Right I thought I would do another Doctor Who review and again I've plumped for what must be my favourite era of the show, when Philip Hinchcliffe was the producer during the Tom Baker era. And this story is The Brain of Morbius, which remains one of the most macabre stories of the classic series. So let's delve further into this one....
So the story is set on the planet Karn and begins with the TARDIS materliasing on the planet and the Doctor (Baker) angrily storms out and looks up at the sky and curses the Time Lords, blaming them for dragging him off course. Accompanied by his companion Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) they both soon stumble across a headless body of alien insect lifeform and look out to see there are dozens crashed spaceships over a valley. The Doctor and Sarah then spot a castle in the distance just as the rain comes on they make their to it, but they are being spied on by a girl wearing a strange headdress. The girl, Ohica (Gilly Brown) then reports back to the leader of the sisterhood on Karn, Maren (Cynthia Grenville) of the arrival of the TARDIS, which alarms Maren who insists that no spaceship can land on the planet without their presence. Maren also warns Ohica that the Elixir, they use to prolong their lives is running dangerously low and there is precious little left. Maren also suspects the Time Lords may have sent agents to steal the Elixir and tells Ohica to summon the other members of the sisterhood.
Meanwhile the Doctor and Sarah arrive at the castle and are greeted by its owner, Solon (Philip Madoc) a once renowned surgeon, who resides there with his clumsy manservant, Condo (Colin Fay) who has only one hand and a hook in place of his other. The Doctor asks Solon about the wrecked spaceships who tells him that it must due to the magnetic radiation around the planet that they crashed and Solon also tells them that he saved Condo's life as he dragged him from a wrecked spaceship as well. The sisterhood meanwhile chant together using their powers they manage to physically summon the TARDIS to their shrine and they examine it and realise it is a Time Lord spacecraft and that they must have sent an agent to steal the Elixir. Maren then decides they must try and locate the Doctor and bring him to them and they began their chanting again. The Doctor in the meantime sharing a drink with Solon, tells Solon that he has heard of him and of his advanced work involving microsurgical tissue transplants and also how he was rumoured to be linked with the cult of Morbius, a former renegade Time Lord who was executed after he formed a rebellion army against his race. The Doctor soon realises however that Solon has a statue of Morbius in his castle but he suddenly falls over unconscious as Solon had his wine drugged. Solon now intends to use the Doctor's head for a surgical operation of which will soon be revealed. Meanwhile Sarah fakes unconsciousness and sneaks downstairs into Solon's laboratory where she finds to her horror the body of a headless creature made of different body parts. The Doctor's body however is transported by the Sisterhood to their shrine before Solon and Condo can start the operation.
The Doctor then comes to in the shrine where Maren accuses him of being there to steal the Elixir which the Doctor denies and tells them the last thing he remembers was having a drink with Solon and Morbius, an impression leaves him shaken, as he realises he felt the mind of Morbius reach out to him. Maren however insists that Morbius is dead as he was executed on Karn and that he too will soon die. Meanwhile Solon and Condo discover the Doctor is missing and Solon realises the sisterhood must have taken him and he swears for revenge and tells Condo they must go to the sisterhood and get the Doctor back. The Doctor is then tied to a steak and the sisterhood began chanting with torches they prepare to burn the Doctor, but Solon and Condo intervene. Solon pleads with the sisterhood to let him have the Doctor, and even offers Condo when Maren reufses, who tells Solon to leave who does so with Condo. Maren and the sisters then resume the ceremonial sacrifice of the Doctor, who is released by Sarah, who is digsuised in the sisterhood robes, but as they escape Maren fires a bolt of energy from her ring at Sarah which blinds her. The Doctor then returns to Solon's castle and asks that he examine Sarah, but Solon tells him that her eyesight is almost completely destroyed and only the Elixir could restore her vision, which sets the Doctor off to the sisterhood again. Solon writes a note for the sisterhood to warn them of his ruse to send the Doctor back and he dispatches Condo to deliver it before the Doctor arrives there. In the meantime Sarah stumbles blindly around the dining room and knocks over a glass, after which we hear a voice call in the distance. Sarah blindly walks downstairs into Solon's lab to find the source of the voice, a glowing brain which turns out to be the remains of the renegade Time Lord, Morbius......
