Pyramids of Mars
Written by Robert Holmes and Lewis Greifer under the pseudonym of "Stephen Harris" and directed by Paddy Russell, the serial was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 25 October to 15 November 1975.
In the serial, the burial chamber of the alien Sutekh, the inspiration for the Egyptian god Set, is unearthed by the archaeology professor Marcus Scarman.
Alive but immobilised, Sutekh seeks his freedom by using Professor Scarman as his servant to destroy the jewel in a pyramid on Mars which is keeping him prisoner.
Influenced by the gothic horror genre and films such as The Mummy, the serial was met with widespread critical acclaim, being praised for its atmosphere and production.
[2] In 1911 Egypt, archaeology professor Marcus Scarman excavates a pyramid and finds the door to the burial chamber is inscribed with the Eye of Horus.
[4] While he retained the basic premise, he completely altered other aspects, which included making the "Osirians" a powerful alien race, and changing the setting to 1911, instead of a more contemparary time.
[2] The exterior scenes were shot on the Stargroves estate in Hampshire, a Victorian mansion noted for its ornate, Gothic revival style of architecture which was owned by Mick Jagger at the time.
[11] Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen improvised and added a number of moments in this story, most notably a scene in Part Four where the Doctor and Sarah Jane start to walk out of their hiding place and then when they see a mummy, quickly dart back into it.
[14] Three scenes of effects such as doors opening and the Doctor materializing from the sarcophagus were also removed from the final edit of Part Four because Russell felt the mixes were not good enough.
[15] The story was edited and condensed into a single, one-hour omnibus episode, broadcast on BBC1 at 5:50 pm on 27 November 1976, reaching 13.7 million viewers, the highest audience achieved by Doctor Who in its entire history at that time.
[16] In 1985, Colin Greenland reviewed Pyramids of Mars for Imagine magazine, and stated that it was "Dr Who at its eclectic best [...] A yeasty brew of Hammer horror, Egyptian mythology, and sf with a touch of H. G.
"[17] Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping gave the serial a positive review in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), praising the "chilling" adversary and some of the conversations.
They wrote that Pyramids of Mars gave the "fullest expression" of the Gothic horror era and had high production values and a good guest cast.
[7] In 2010, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times called it "a bona fide classic" with "arguably the most polished production to date", and praised the powerful plot.
[21] In 2018, The Daily Telegraph ranked Pyramids of Mars at number 18 in "the 56 greatest stories and episodes", stating that "although the mummies are excellent, it is the organic characters who take centre stage, with Baker cementing the increasing alienness of his portrayal of the hero".
Muir traced parallels with earlier Doctor Who serials such as The Dæmons (1971) and Terror of the Zygons (1975) which had also drawn on the idea of ancient Earth mythologies having extraterrestrial origins.
Like The Dæmons and The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), Pyramids of Mars exploited many familiar conventions of classic mummy films, but less successfully in Muir's view.
The novelisation contains a substantial prologue giving the history of Sutekh and the Osirans and features an epilogue in which a future Sarah researches the destruction of the Priory and how it was explained.
