Four episodes
Aired between 4th September 1976 and 25th September 1976
Written by Louis Marks
Produced by Phillip Hinchcliffe
Directed by Rodney Bennett
Synopsis
Searching the TARDIS, Sarah Jane and the Doctor stumble upon the secondary control room, a wooden room but with similar roundels to the standard control room.
The Doctor completely forgot it was there, but says he can turn it into the main console room if he wants (and does so).
He activates the view screen to get a look at where they are and sees a swirling blob of energy known as the Mandragora helix existing within the Time-Space vortex. The helix is somehow pulling them in. The Doctor is forced to pilot the TARDIS through the turbulence and they end up materialising in the centre of the helix.
The Doctor and Sarah go outside to see what's happened and find that they are in a strange landscape.
They are soon forced to duck behind the bulk of the TARDIS as a great red sparking ball of energy flies towards them. They don't see that the energy enters the TARDIS itself. The Doctor decides that it's too dangerous outside and they rush back into the ship, dematerialising once more. When he tries to fly off, he finds that the TARDIS is being dragged along a particular path.
The TARDIS eventually lands in 15th Century Italy, in a town called San Martino. Everything looks alright, so the Doctor and Sarah Jane go off exploring, again, failing to notice the ball of sparking Mandragora energy leaving the TARDIS.
Elsewhere in San Martino, the Count of the region (Federico) is out with his brigands, harassing and killing peasants that have shown the slightest inclination of an uprising.
At his palace, the Count's brother has recently died, and Giuliano, the Count's nephew and Prince of San Martino, suspects that Hieronymous, the palace astronomer has had a hand in his fathers death. Giuliano and his friend, Marco believe in the noble craft of science and think that Hieronymous is nothing but a fake and more, he is in league with Count Federico to usurp the throne and killed the Count's brother via poison. He can't prove any of it though.
As Count Federico returns from quelling the uprising, he speaks to Hieronymous and indeed reveals that they are in league.
Hieronymous tries to tell Federico that his predictions seem to be getting stronger, but Federico doesn't believe a word of it. He orders Hieronymous to make a further public prediction that Giuliano is going to die.
It's not long into their exploring when Sarah Jane gets captured by strange men in hooded robes. The Doctor confronts the men and sorts out a few of them before he is also inevitably knocked out.
When he comes to, the men and Sarah are gone. He goes looking for them and witnesses the Mandragora energy move out of the forest and kill a peasant by touching them, turning them to blue mush.
Shortly after, he is confronted by the Count's men and leads them on a merry chase after scaring the horses with a football rattle.
Eventually, he's cornered and taken to the Count.
Elsewhere, Sarah Jane comes to to find herself in some ancient catacombs. The hooded figures turn out to be cultists to Demnos, the Roman god of moonlight. Their priest is kind enough to explain to Sarah that she will be sacrificed at the rise of the moon.
The Doctor is taken to Count Federico and tries the direct explanation as to him being from the stars, and that there's a piece of the Mandragora helix hovering around, killing people. Hieronymous challenges the Doctor and the Doctor berates his superstition Unsurprisingly, the Count refuses to believe the Doctor's story and orders him executed. He's taken to the courtyard and made to kneel so the executioner can cut off his head with the swing of a very long sword.
The Doctor manages to escape by unfurling his scarf (which the executioner stands on). With a quick pull, the executioner trips and the Doctor can run off. He finds his way into the catacombs and the Count's men refuse to go in there after him, fearing what's down there.
As he wanders in the passages, the Doctor sees a purple robed figure wearing a golden mask coming, and manages to hide from him. He follows the Priest of Demnos and eventually makes it to the altar where they're about to sacrifice Sarah Jane.
The Doctor, disguised in one of the robes, whips Sarah off the altar and they race out of the chamber. They are gone, just as the red light of the Mandragora energy bathes the altar.
Elsewhere, Giuliano examines the dead guard killed by the energy and puzzles at the blue coloured remains. Others speculate that it was some kind of fire demon but the Prince doesn't believe it.
Back in the chamber, the glowing red light turns into a pillar of red, centred on the altar. It speaks, calling the Priest of Demnos forward and promising him unlimited power if he carries out its will on Earth.The Priest agrees and is gifted but a sample of those powers.
The red light fades and the Priest removes his mask, revealing himself to be Hieronymous.
