Today’s Guest Blog comes from Simon Meade, a fan who had the good fortune to enjoy Patrick Troughton’s adventures when first broadcast:
Despite what some members of the younger generation may say, there are some advantages of being aged 50-plus. One of the biggest, from a Doctor Who viewing perspective, is that you can remember the joy that the Patrick Troughton era brought you, before the BBC embarked on a course of cultural carnage!
While the missing episodes trail continues to give no hints of what may be to come, we resume the episode countdown with a tale full of Gothic Horror. Arriving on the planet Karn (which would later gain fame for the Eighth Doctor 50th anniversary prequel The Night of the Doctor) the Doctor and Sarah happen upon the lair of mad scientist Solon. It transpires that the Time Lords have sent the Doctor to this planet having discovered that Morbius, a Time Lord of extraordinary evil, had survived his execution at the hands of the Time Lords, and hired Solon to place his brain into a new body. Owing to the isolated location of Karn, Solon is reduced to forcing spaceships to crash land on the planet, and cannibalising the survivors to create a body in the style of Frankenstein’s monster.
As you can tell from this short summary, the story does not make for cheerful viewing! It is a magisterial story, with sufficient extra interest brought from the surrounding cast – Solon’s servant Condo, and the Sisterhood of Karn – a secret society of women who worship the ‘Eternal Flame’ – a flame that creates an elixir delivering eternal life. It also creates an interesting look into the Doctor’s back story – at the end we see the Doctor challenge Morbius to a ‘mind-bending’ contest, in which we see each of the Doctor’s past incarnations appear one after another. After William Hartnell, eight more faces appear. Opinion is divided as to whether these are past incarnations of the Doctor (which subsequent episodes, especially The Deadly Assassin and The Time of the Doctor would seem to refute) or of Morbius. Suffice to say that considerable discussion and speculation was aroused when this was first shown!
In contrast to The Seeds of Doom I actually don’t find the grimness of The Brain of Morbius too much to bear. Perhaps it is because of the light relief from Condo; or that Baker himself is more devil-may-care than his more serious mindset in Seeds; it could even be that Seeds suffers from having six episodes of unrelenting grim, whereas this adventure is somewhat more contained. In any event, I have always enjoyed this adventure from the moment dad bought in on VHS, and it is a definite highlight in a season of exceptional stories.
Dan Talks Doctor Who 