Time is Relative - The Pyramids of Mars

 

Well if it isn't you, with all your hair and face and loveliness. Welcome, once more, to my half remembered ramble through the history of Doctor Who. This week, the Pyramids! Of Maaaaaars!

This story finds Doctor Who peering out from under his hat to see if anyone has noticed how unusual he's being. 

People are not paying enough attention to him, so he's putting a lot of effort into being extra weird and alien. Apparently the massive scarf and nonsensical hat aren't enough to signal "Look out, here comes someone with one heck of a personality." So he's thrown "moody sulking" into the mix. 

The story, when finally Doctor Who deigns to glance its way, is very exciting. This guy, in the super excellent fez, lives in a house full of Egypt stuff and and maybe is Egyptian himself, even though they all live in England for some reason.

I like how casual he is about it all. If I get a new poster on the wall I basically spend all day hopping up and down waiting for someone to comment on it. But this guy is all "Yeah, I've got a massive sarcophagus in my lounge. It's no biggie."

It all kicks off big time when - hurray! - some giant evil Egyptian Mummies burst out of the woods and start murdering everyone.

These are a truly excellent design and look very much like they mean business. I think even a Cyberman would do a gasp if he saw these two lumbering out of the dark. He'd think, "I know I don't have any emotions, but I also know that Cybermen aren't meant to wee in their suits, and I've definitely done that."

The Mummies are chasing this guy. He was just wandering around near the house, and now he's having to run away before he gets hit to death by the Mummies. 

I don't know why they're so keen to kill him. Maybe they're just angry, because they've woken up confused, like wasps. "Why are we in England? Why am I covered in bandages? What's going on?"

The guy has fooled the mummies, by the cunning plan of standing next to a tree. This has totally foxed the Mummies, and they are absolutely at a loss what to do next. 

I think the guy is meant to be a poacher. I've never come across these characters except 

a) being murdered by aliens in Doctor Who and 

b) selling eels to Withnail and I. 

As I understand it, they are some kind of wood dwelling vagabond. This one has quite snappy dress sense, though, I think, for someone who lives in a ditch.

Soon the Mummies catch the poacher guy, and squash him to death between their angular bosoms. 

It will later transpire that the Mummes are really robots. I can only assume, then, that these strange, protruding chest things are specifically designed for slicing off people's heads. Otherwise... I mean, what's the thinking? Who designs a big killer evil Mummy thing, and then gives it a giant triangular chest? 

Or are they... are they meant to look sexy? Is that why the poacher looks so distraught? He's thinking, "I hope they kill me before anyone sees us and thinks we're friends."

Doctor Who and Sarah eventually turn up and start to dick about with all the Egypt things. They haven't even bothered to find out what's going on, they just think "Oh look, someone's doing something - let's fiddle with it and break things and move stuff and put it somewhere else."

What if it's a nice thing, Doctor Who? What if it's a surprise birthday party and you've ruined it? What if the poacher guy was a heroin smuggler, and the Mummies are just two really unorthodox cops who don't play by the rules?

Meanwhile, these two guys are having an argument. They are brothers, so this isn't too unusual. This isn't like that argument I had with my brother, though, which ended with me pulling off Boba Fett's head and laughing while he cried. No. 

This one basically goes:

Pathetic Moustache Brother: "Why are you being so weird and murdery since you got back from that Mysterious Tomb in Egypt?"

Cadaverous Clearly Evil Brother: "Why do you prattle so, puny human? I mean... nothing's wrong, I've just been driving all day.  How's mum?"

He murders him, obviously.

Meanwhile, in space, this guy is watching everything and going, "Yeah!" He's the main bad guy, and he's called Sutekh. He lives on this chair, and he's been stuck there for ages because, years ago, he was a massively evil space-jerk and all his friends ganged up on him and stuck him to a chair forever. 

All the stuff with the Mummies and Egypt is his idea. He wants to get off the chair, and so he keeps shouting things like, "Do my bidding!" and "Make evil happen!" and "Kill more poachers!"

Apparently this will help.

The Mummies build a big space rocket. At least that's what they tell everyone. It doesn't really resemble a rocket at all, does it? This would explain why they are all standing in such defensive 'hard man' stances, as if daring anyone to say, "Why have you built a big vinyl tent in the garden? Are you having a pretend festival?"

I think it's meant to go to Mars, and set Sutekh free, or something. If it destroys... something... then he... gets out of the chair. I'll be honest, I've never really paid much attention to what's happening. It's all too exciting and scary for me to properly settle.

Evil Cadaverous Brother turns out to have the rather mundane job of bossing the Mummies about. You can tell that he's a bit deflated by this. He was clearly expecting bigger things from his job as Villainous Ghoul than 'supervise the efficient loading of a rubbish looking rocket, on schedule and without damaging the original wood flooring of the house."

He's a good villain, but he needs some underlings that he can yell sarcastic insults at. The Mummies have excellent upper body strength, but they don't really listen, so it's impossible to make them sad.

Kaboom! Shoot!

I don't know what Doctor Who has been up to in this story, but it's clearly not much. For all the difference Doctor Who has made, this might as well be called "The Amazing Sutekh Show - episode five, Everyone Nice Gets Horribly Killed".

Sarah has clearly had enough, and has found herself a massive gun. It was only a matter of time, really, before she tired of Doctor Who's idiosyncratic approach to evil. "Ooh, let's talk to it. Let's wave jelly babies in its face. Let's try to see the good in it until it dies of shame! Let's press a button and hope it makes the story end for no reason."

Towards the end of the story, everyone goes to Mars. Here we see Evil Cadaverous Brother poking furiously at one of the many puzzles that you apparently have to do if you want to see Sutekh. 

He is definitely not having a fun time. It was good earlier, when he was strutting around being the embodiment of evil and murdering his brother, and watching the Mummies charge excitedly after people. Now literally everyone he could conceivably kill is already dead, and here he is, frustrated by this nonsense.

What's next? A huge sudoku? Evil Candy Crush? 

The final test for Doctor Who and Sarah is when they meet these fancy Bling Mummies and have to play stupid logic games with them. It's one of those "If I'm telling the truth, but my mate says I'm lying, but then I say I'm not..." things, where you've got to use clever thinking or Sarah Jane will suffocate in her big tube.

Sarah looks very concerned, and with good reason. She's realised that Doctor Who has, right this very second, run out of enthusiasm for this story. If she's lucky, he'll tell the fancy Mummies the answer to their stupid quiz before her lungs explode, but then there'll be no getting anything useful out of him for the rest of the day, and they might as well just go home. 

As I recall, that's pretty much what happens. Sutekh does escape, and vows to destroy all living matter in the universe etc. But Doctor Who defeats him by getting out a device no-one has ever seen before and pressing some buttons.

It's a poor ending to an otherwise delightful story. Ah well. You can't have everything. 

See you next time, for more, similar nonsense.