The Brain of Morbius Part Four

The one where the Doctor loses in a mind-bending contest...

"I can see, I can see again!" exclaims Sarah, before turning around to see the Morbius creature looming over her. She screams and falls back onto the bed. Now wouldn't that have been a far better cliffhanger to part 3 than seeing the monster approach the unwitting Sarah from behind? Just a few more seconds on the end of part 3 would have made it so much better. Although part 3 as it stands is already seven seconds over its time slot, so perhaps some better editing was called for?

It's not long before Mehenderi Solon reveals his true colours when faced with the marauding Morbius monster. "It's Solon, your creator!" he says, before insisting: "I made you!" This is where the Frankenstein parallels reach their peak, with the creature lashing out at its creator, who pleads for mercy. Despite his obvious devotion to Morbius, all Solon has ever really craved is the scientific achievement of bringing Morbius back, and most likely the subsequent recognition. His ego was greater than his devotion, and now he's paying the price.

I think that throughout this episode, the Doctor displays a bizarre and misplaced naivety towards Morbius, which is odd seeing as he realises he is a dangerous Time Lord war criminal with so much death and destruction to his name. When first faced with the Morbius creature, he innocently wanders up offering to shake his hand, when surely he knows the monster a) won't be sane enough for pleasantries, and b) isn't in the mood. The Doctor is knocked unconscious, leaving the monster to attack Sarah (who ironically falls downstairs when fully sighted!), which makes the Doctor unattractively irresponsible.

Later, he is even more naive when he leaves Solon to dismantle the Morbius monster, when anybody who has been paying even the slightest attention would know that Solon is not a man to be trusted, certainly not with the task of destroying his ultimate creation. And so it is that Solon locks the Doctor and Sarah in the basement, out of harm's way. "I should have stayed with him!" spits the Doctor. Yes, Doctor. Yes, you should. And you should've picked up your sonic screwdriver too, instead of that yo-yo and broken umbrella.

The Doctor's ultimate naivety comes when he challenges Morbius to a Time Lord mind-bending contest. Ordinarily you might think the Doctor is more than up to the task, but after making a series of poor decisions (both in this episode and previously - he foolishly underestimates the Sisterhood too) you'd think he'd know better than to go ahead with this wheeze. And so the Doctor faces Mr Allsorts/ Pot Pourri/ Chop Suey in what passes for wrestling on Gallifrey, beginning what has become an endless, bottomless, unwinnable, inexplicable debate amongst fandom about "those" extra faces we see on the mind-bending screen.

Just who they are is not made explicitly clear on screen, but it's strongly implied that they are previous faces of the Doctor, as Morbius at that point is winning the contest, and forcing the Doctor backwards in time ("How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?"). After seeing the faces of Pertwee, Troughton and Hartnell, we then see eight more "new" faces, or at least new to us. It's suggested these faces come before what we know to be the First Doctor, leading to debate that this is not the Doctor's first life-cycle (remember, the Master was offered a new life-cycle in The Five Doctors, and the Doctor received a new one (a "reset") in The Time of the Doctor).

So those faces looking back at us - the faces of production unit manager George Gallaccio, script editor Robert Holmes, production assistant Graeme Harper, director Douglas Camfield, producer Philip Hinchcliffe, production assistant Christopher Baker, writer Robert Banks Stewart and director Christopher Barry - are also Doctors, earlier than Hartnell, and presumably Doctors who lived on Gallifrey before "our" First Doctor fled. Hinchcliffe has confirmed in interviews that the faces were intended to be pre-Hartnell, and that he tried to get famous actors to do cameos (wouldn't that have been wonderful?). You can make it all work if you adopt the John Hurt caveat, that the "War Doctor" is not a proper Doctor, but a regeneration that does not call himself Doctor. This allows us to continue to think of Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor (but the tenth body), and to think of these pre-Hartnell faces as earlier regenerations/ bodies, just not Doctors.

Look at those pom-poms in a jar!

If they are from an earlier life-cycle, then maybe that's from a time when the Doctor we know now went by his "proper" name (whatever that may be), and didn't start to call himself the Doctor until the Hartnell version.

I know, nothing quite works perfectly, but the fact we're still thinking about this more than 40 years later just goes to show how rich and exciting Doctor Who is, always has been, and will continue to be.

Addendum: I wrote all that in January 2020, just weeks before Chris Chibnall threw a pebble into the waters of fandom by introducing the Timeless Child. Now it all makes sense! - March 2020

So anyway, the Doctor is beaten by Morbius and left for dead, while the Birastrop-lunged war criminal goes on the rampage, until finally being herded over the edge of a cliff by the flame-wielding Sisterhood. It's a bit of an ignominious end for such a supposedly formidable enemy. The Doctor, who should have beaten Morbius in the mind-bending, fails, and a bunch of witches in flowing robes carrying torches manage to shove him off a cliff to his death. After four episodes, the brain of Morbius was defeated by simply falling over (and into the camera!).

The Doctor's life is saved by Maren donating the last of the elixir to him, and sacrificing herself to the Sacred Flame to make sure it continues to burn for the Sisterhood's future. Ohica will now become leader - probably a wise move, seeing as she has been the voice of reason and logic throughout, and Maren far too set in her ways and indecisive. Perhaps one day she will give birth to a daughter named Ohila, who will go on to lead the Sisterhood herself...?

One big problem I have with this episode is that the Doctor basically murders Solon. He wafts hydrogen cyanide fumes into the ventilation system, knowing that the only person it can possibly harm is Solon, who indeed succumbs to the poison and dies. The Doctor shows not an ounce of hesitation or regret in doing this, which is not the sort of Doctor I admire or relish. This is the same Doctor who seemed to enjoy murdering Ogrons (in Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space), and who used cyanide to kill Shockeye in The Two Doctors, but it's only ever the Sixth Doctor who's pulled up for doing this. The character of Mehendri Solon deserved a far better dispatch than being poisoned by our supposed hero.

The Doctor is far from heroic in The Brain of Morbius, and in fact he often acts quite stupidly. He doesn't win the day, it is Ohica and the Sisterhood who triumph, without whom the Doctor would actually die at this point. There'd be no The Seeds of Doom, no Season 14, no more Doctors, no more Doctor Who. So all hail the Sisterhood of Karn, who actually manage to save the Doctor's life not once, but twice (see also The Night of the Doctor). They are Doctor Who's greatest unsung hero(ine)s!

The Brain of Morbius is a visual feast, a gothic masterpiece with some fruity, juicy dialogue and stunning design. But the story itself is not as strong as it could have been, perhaps as a result of being chopped and changed by Robert Holmes from Terrance Dicks' original, and the lack of true heroism in the Doctor is sorely felt.

First broadcast: January 24th, 1976

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Gilly Fraser comes into her own here, all flaring eyes and a determination to do the right thing. She is, in essence, a replacement Doctor here, while he's busy having no effect.
The Bad: The Morbius monster design is very hit and miss (you can sometimes hear bits of it falling off), in particular the comical eyestalks. Worse, though, is the Doctor's merciless poisoning of Solon.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (story average: 7.5 out of 10)

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 05

NEXT TIME: The Seeds of Doom...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-brain-of-morbius.html

The Brain of Morbius is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Brain-Morbius-DVD/dp/B001A47GD4