Day 213 — August 1st 2021
The Brain of Morbius Parts Three and Four
The Brain of Morbius — Part Three
Do you know, I really can’t make up my mind when it comes to the ‘outdoor’ set for this one. I thought it looked rubbish in Part One, great in Part Two, and it veers between the two in this one. When the Sisterhood carry the unconscious Doctor Who to Solon’s castle it looks incredible — it’s lit with plenty of shadows, and when Maren goes on ahead and climbs to the top of the rocks you get a real sense of just how big the space is. By contrast, when Sarah’s making her stumbling escape by daylight the whole thing looks cheap, and you can hear the sound of her feet scuffing around on the wooden floors. When we cut back to her a few minutes later she’s barely gotten any further along — I know it’s because she’s blind and therefore taking longer to get around, but it just has the effect of making the set look like it’s tiny and needs to be conserved.
All the same, Elisabeth Sladen is on fine form here, really selling the idea of having lost her sight. I shouldn’t be surprised, as she’s never put in less than 100%, but it’s nice to see all the same, and nice for the series to find something new for her to do.
She’s not the only standout performance in this episode, because we’ve also got Philip Madoc making his return to the series for the first time since The War Games. He was incredible in that story, and while it’s taken me an episode or two to warm up to him here, I’m pleased to say that he’s been brilliant in this episode, swinging into insanity in a believable and entertaining fashion. It takes a decent actor to get emotion from a scene where you’re opposite a rubber brain in a tank, but Madoc manages it.
He’s at his absolute best as we head towards the cliffhanger — he’s genuinely dangerous when he tells Sarah ‘if he dies, you die’, and the sinister chuckle when he discovers that his operation has been a success properly un-nerved me. It’s obviously riffing off the famous scene from Frankenstein, and manages to be both in keeping with that and its own distinct thing. If anything, though, I think I’d be keen to see him go full throttle in a proper homage, lightening and all! Madoc has one more appearance in Doctor Who to come, although that will be in a less well-regarded tale…
I’m also enjoying Michael Spice’s performance as Morbius considerably more than I’d expected to during the last episode. After the dramatic build up the character was given in Part Two I was expecting something more obviously powerful and threatening, more akin to Gabriel Woolfe as Sutekh, but instead we get a bubbling creepy slightly unusual tone here, but it works well, and I especially enjoyed his lamentations early on;
Solon: ‘When you are once more a physical entity, imagine how you will see yourself then. Think how it will be then.’
Morbius: ‘Solon, I think of nothing else! Trapped like this, like a sponge beneath the sea. Yet even a sponge has more life than I. Can you understand a thousandth of my agony? I, Morbius, who once led the High Council of the Time Lords and dreamed the greatest dreams in history, now reduced to this, to a condition where I envy a vegetable.’
Solon: ‘You must endure for only a little while longer. I swear it.’
We’re back to a 6/10.
The Brain of Morbius — Part Four
My issue with this final episode is that I don’t think it leans enough into the idea of using Frankenstein as the basis of a Doctor Who story. A lot of the material here feels very clearly inspired by the 1931 Frankenstein film rather than the original novel, but that’s no bad thing — I think the episode is at its best when it features the Sisterhood of Karn chasing the monster across craggy hilltops with flaming torches, or when Morbius has lost the power of all but the most basic level of brain activity, and thrashes around the castle as a brute. I wish the episode had done more of this; and I’d have loved it to end with the monster being trapped inside the castle as it burns to the ground as a real homage to the burning windmill ending of the film.
Especially because this story has been really good with its fire special effects. I praised Doctor Who being burned at the stake yesterday because it looked genuinely dangerous and real. I want to say that I’m sure it was all perfectly safe, but this story was produced the year before Blue Peter sent John Noakes up Nelson’s Column with only a wooden ladder and no harness, so BBC health and safety at this time wasn’t necessarily the most robust of departments. Today’s episode tops even that sequence, though, when Morbius sets light to his claw. It’s such an unexpected moment that it genuinely surprised me. I’m used to them having to treat the expensive monster costumes a bit carefully — especially when they’re a one off like this — so to see them so brazenly setting light to it relatively early on was properly exciting.