The Doctor and Sarah find a passage from the catacombs to the palace but are eventually arrested by guards. Instead of taking them to the Count, they are instead brought to Giuliano, who shows them the dead body and asks for their opinion.
The Doctor quickly identifies it as a hallmark of the Mandragora energy. Giuliano comments woefully that if the Count (his uncle) is allowed to rule San Martino, all scholarly learning will be suppressed.
Count Federico meanwhile has learned that Giuliano has invited men of learning from all over the area to come and celebrate his ascension to the Dukedom. Federico goes to see a recently returned Hieronymous and demands that the astrologer cooks up another prophecy and poisons Giuliano before the next night, just as he did with Giuliano's father. Hieronymous is resistant thanks to his newfound power, but decides not to reveal his hand too soon so he complies.
Thinking things through, the Doctor hypothesises that the Mandragora energy somehow took the TARDIS to San Martino, knowing that the Cult of Demnos were a ready made power base for it. The Doctor declares that the temple of Demnos must be destroyed. Together, he, Sarah and Giuliano make the trip back to the catacombs but the Doctor insists he must enter the chamber alone. As he does so, he's psychically attacked by the Mandragora energy.
The guards spot Giuliano near the catacombs and Rossini, Federico's guard captain, informs the Count.
Spying an opportunity to be rid of Giuliano now, Federico orders his men to go and attack the Prince and kill him under the pretense of him being a "Pagan".
As Giuliano is cornered by the guards, Sarah runs into the catacomb tunnels yelling for the Doctor. she is captured by the cultists.
In the temple, the Doctor manages to break the psychic attack but cannot enter further. He decides to go back and soon finds Giuliano fighting for his life. He grabs a sword and helps, fighting off the guards.
Giuliano is wounded, but the guards break when more cultists come out of the catacombs to help. The Doctor and Giuliano slip away in the midst of the fight.
It turns out that Hieronymous ordered the cultists to help Giuliano because he thinks the Prince still has value. He decides not to sacrifice Sarah Jane to Demnos but instead he drugs and hypnotises her to assassinate the Doctor with a poison needle.
Back at the palace, Federico is getting very angry. Giuliano's guests have begun to arrive and the men have failed to kill the Prince. He tries to force Hieronymous again, but the astrologer is again very resistant to the Count, warning Federico that his own life maybe in danger. The Count scoffs at this, decrying Hieronymous as a fraud but decides to banish him from the city anyway, just to be on the safe side.
After patching up Giuliano, the Doctor and him go into the catacombs and find Sarah conveniently passed out in a corridor. The Doctor follows the catacomb passages back to the palace and goes to confront Hieronymous whom he's worked out is the purple robed Priest. Even though he told Sarah to stay put, she follows him quietly, trying to obey her hypnotic suggestion to kill the Doctor.
They all come together in Hieronymous' room. The astrologer confesses to being the Priest, and refuses to stop. Sarah sneaks up behind the Doctor with the poison needle but the Doctor manages to snap her out of it at the last second as the Count's guards turn up to evict Hieronymous.
The guards capture the Doctor, Giuliano and Sarah Jane but fail to get the astrologer.
The prisoners are taken to the dungeons, and discover that Giuliano's friend, Marco, is also a prisoner. They are confronted by Count Federico.
The Count accuses them of being worshipers of Demnos. To add evidence to this, Rossini bursts in and announces that cultists have taken to the streets in droves and are heading to the catacombs. The Doctor tries once more to talk some sense into Federico and get him to see that Hieronymous is the real threat. Although not totally convinced, he does agree to take the Doctor into the catacombs with himself and a unit of guards. He says if he's not back soon, to kill Giuliano.
In the temple itself, Hieronymous gathers his cultists and the red light appears again. In turn, he administers power to the cultists, granted to them by Mandragora.
Once inside the temple, Federico breaks his cover and yells at Hieronymous. He rips off the Priest's golden mask but instead sees only a glowing red ball of light.
The Priest "zaps" Federico with lightning, killing him and two of his guards.
The Doctor, once again maintaining his cover in robes, goes unnoticed. The Priest of Mandragora announces that that their god will swallow the moon on the next night and then the cultists may strike.
The Doctor sneaks away back to the dungeons just as Rossini is about to kill Giuliano, Marco and Sarah.
The Doctor announces that Federico is dead at the hands of the cultists and the guards (except Rossini) change allegiance to the Prince.
