Day 45 — February 14th 2021
Temple of Secrets and Small Prophet, Quick Return
Temple of Secrets (The Myth Makers — Episode One)
The Myth Makers is one of the stories I’ve been most looking forward to reaching. It’s a story with a decent reputation, and I know in recent years especially it’s become something of a ‘classic’ talked about in hushed tones as one people would most like back. But when I did my previous marathon, I wasn’t a fan. Well, I think I wasn’t a fan. In truth I can remember almost nothing about it aside from a general sense of ‘I wasn’t keen on that’. I had similar thoughts about The Romans, which I went on to love this time around, so I hoped that similar magic would be worked here.
So I’m sorry to report that I reached the end of this episode and found myself thinking ‘I wasn’t keen on that’.
It starts well enough, in the middle of a fight, and my favourite part of the set up is Peter Purves’ narration on the Soundtrack CD suggesting that the fight continues on past the TARDIS, already stood there waiting, with neither of the combatants noticing. We then cut inside to find our regulars watching the events outside on the scanner. I enjoyed that, although a check of the camera script implies that it didn’t quite happen that way on screen.
Indeed, it seems to be a bit of a mystery what happened with the TARDIS for this scene, and it’s one we’re not likely to solve unless the episode turns up. The script suggests we see the arrival of the ship from inside, with the materialisation sound played over a shot of the scanner, and then the scanner continues to show the fight outside, which we’d already been watching before this scene. On the soundtrack there’s no hint of the sound effect, and we seem to cut to the regulars already watching the battle in progress. It seems unlikely that they’d have dragged the police box out to location — they still don’t really do that at this point.
A few pages later in the script, the TARDIS is described as being “Partially Concealed”, though this would have been in the studio. I’m not sure what it would have been concealed by, mind, as the location they used for the exterior filming is pretty open! Maybe it just didn’t match up very well with the studio footage? As I say, we’re not likely to solve this one without the episode itself, and actually it’s good to have the odd TARDIS Mystery kicking around!
As for the episode itself… oh it’s so much talking. Everyone talking. On and on, endlessly. And it doesn’t help that I’ve no real sense of who’s who in this story, either. It’s one of the least-photographed adventures, meaning there’s several characters for whom we have very litte reference, and it falls into the era lacking Tele-Snaps, so that doesn’t help either.
I also find myself hugely annoyed that despite this being one of the most densley packed instalments of the show we’ve had so far, Vicki is sidelined entirely. She only gets 14 lines in the whole episode, and they include such winners as ‘What sort of people are they, Doctor?’, ‘Doctor, be careful!’, ‘Doctor, you can’t!’ and ‘But Steven, we mustn’t’. I know new producer John Wiles — who joins the series with this story — didn’t see eye-to-eye with Maureen O’Brien and was keen to write her out as quickly as possible, but it feels like a conscious decision has been made to use her as little as possible.
I’ve been really impressed with Vicki as a character in the time she’s been with the series, and she’s had more personality than a lot of Doctor Who companions get, so it’s a shame to see her final story start off with her not even leaving the TARDIS in this episode!
A disappointing start, but I’m hoping things can only get better. 4/10.
Something that really stood out today is the realisation of just how bonkers it was that they stuck this story in between Mission to the Unknown and the rest of The Daleks’ Master Plan. Were kids in 1965 gutted that after a brilliant episode featuring the Daleks back to being their scary selves that they were suddenly stuck in ancient Troy with all this talking? Did they expect the Daleks to show up at the end?
Small Prophet, Quick Return (The Myth Makers — Episode Two)
This episode takes us into Troy, and despite my complaints in Episode One about there being too many characters already, I’m pleased we’ve got some more here. It’s safe to say that the new characters have caught my interest far more than the others, and I’ve even found myself enjoying the jokes here.
I’m particularly struck with the similarities between this story and The Fires of Pompeii, although they’re largely superficial. We’ve got a soothsayer professing the end of all things, a companion from the future who’s worried about the fate awaiting her new friends, lots of talk about the gods and the TARDIS as a temple. All these comparisons just make me long for that story, though. For whatever reason I’ve simply not taken to The Myth Makers in the way I’d hoped, and I do wonder if a monster might liven it up!
It’s an example of a story that I’d love to see returned to the archives because I’d like to reappraise it, as with Galaxy 4 the other day. On the soundtrack alone, that story was not going to rate as highly as it did, but the direction and pleasure of actually watching it gave the story a boost. I wonder if the same would be true here? So much of comedy can be visual, and I think it may be easier to buy the performances, and the humour, if we were able to see them. It would also give me something to talk about, because I confess to being at something of a loss today!
It’s a slight improvement on Episode One, but still only a 5/10 I’m afraid.