As with the mummies a few days ago, I used to look at the action figure of Morbius and think that it was a ridiculous design. It’s so bizarre and unfocussed… and yet that’s entirely the point, and when you watch it in context of the story I think it looks fantastic. I’m not completely sold on the two big eyestalks sticking out of the dome, but I can overlook that because the whole thing works well. It’s the perfect example of where Doctor Who has twisted the initial source of inspiration and created something totally unique and different. How boring would this have been if Morbius had simply looked human, even if it were taking a cue from the iconic Boris Karloff make up?
There’s sadly a couple of moments which spoilt the illusion of the creature for me. The first is when Doctor Who simply picks him up and carried in in a fireman’s lift back to the castle. Until then, Morbius had looked really imposing and strong, so the idea that our hero can lift him so easily felt a bit underwhelming. And then there’s his final defeat — one of the best shots of the episode is the creature being forced to the edge of the rocks by the Sisterhood, recoiling in horror from the flames, but when he tumbles over the edge (and knocks the camera on the way past) it’s a bit of a let down. That’s another reason I’d have liked to see him go in an elaborate fire instead.
And then there’s the Mind Bending contest between Morbius and Doctor Who. I knew it was coming — it’s probably the part of this story which is most well known, and it’s certainly the part that’s been most debated in fandom — but it was a bit of a let down when it arrived. All the stuff with Morbius as little more than an animal was brilliant, and there’s a cruel irony to the idea that his ambition to be reborn was successful, but it came at the cost of his incredible mind. But then he undergoes a second operation to restore his brain just in time for this contest. It feels so tacked on, right down to Doctor Who pointing out that they have all the equipment to hand and that it’s already set up. It feels like an idea hung over from an earlier draft, which the team were too keen on to lose. It doesn’t help that Morbius is defeated so easily, either. One minute he’s clearly winning and the next he’s overloaded from nowhere.
Now we need to touch briefly on the faces seen on the screen during the contest, because of course that’s the bit everyone talks about with regards to this story. I’ve not seen the most recent series of Doctor Who but I know they officially confirmed that the faces here are previous incarnations of our hero, and I know it’s caused a bit of a stir in fandom. I can’t see any real issue with it, though, because it seems clear to me that’s exactly the intention as presented on screen here, right down to Morbius’ taunting of Doctor Who while the faces are being displayed;
Morbius: ‘How far, Doctor? How long have you lived? Your puny mind is powerless against the strength of Morbius. Back. To. The. Beginning!’
I’m not bothered by the idea that there might have been several incarnations of Doctor Who before Hartnell’s version, and I quite love the weird and wonderful looks some of them are sporting! I can see why it might cause a bit of a headache when they introduce the 13 regeneration limit in the next season, but given that The Five Doctors establishes the ability for the Time Lords to hand out additional cycles, I don’t see any issue with it. That said, my preference would be for Hartnell to be the original but I can’t say I lose any sleep over it.
Just one last thing I want to touch on here, and it’s how much looking back this story does on the whole. Of course we get to see Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee as part of the Mind bending contest (and it’s still such a thrill! The series still doesn’t do an awful lot of looking back at this stage, so seeing them all again is lovely and gives me an odd rush of nostalgia), and there’s a reference earlier in the story to the ‘old grey model’ before Tom Baker’s incarnation. But there’s a handful of other references in this one, including Sarah Jane automatically assuming that she’ll have to climb into the ventilation shaft, and Doctor Who’s reaction to her tears;
Doctor Who: ‘Hello, Sarah. Nice to be seen again.’
Sarah: ‘Oh, Doctor!’
Doctor Who: ‘You thought I was dead, didn’t you? You’re always making
that mistake.’
That line in particular got a huge laugh from me. Joking about the past like this isn’t something the series does very often (I think the joke about Reg Pritchard in The Feast of Steven is about the only other example which readily springs to mind right now) so it’s a nice thing to do as a one off. And it seems fitting to happen here, given that this is the last we’ll be hearing from Terrance Dicks for a while. He’s been involved with every series of the show since Season Six, so if anyone’s earned the right to look back, I think it’s him!
Overall, though, I’m afraid this last episode has left me a bit cold, and it’s back down to a 5/10. The next story is another that’s considered something of a classic, and I can’t even slightly remember what I thought of it before, so I’m looking forward to finding out…!
