Doctor Who: The Myth Makers
(4 episodes, s03e06-e09, 1965)
Doctor Who visits the Trojan war. The serial’s opening battle seems almost comical, but does a decent job of establishing the conflict among the plot’s characters. Looking back from 2014 to 1965, the Doctor pretending to be a god in order to more freely explore the setting is a clever meta nod to the deus ex machina that is Doctor Who. With his virtual immortality, changing faces, and supernatural abilities in comparison to the cultures he visits, The Doctor is, quite literally, a god in a machine.
The serial seems rather run of the mill, though the re-interpretation of the stories from myth are quite refreshing to see. It was a fairly clever ruse to rescue Vicki from the Trojans, and it was hard to watch her leave the TARDIS and the Doctor. I will certainly miss her wit and spunk. Her departure seemed rushed but still emotionally touching, and it will be interesting to see how the Doctor will respond. Unfortunately, this leaves us Steven (ugh) and the unknown (but quite limited) variable of Katarina as companions leading into the twelve-part master plan of the Doctor’s most powerful enemies.
As a side note but not a hit to the score for this review, the reconstruction’s music track is pretty bad. It sounds like a warped 45 RPM record, but there’s probably not much they can do about it since this serial is lost. It was distracting, but easy to work around.
Rating: 3/5 – “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Daleks’ Master Plan
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
The sound track does leave something to be desired. You are in for a ride when it comes to the 12 part Dalek story next. Have fun.
I thought that the dark comedy in this one was very well done and I liked how the Greek and Trojan camps were basically twisted mirrors of each other. Odysseus steals the show and Paris is a riot. I love it.
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