The Brain of Morbius for its time and era remains one of the series most graphic and macabre stories, which understandably caused some controversy at the time of its original broadcast and outrage with the prim and proper Mary Whitehouse, the head of the National Viewers and Listeners Association (NVALA) who was said to have been horrified by some of the story's content. Some of the scenes in the story certainly reflect that such as the moment where Solon and Condo struggle with one another in the lab and Solon shoots Condo in the chest and we see blood spatter on his shirt. This certainly is one of the most violent scenes in the original show and of that era and was also followed by the scene where during their struggle Morbius's brain is knocked onto the floor along with a puddle of green goo! (which was the fluid used inside the tank to support Morbius's brain). It is in itself a fairly sickening scene even though it is still pretty tame in comparison to your average horror film.
But the story itself is still a very entertaining one and its brooding atmosphere makes for a welcome change and the Frankenstein-esque storyline also makes it a bit more unique. The story also expands on the history of the Time Lords a little with the introduction of Morbius, a former renegade Time Lord as well as the Elixir of life used by the sisterhood and was once shared by the Time Lords. It also event hints at the Doctor's birth place was within "a couple of billion miles" from Karn and also further utilises the Doctor telepathic abilities in the scene where he says to Maren how he felt "the mind of Morbius reach out and touch mine". Terrance Dicks also who initially wrote the draft for the story had the story heavily re-written by the script editor of the time, Robert Holmes, which angered Dicks and insisted he wanted his name to be taken off the credits. And Holmes asked Dicks what name should he use instead and Dicks famously said to him "I don't know. Why not use some bland psuedonym!" after which Holmes used the psuedonym of Robin Bland, much to Dicks's amusement much later on.
Performance wise the cast are all excellent here and Tom Baker does yet another wonderful job as the Doctor and by now he really had started to find his feet in the role, given that it was his second season. In Tom Baker's second season (and 13th overall of the show by then) he showed different sides to the Doctor's personality where in stories such as Pyramids of Mars and The Seeds of Doom he was deadly serious, but here Baker give the Doctor's character a nice balance of playfulness and seriousness. And Tom has various highlights in the story such as in his opening scene where he storms out of the TARDIS and looks up at the sky as he rants at his own people "Come out! Meddlesome interferring idiots! I know you are up there so come out and show yourselves! Messing about with my TARDIS! Dragging us a thousand parsecs off course!". And later in the scene the Doctor stubbornly refuses to look around the planet and sits playing with is yo-yo and Sarah asks if he is coming and he says "No thanks. I'm just going to sit here and practice my double loops!". Tom also of course shares some nice chemistry with Lis Sladen especially in the scene where Sarah has been blinded by Maren's ring he examines her eyes and says "Flash probably numbed the optic nerve" and as Sarah pities herself the Doctor says "If you're going to sit their wallowing in self pity, I'll bite your nose!". Another amusing moment is where the Doctor goes back to the shrine of the Sisterhood and he arrives inside and says "Ding dong!" and all of the suddent the sisterhood all surround him and throw a net over him and he says "We can't go on meeting like this!". Tom also proves he is very adept in the more dramatic moments of the story as well, particularly in the final episode where he confronts the monster body of Morbius, who's brain has been attached into a casing and he challenges Morbius. And the Doctor says to Morbius taunting him "Brain getting a little overheated is it? Careful, not as strong as it was!" and Morbius says his brain functions perfectly and at that moment the Doctor lunges forward and says "I DOUBT IT MORBIUS!! All that time in a tank it's gone soft!". Also in the same scene Baker get's a good line where he teases Morbius by commentating on his monsterous body "You know, you can't really go on calling yourself Morbius. There's very little Morbius left! How about Potpurri?" and Sarah pitches in with "How about Chop Suey?!" and the responds the Doctor "Chop Suey the galactic emperor!". And lastly Tom has another great moment with Sarah when the Doctor and Sarah are both trapped in Solon's castle, he creates a lethal compound of cyanogen to lure out Morbius. And Sarah asks "will it work?" and the Doctor says "Well.... if we're still in here after a month???" and Sarah says "It hasn't worked!".