Although his treacherous Uncle is dealt with, the Doctor warns Giuliano that the cultists are still the big threat. He warns the Prince to fortify the palace in case the cult attacks.
Given everything that's gone off, Giuliano wants to cancel the proposed masque ball to celebrate his ascension, but Marco says to do so would be a sign of weakness. Unsure, Giuliano consults the Doctor who's gone off to make some astrological equations and is cooking up a plan. Rather than being angry at the trivial interruption, the Doctor insists that Giuliano hold the masque (maybe to keep him out of the way). As part of his great plan, the Doctor asks for a breast plate and a length of wire, proposing that he knows a way to drain the Mandragora energy out of the cultists.
As the palace prepares for the masque, the Doctor goes to the altar of Demnos and wraps some of the wire around it, earthing the altar. He is confronted by the Priest of Mandragora who says that Mandragora intends to check humanity's ruthless expansion into the universe by possessing the Earth and that as a Time Lord, the Doctor should appreciate this.
The Doctor disagrees and goads the Priest into firing lighting at him. The breastplate somehow absorbs that energy and the Doctor continues to rial the Priest.
As the masque gets underway, it becomes obvious that it's been infiltrated by the cult who begin shooting lighting bolts into the gathering.
The Priest of Mandragora shows up and tells them to stop, instead take the prisoners down to the altar for the final sacrifice.
The cultists do as ordered. Once in the temple, the moon goes into eclipse and the Mandragora energy comes down. The cultists gather at the altar to receive their powers but instead the light consumes them all and fades out of existence.
The Priest of Mandragora who stood back from it all, removes his mask to reveal that he is in fact the Doctor.
Although it's terribly complicated to understand, the Doctor assures them all that the Mandragora helix is back where it belongs and the threat is over.
Some time later, the Doctor and Sarah Jane get a ride back to the TARDIS from Giuliano and Marco.
Sarah ponders if the Mandragora helix is totally destroyed.
The Doctor assures her that whilst Giuliano and the 15th Century won't have any more trouble, Earth will once again be in danger from it around the end of the 20th Century.
Trivia
- This Golden aged story is based on Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe
- Robert Holmes really didn't want to do a historical story (just like he didn't want to do The Time Warrior), but Phillip Hinchcliffe insisted. The compromise was that it had to be a "nasty" period so that it was suitably exciting.
- Louis Marks was a teacher and wrote a thesis on the Renaissance period so he got the job. The basis of the story came from many sources, including Machiavelli's Mandragola. Robert Holmes said later "If I'd known there were so many co-authors, I'd have only given him half the fee"
- They filmed in Portmerion, the same place as used for TV show The Prisoner.
- The guy who played Guiliano also did the English voice of Sandy in Monkey.
What worked
- The location is excellent
- The sets and costumes were also playing to the BBC's strengths
- The Cult of Demnos does have a bit of a sinister feel to it
- The lighting works pretty well in this story too
What didn't work
- Because it's a period piece, there's a tendancy to overact (Federico, I'm looking at you)
- The Count wants to quietly kill Giuliano and usurp the throne, so what does he do? Yell "Death to Giuliano!"
Overall Feelings
This is another Doctor Who that looking at its individual components should be a classic. It's got great set design and location, the period of history is unusual, the monster is handled in a mature way and manages to be quite creepy at times, especially the bit where the golden mask is tore off Hieronymous' face. But...there's something missing here and I can't wholly put my finger on what.
Sure, the actors roll their R's a lot and over pronounce like they're in a bad play, but there's lots of examples of that in Doctor Who. Perhaps it's that Count Federico turns into yet another Bond villain and refuses to just kill the Doctor and Giuliano when he's got the chance. I don't know.
I suspect that the real reason this falls slightly flat is that whilst the sets look great, Doctor Who in 1976 just didn't have the budget to pull anything off convincingly. The Cult of Demnos is supposed to be massing on the streets, yet we only see a handful of them at best. A masque ball is going off, but there's just a small room of people. It's the scope that lets it down. Despite that though, there's lots to like about this story and it's far from bad.
Rating
7 out of 10
Rewatchability Factor
4 out of 10
Watch this if you liked...
- The Vampires of Venice (Doctor Who, Series 5)
Consulting the Matrix
Would you have preferred to see the Doctor defeating Hieronymous or do you think it works better this way?
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