(Note: A review of the entire serial known as The Aztecs)
The so-called pure historical, where the TARDIS travels back in time and gets the TARDIS crew involved without aliens or other sci-fi elements, is one of the things that sets the Hartnell era apart from the rest of Doctor Who. While Marco Polo gets the credit for starting this Whovian subgenre, it's not until a couple of stories down the line that it hits its stride. With The Aztecs, broadcast across May and June 1964, it most certainly did that.
That's in part due to a smart set of scripts by John Lucarotti. Having written the aforementioned Marco Polo, which as I noted in my review was more travelogue and didn't feature the main cast perhaps as strong as it should have, The Aztecs feel like him learning lessons from that experience. Here, for example, the plot is far more contained. Instead of wandering for weeks on end, everything takes place around a single Aztec city and temple. The time scale is smaller, across the space of a few days at most. Tying in with that, the story also has four episodes instead of seven, meaning that it's far tighter than Marco Polo was.
All of which serves the story well. For just six stories into Who's run, it's already tackling one of the biggest questions a time travel series can face: Can you change history? Should you try to? Set against a backdrop of a civilization that's at once immensely cultured, yet superstitious and obsessed with human sacrifice, it explores those themes by putting the history teacher Barbara (and Jacqueline Hill for that matter) at the center of events. Her push to change history, to save the Aztec people from their own worst excesses pushes the story forward, creating conflict on all fronts. The result is an engaging drama of hope and fear, and the conflict between past and future with Hill's performance lying at the heart of the serial.
There's also an intriguing subtext that runs through the story as well. In some ways, it's hard not to see a commentary on colonialism. Barbara is, after all, a European stepping into a native culture and working to change it to her own ends. As benevolent as her intentions are, the results of her attempted intervention on clearly on display throughout as it leads to deceit, suspicion, and bloodshed. It's fascinating to think that Lucarotti was writing this at a time when Britain's colonies were gaining independence still, effectively critiquing an era that was just ending.
If that makes the story sound stagey or talky, there's more to it than that. There's an adventure story element to this as well, something which allows the story to be a showcase for the other Earthly companion Ian. With Ian facing down the warrior Ixta multiple times across the four episodes, the story sees him getting involved in numerous scrapes from hand to hand combat to getting trapped inside a temple corridor. It's a chance for the series first man of action to shine in some well-staged fight scenes for the era (even if William Russell is being doubled for a good portion of the climactic fight).
The set design and costumes are equally strong, working to the series' strengths at the time. While the science fiction stories would see them trying to break both the budget and the walls of the set, the historicals are just as much a showcase for their ingenuity. After all, recreating an Aztec city is no mean feat, especially on the sort of budget we're talking about at this point in the series history. True, it may look primitive by the standards of Who's 21st-century regeneration, but it remains engaging and immensely watchable.
Because, being part historical drama, part adventure story, The Aztecs has something to offer for everyone. True, it lacks aliens or the more overt genre trappings, but it offers something else in spades. That would be a compelling human story of hopes for change played out against the fate of a civilization. The result? One of the standout stories of the series, from this era or any other.
The so-called pure historical, where the TARDIS travels back in time and gets the TARDIS crew involved without aliens or other sci-fi elements, is one of the things that sets the Hartnell era apart from the rest of Doctor Who. While Marco Polo gets the credit for starting this Whovian subgenre, it's not until a couple of stories down the line that it hits its stride. With The Aztecs, broadcast across May and June 1964, it most certainly did that.
That's in part due to a smart set of scripts by John Lucarotti. Having written the aforementioned Marco Polo, which as I noted in my review was more travelogue and didn't feature the main cast perhaps as strong as it should have, The Aztecs feel like him learning lessons from that experience. Here, for example, the plot is far more contained. Instead of wandering for weeks on end, everything takes place around a single Aztec city and temple. The time scale is smaller, across the space of a few days at most. Tying in with that, the story also has four episodes instead of seven, meaning that it's far tighter than Marco Polo was.
All of which serves the story well. For just six stories into Who's run, it's already tackling one of the biggest questions a time travel series can face: Can you change history? Should you try to? Set against a backdrop of a civilization that's at once immensely cultured, yet superstitious and obsessed with human sacrifice, it explores those themes by putting the history teacher Barbara (and Jacqueline Hill for that matter) at the center of events. Her push to change history, to save the Aztec people from their own worst excesses pushes the story forward, creating conflict on all fronts. The result is an engaging drama of hope and fear, and the conflict between past and future with Hill's performance lying at the heart of the serial.
There's also an intriguing subtext that runs through the story as well. In some ways, it's hard not to see a commentary on colonialism. Barbara is, after all, a European stepping into a native culture and working to change it to her own ends. As benevolent as her intentions are, the results of her attempted intervention on clearly on display throughout as it leads to deceit, suspicion, and bloodshed. It's fascinating to think that Lucarotti was writing this at a time when Britain's colonies were gaining independence still, effectively critiquing an era that was just ending.
If that makes the story sound stagey or talky, there's more to it than that. There's an adventure story element to this as well, something which allows the story to be a showcase for the other Earthly companion Ian. With Ian facing down the warrior Ixta multiple times across the four episodes, the story sees him getting involved in numerous scrapes from hand to hand combat to getting trapped inside a temple corridor. It's a chance for the series first man of action to shine in some well-staged fight scenes for the era (even if William Russell is being doubled for a good portion of the climactic fight).
The set design and costumes are equally strong, working to the series' strengths at the time. While the science fiction stories would see them trying to break both the budget and the walls of the set, the historicals are just as much a showcase for their ingenuity. After all, recreating an Aztec city is no mean feat, especially on the sort of budget we're talking about at this point in the series history. True, it may look primitive by the standards of Who's 21st-century regeneration, but it remains engaging and immensely watchable.
Because, being part historical drama, part adventure story, The Aztecs has something to offer for everyone. True, it lacks aliens or the more overt genre trappings, but it offers something else in spades. That would be a compelling human story of hopes for change played out against the fate of a civilization. The result? One of the standout stories of the series, from this era or any other.