6. The Aztecs

My memory of The Aztecs was pretty fuzzy as I had only seen it once and that was quite some time ago, so this was a nice refresher.

I'm a bit of a history buff and the Aztec civilization was one of the first historical civilization that I had learned about that really captured my imagination and drove my later love of history and "ancient" cultures. I have no idea how accurate the costumes were but I certainly thought they looked good. The names used certainly sounded Aztec -- Yetaxa, Tlotoxyl -- great stuff.

The moral dilemma the TARDIS crew faces with Autloc was also well done and puts a little bit of focus on the consequences of the Doctor's travel and meddling. Autloc believes that Barbara is the goddess Yetaxa and he suffers dearly for this. At one point in the story he even begs Barbara to not be a false goddess. Later in the show the Doctor will face other dilemmas and more consequences of his travels: the incubation room in Genesis, Satellite 9 in the new series, The Face of Evil, the Time War...

Despite all the good there was some bad that really hurts this episode. The entire plot-line relating to the Doctor and Cameca ("the love story") was pretty stupid. The show barely touches the subject of love during the classic run, perhaps because this initial foray into the subject matter was so awful that they decided it didn't fit.

The fight scenes were all just brutal. They were both long and poorly choreographed and that is a fatal combination. Just terrible.

I also find that the historical stories are a bit of a mixed bag for me. I do like history but I watch Doctor Who for science fiction. They do a better job weaving these two genres together in the new series (e.g. Fires of Pompey) and although the lack of sci-fi elements is a bit annoying it doesn't take away too much since DW usually does a very good job on the historical feel of these stories.

Finally, the aspects of human sacrifice that are apart of the Aztec ways are addressed in the story. I felt that this could have had some additional potential but I guess at the same time this is when DW was more of a childrens show and they probably didn't want to focus too much on the grisly topic of sacrificing humans. I would have liked to know a bit more about the "perfect victim" -- however we do get something out of Barbara's attempts to end the practice other than an ear ache....something big in fact - the first outlines of the rules of time travel and what will later become referred to as the Laws of Time.

Ranking: 6/10 (average)