THE MOVIE

Doctor Who - The Aztecs features four very early episodes from the Doctor Who television series. Interestingly, at this point in time, Doctor Who was recorded one episode at a time, hence the individual titles for each episode below. In this series of episodes, Doctor Who is played by William Hartnell (the first Doctor, who starred in the role between 1963-1966). He has three companions, Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) and Ian Chesterton (William Russell).

The Temple of Evil
The TARDIS rematerialises in Mexico way back in the fifteenth century inside a tomb in the middle of an Aztec civilization. Barbara picks up a bracelet and is mistaken for a reincarnation of the High Priest Yetaxa by Autloc (Keith Pyott) and the other Aztecs. They presume that the Doctor, Susan and Ian are her servants. A human sacrifice is due, but Barbara believes she can convince the Aztecs that they don’t need human sacrifices.

The Warriors of Death
The Doctor is quite upset with Barbara for stopping the human sacrifice and interfering with the Aztec people and their way of life. An Aztec called Tlotxl (John Ringham) is now starting to question Barbara’s authenticity as the High Priest. Meanwhile the Doctor is talking to Cameca (Margot van der Burgh) trying to figure a way back into the locked tomb. Another Aztec called Ixta (Ian Cullen) is upset because Ian is going to replace him general of their army because he is a servant of the High Priest. A contest between the two of them soon follows, and it looks as though Ian is done for…

The Bride of Sacrifice
Barbara steps in and saves Ian, but Tlotxl is growing more and more suspicious of her. Tlotxl tries to test her by offering her a poisoned beverage. Meanwhile, the Doctor has accidentally managed to propose marriage to Cameca and Susan looks as though she is going to be married off to a man who is to be sacrificed. She refuses to be part of an arranged marriage and as such, she is going to be punished.

The Day of Darkness
Ian has found a tunnel that leads back into the tomb. So now they can leave, but first they must rescue Susan who is about to receive her punishment. When they return to the tomb and attempt to open the door with the rope that Ian left dangling through the doorway, it snaps. So Ian returns to the garden to crawl through the tunnel again, but Ixta has laid a trap for him. Will the four of them ever escape this place…

THE TRANSFER

Video:

Doctor Who - The Aztecs is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 full frame. All four of these episodes are black and white, and there is film grain a plenty. This is especially noticeable when the camera moves quickly. I can’t be too hard on the transfer though. You have to keep in mind what this originally looked like, the restoration featurette shows just how bad this footage originally was. So with that in mind, this is a actually a very good transfer.

There are other problems, although not all of them are related to the transfer. Apparently the cameras of this era couldn’t zoom, hence bit of shaky camera movement from time to time. The camera even bumps into the set during the first episode. There is also some comet tailing, obviously it isn’t blue, pink or green like we’re used to, just white. This is a little distracting but I don’t think Doctor Who fans will be overly concerned. Once again the layer change was undetectable.

Audio:

This DVD has two soundtracks, both Dolby Digital 2.0 channel soundtracks (one features production audio and the other an audio commentary). Interestingly, the final episode also comes with an Arabic soundtrack. The production soundtrack is quite good. Dialogue is clearly audible and highly intelligible throughout all four episodes and there weren’t any ghastly audio synch problems or other sound glitches like audio hiss. The incidental music provided by Richard Rodney Bennett is also quite good.

This Doctor Who DVD also comes with three subtitle options. standard English subtitles for both the production audio soundtrack and the commentary soundtrack, as well as production subtitles which present on screen production notes throughout all four episodes. There are plenty of interesting technical insights to be found here, along with further information about the various actors involved, etc.

THE EXTRAS

Remembering the Aztecs
The featurette looks as though it has been recorded relatively recently. It includes colour interviews with Ian Cullen (Ixta), John Ringham (Tlotoxl) and Walter Randall (Tonila). The three of them discuss their experiences working on the Doctor Who series. The interviews are cut together with black and white, as well as colour production stills. The visual transfer of these interviews is flawless. Running time is 28 minutes.

Cortez & Montezuma
Visual quality isn’t so great here and audio synch isn’t quite right. Still, this 6 minute featurette (which relies on drawings, models and re-enactments) presented by Valerie Singleton is excellent. It was originally broadcast in September 1970. She talks about Montezuma, the High Priest of the Aztecs and his relationship with a Spanish soldier called Cortez.

Restoring the Aztecs
Here we get to see the original stock footage, which is full of grain, scratches and other film artefacts. Sound is also quite bad, with plenty of audio hiss, cracks and pops. This is then compared with restored footage. The restoration team have done a great job, using digital noise reduction to remove dirt and grit, without reducing detail. Even the credits have been redone. Further, the insertion of extra digital frames halfway between those on either side has smoothed the motion in this series of Doctor Who episodes and produced a “video look” that approximates the way the original video appeared when broadcast in 1964. Running time is around 8 minutes.

TARDIS-Cam No. 3
This is yet another instalment from BBCi’s TARDIS-cam people. This time it is a model, but a very convincing one, I guess it gives an idea of how good a modern day Doctor Who episode would look. Running time is 1.06 minutes.

Designing the Aztecs
This 24 minute featurette includes an interview with set designer Barry Newbery. He talks about the small budget (250 pounds) to be used to hire props and build the set and reveals some of the tricks of the trade to keep costs down. This interview is cut together with production sketches along with black and white production stills from the series.

Making Cocoa
This is an animated guide to making cocoa, and for some reason it reminded me of South Park, must be something to do with the animation style. It features the voices of John Ringham (Tlotoxl) and Walter Randall (Tonila). Running time is 2.29 minutes.

Audio Commentary
The audio commentary features Doctor Who’s producer Verity Lambert as well as actors William Russell (Ian Chesterton) and Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman). It is a mildly interesting commentary, but as is the case with previous Doctor Who commentaries, the actors tend to laugh and reminisce and we don’t learn a whole lot about how these episodes were made. The fact that this commentary has quite a number of gaps does not help.

Photo Gallery
An animated photo gallery featuring a series of black and white as well as colour production photos and behind the scenes stills taken while filming these four Doctor Who episodes. Running time is 3.51 minutes.

SUMMARY

This is a mildly interesting collection of Doctor Who episodes from the early days of the series. It has a historical theme which is unique given the numerous futuristic storylines, but William Hartnell didn’t really do it for me. I much prefer Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee. There didn’t seem to be enough drama and tension in these episodes, and I missed the scary creatures made out of bubble wrap. Still, it’s worth a look if you’re a true Doctor Who aficionado. As you’d expect, being broadcast way back in 1964, the visual quality isn’t the greatest, but this DVD does come with an interesting array of extra features.