found them all entertaining and informative. There's also a mini-documentary on the Aztec civilization, from a vintage British kids' show (which shows how little really smart kids' fare there is these days), and a silly feature about making cocoa, animated "South Park" style and using the voices of the original guest cast. It's all very impressive stuff that really adds to the DVD's entertainment and re-watching value.
Incidentally, the previous one-star review states that DOCTOR WHo didn't actually look like this on first broadcast, but he's mistaken. This is precisely the presentation and style of how it looked on, and the picture quality is stunning.
Movie Review: "How shall a man know his gods?"
Summary: 5 Stars
The early episodes of "Doctor Who" are just plain excellent, and "The Aztecs" (one of the earliest, and beautifully restored for this DVD) is a perfect case in point. This is one of the more down to earth adventures, as the Doctor and his companions find themselves separated from the TARDIS (their ever undependable space/time vehicle) and trapped in Mexico during the flourishing years of the Aztec Empire. No robots or aliens here, no lasers or sonic screwdrivers, just cultural incompatibility and the contradictions of human nature. In fact, this may be one of the most philosophically disturbing "Doctor Who" storylines I've ever watched; every time the four protagonists' cultural values grate against or collide with those of the Aztec people around them, they get more entangled in a complex chain of events leading them inexorably towards disaster--and any idealistic attempts on their part to encourage what they (and we) approve of in Aztec culture while abolishing what strikes them (and us) as savage inevitably backfires and accelerates this downward spiral. In the end they don't make a dent in the course of history, and are rather lucky even to escape with their lives (I hope this isn't a spoiler, since anyone reading this can see that the same characters show up for "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" later). The narrative is for the most part uncomfortably agnostic, too, inviting us to see how counterintuitive and inscrutable their attitudes and behavior are to the Aztec people they're interacting with. In the end, who's to say? Somehow this whole theme is summed up nicely in a dialogue between Barbara and Tlotoxl (the high priest of sacrifice), who asks her:
"How shall a man know his gods?"
"By the signs of their divinity."
"And what if thieves walk among the gods?"
"Then, indeed, how shall a man know?"
On top of this superb storytelling we get gorgeous and convincingly accurate sets and costumes--the BBC has always cornered the market when it comes to historical dramas, though this is a more unorthodox application of their skills and talents in this area. What's more, the Doctor finds a little romance, Ian does what looks like a Vulcan nerve-pinch on an Aztec warrior, Barbara takes center stage with her knowledge of history and decks herself out like a divine high-priestess, and Susan manages not to give out one of her shrill, window-breaking screams for the whole duration of the show--which must be an all-time record.
Movie Review: One of the Doctor's best "historical" adventures
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Aztecs" is the oldest of Doctor Who's "historical" adventures to survive erasure from the BBC archives, and it's perhaps the first Doctor's best. What a comeback from the train wreck that was the Doctor's previous adventure, "The Keys of Marinus"! The set and costume design in "The Aztecs" was meticulous in its detail and spared nothing in pursuit of historical accuracy. It's a pity these episodes had to be shot in black-and-white, because the elaborate costumes and headdresses, featuring colorful feathers and jaguar skins, were made in full color (check out the Photo Gallery to see what viewers missed).
Doctor Who began in 1963 as an educational children's program, and "The Aztecs" is a great introduction to the pedagogical side of Doctor Who's mission, giving serious viewers an engaging historical drama without all the hoo-hah of the Daleks and so forth. I rarely give Doctor Who DVDs five stars, reserving that honor for only the best adventures, but I give this one four for its story and one extra for the extensive Special Features menu, which makes this disc far and away the best value in the series at under $15.
The entire cast, including the principal players, turn in solid performances with only a few fluffed lines, but top honors go to John Ringham, who channels Richard III through Alice Cooper to create the story's chief villain, Tlotoxl, the High Priest of Sacrifice. A fascinating interview in the Special Features menu reveals Ringham as a journeyman character actor who played a long list of minor roles on stage, TV and film and was passionate about his craft (he died in 2008).
Another important record for posterity can be found in the audio commentary, which features Doctor Who's first producer, Verity Lambert, a creative firebrand who played a pivotal role in developing the series and defending the program before the BBC establishment. (She pushed for better production facilities for "The Aztecs," for instance, and the show was moved, for two episodes, from the Lime Grove studios to the more modern BBC Television Centre.) When she came to Doctor Who in 1963, Lambert was the youngest and only female producer at the BBC (she died in 2007).