The Aztecs

Have you ever wanted to change history?

Every science fiction venture involving time travel always runs up against this wall where characters are in a position to alter the past based on their own perspective from the future. All fine and dandy to want that, but the logic always remains that if you are from the future, and you change intentionally change something in the past, like slipping back and giving yourself the winning lotto numbers for a big draw, your own future will change, including your present. You'll end up winning buckets of money, be rich, have no reason to go back in time to provide yourself with the winning numbers, and thus not go back, you'll never get the numbers, you won't win, and you'll end up right where you were before. Mainstream films like Back to the Future loved tinkering with the past just for fun without seriously examinging the logic of past timelines. To their credit, the writers of the Star Trek : Voyager episode "A Year In Hell" actually did handle this properly, and every small attemept that was made to alter time changed everything in the future of that episode.

Here we have Barbara and Susan emerging from the TARDIS into a tomb of an Aztec priest in Mexico sometime before the arrival of Cortez. Barbara finds a way out into the temple and is mistaken as the reincarnation of the Aztec priest Yetaxa. The rest of the travellers follow her out, but the tomb is not deisgned to allow re-entry and they are trapped outside, away from the TARDIS. The Doctor insists that Barbara continue to play her role as Yetaxa to allow him time to figure out how to get back to the TARDIS, but Barbara takes it upon herself to attempt to alter the Aztec way of life by forbidding human sacrifice. Her initial attempt backfires and incurs the suspicions and wrath of Tlotoxl, the high priest of sacrifice (which is understandable as Barbara is trying to take away his job), and the travellers are split up; Susan is packed off to a seminary where she raises a stink by refusing to marry a man chosen for her, the Doctor is shuffled off to a garden to sit with other old people and after some mild flirting manages to get engaged to the lady Cameca, and Ian is sent to train with the Aztec army but comes up against some stiff competition from the warrior Ixta, who would gladly kill Ian given the chance.

Last time I railed on Susan for her freaking out sessions and I am happy to say that here she only gets hysterical once when she cries out in alarm at the human sacrifcice. Barbara really holds her own as the imposter god, speaking with formality to the high priests of the temple. For a science teacher Ian really knows how to fight and renders Ixta unconscious in their first bout, and despite being drugged puts up a good struggle the second time they clash as well. But it is the Doctor who shows the most shocking changes this episode, consoling Barbara after scolding her for her attempts to change things as if he himself may have tried once and failed as well. He really pours on the charm with Cameca as well, shamelessly flirting with her to gain information about how the tomb was built in his attempts to get back to the TARDIS.

This adventure was given the deluxe treatment when it was released on DVD, and thus is the best quality episode I have watched so far in this chronological sequence. Extensive restoration work was done on all four episodes to clean up the frames, enhance the soundtrack, and reproduce the "video-look" of the original episode. To compare the quailty of the DVD with the old muddy messy grainy VHS version is to compare night to day, and I can't wait for more of the old black and whites like this to get the same treatment. Full techincal details of how The Aztecs was restored can be found at http://www.restoration-team.co.uk/ along with details of their other Doctor Who projects. I didn't bother to listen to the commentary on this one yet; maybe at some future time I will go back and listen, but as the blog title suggests, I do have a mission here, and it is time to press on....


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