Philip Madoc is also terrific in his role as the villainous Solon who intends to resurrect Morbius and use the Doctor's head as the icing on the proverbial cake (so to speak, although its not a very tasty cake!). Madoc has numerous highlights in the show and even from the first scene he provides a very commanding presence with his deep booming voice. And in the scene he takes the head of an alien insect that Condo killed and he looks at in disappointment he shouts at Condo "That is an insect!! Even a half-witted cannibal like you can see it won't do!". And later when the Doctor and Sarah arrive at the castle, Solon greets them warmly and takes the Doctor's hat off and says to him "What a magnificent head!" and later when they have wine and dinner he says to the Doctor "You know I always knew that one day I would have a guest with a head for such a good vintage!". And one of my favourite lines comes in the scene after Solon and Condo discover that the Doctor has vanished after the sisterhood have transported his body away. And Condo says "Doctor gone!" and Solon in a silent rage says "I can see that you chicken brained biological disaster!". Later on Madoc has other good moments such as the scene where having shot Condo he grabs Sarah and forces her to work the pump during the operation and Sarah panic saying "What if I make a mistake?!" and Solon grabs her and says "If he dies, you die!".
Elisabeth Sladen is also really good once again as Sarah Jane Smith and she has some good scenes in the story such as the start where she looks out onto the valley of wrecked spaceships and Sarah says "There must be a dozen wrecked spaceships out here! Its like the Sargasso sea!". Also there is the scene where Sarah is blinded by Maren's ring and she tells the Doctor she can't see after they escape and he examines and she starts to feel sorry for herself and wraps the sisterhood robe around her head "Hey, you know I could always sell flowers. You know luvly fresh violets, guvnor. If I ever get back to Piccadily!". And later on in the scene where Sarah (having recovered her eyesight) and the Doctor are trapped inside a room of Solon's castle, the Doctor makes cyanogen gas and places it above the vents to let it filter upstairs into Solon's lab. And Sarah afer having asked if it will work and the Doctor says "well if we are still here in a month...." and she says "It hasn't worked!". Then Sarah asks "How many seconds are there in a month?" and the Doctor quickly replies "2,678,400" and Sarah says "Short month!" (although that is how many seconds there are in 31 days, so strictly speaking that's not entirely accurate for all months of the year!).
Cynthia Grenville is also good in her role as Maren, the leader of the Sisterhood on Karn and she shares some good scenes with the Doctor. Grenville's best line comes when she first meets the Doctor after the sisterhood have used their special telekinetic powers to physically ransport the Doctor to them and she says as he speaks of Morbius, "Morbius is dead, Doctor and you will be joining him very shortly!". Gilly Brown also does well in her role as Ohica, Maren's second in command of the sisterhood although she does have a tendency to overdo when she widens her eyes, so much so in fact she could give David Tenant a good run for his money in that department!
Colin Fay also puts in a good performance aswell as Condo, Solon's slow-witted but sympathetic manservant. Fay (who was an opera singer) has some good moments in the story as well such as the scene where he get's angry over Solon offering Condo up as a sacrifice to the sisterhood in order to spare the Doctor from being sacrificed by the sisterhood. And Condo says "Condo, good servant. You give sisters, let kill Condo! Condo kill you!" and he grabs Solon and says "You make Condo fool! Now you die!" but Solon tries to get out of it by saying it was just a "stupid joke" and Condo says "Condo not joke, you lose hand!". Also later on there is scene when they prepare for Morbius's operation and Condo looks over at the headless body that Solon has created for Morbius and he notices that one of the arms is human and he puts two and two together, realising that it is his own hand. And Condo says to Solon in shock "You take Condo's arm for this!" and they have their fight which ends with Condo being shot in the stomach, but he survives and limps out into the corridor (poor guy). There is also an amusing scene where Condo goes to find Sarah who at this point is still blinded by the effect's of Maren's ring and he picks her up and takes her away saying "Better you come now. Master want" as Sarah is kicking and screaming (although in this scene I can swear I hear Lis Sladen actaully laughing!).
And last of all Michael Spice does an excellent job as the voice of Morbius and Spice's powerful voice is eletronically treated as he delivers Morbius's potent threats (yet impotent as he is just a brain in a jar for the most part). Spice is also given quite a dramatic and effective entrance when Sarah stumbles downstairs into Solon's lab and he angrily asks her "Are you one of the sisterhood?! Did Maren send you to destroy me?!" and Sarah says no and Morbius angrily replies "Yes she did! You she-devils want to destroy me! Now before I have my revenge!". And later Spice has another good moment where Solon talks to Morbius, who angrily tells Solon "Trapped like this! Like a sponge beneath the sea. Yet even the sponge has more life than I! Can you understand a thousandth of my agony?! I, Morbius, who once lead the High council of the Time Lords, now reduced to this, to a condition where I envy a vegetable!". The Morbius creature itself was played by stunt actor, Stuart Fell.
As for the director, Christopher Barry does an excellent job here with the story and he keeps the atmosphere very intense and brooding throughout and expertly keeps the lighting dark to suit the tone of the story also. The music is again by Dudley Simpson and his score is excellent as well and it has plenty of dramatic passages which work well for the story and it showed once again how Simpson was the perfect choice of regular composer for the show and its remarkable to think just how prolific he was during the show's early years.
So regarding flaws does The Brain of Morbius have any worth moaning about???? Well not really although it has to be said there is the odd plot hole and the one that springs to mind straight away is why did the sisterhood decide to give the Doctor back to Solon after he helps them out by reviving the flame of their Elixir????? I mean it should be a case of "Thank you, Doctor, you have restored our scared flame!" but no instead "we will render you unconscious and take you back to Solon and leave you for dead!". Now that is gratitude!! Not unless of course the Doctor planned it that way to make it look like he was dead although he simply woke up when Sarah found him at the start of the last episode of the story. And it has to be said the logic of that scene just isn't very well explained at all and you are just left to imagine how and why the Sisterhood decided to give the Doctor back rather than just let him travel back himself! Another issue is with the set production, which is largely excellent but one of the backdrops is clearly a canvass that has been painted of a blue sky in the background in the scene where Sarah stumbles blindly around the surface of Karn when Condo finds her, and it basically looks pretty cheap and obvious in that instance.
And another thing that bugged me was the scene where the Doctor challenges Morbius to a mindbending contest at the end of the story and we see images of the Doctor's previous lives come alive on a projected image while they do mental battle with one another. And as we know the doctor has only regenerated three times up to this point yet we see other faces prior to that of the first doctor (William Hartnell of course) all of which are actually members of the Doctor Who production team of that time which included Robert Holmes, the script editor, George Gallaccio, production unit manager, Graeme Harper, the production assistant and one of the show's directors, Douglas Camfield. Hinchcliffe at the time said he wanted to imply that William Hartnell was not the first doctor, however if that were the case by then the Doctor would have been on his 8th or 9th regeneration by then! But the background of the Time Lords was just in its infancy back then of course and it would be The Deadly Assassin where it would introduce the concept of a Time Lord having a maximum regeneration cycle of 12 times. So again it did raise some inconsistencies in the story and also the history of the Doctor and the Time Lords lifespan as well. Also lastly another plot hole is in the scene where the Doctor makes cyanogen and he places it next to an airduct so it filters through into Solon's lab. However as the cyanogen gas kills Solon, the Doctor was taking a bit of a gamble as what if Solon hadn't finished the operation and Morbius was still inert then he and Sarah would still have been trapped inside the room! So it was just as well the Doctor timed it just right to use the cyanogen gas otherwise Morbius wouldn't have got up and found them in time!
But that aside The Brain of Morbius still is one of the classic series most unique, entertaining and foreboding stories and it remains a very strong one and well worth checking it out if you haven't seen it yet.
And with that I shall bid you farewell!
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