The Warriors of Death (The Aztecs Episode 2)

The one where the Doctor inadvertently helps to defeat Ian...

The Doctor is not happy. "Well, young woman, I hope you're satisfied!" he thunders at Barbara. "A happy day for you, hey?" William Hartnell is on fire from the get-go in this opening scene, laying into Barbara with a damning tongue-lashing. The schoolteacher is well and truly told off!

"I didn't think about it," whimpers Barbara, to which the Doctor blasts: "No, that's just it - you didn't think!" This argument is up there with the other great Doctor/ companion fall-outs of The Curse of Fenric and Kill the Moon, except here the Doctor is quicker to apologise. So soon after throwing thunderbolts at his friend, the Doctor suddenly becomes quite tender, holding her close and building up her confidence again by advising her to develop Autloc's belief in her.

We then get a scene with Tlotoxl and Barbara facing off, and Jacqueline Hill gives as good as she gets. John Lucarotti is so adept at giving characters moments like this which allow the actors to shine, and after sidelining Barbara somewhat in his previous script, Marco Polo, it's nice to see Hill get the limelight in this serial.

Meanwhile, Ian and Ixta train for their big fight, but Ian demonstrates that you don't need so much muscle to defeat your opponent. He uses his thumb to fell Ixta and render him unconscious, but how? What can you do with your thumb which has that effect? I researched this, and it seems you can indeed render someone unconscious with a thumb, but it's to the throat/ windpipe, not the back or side of the neck. It's also an extremely dangerous thing to do as it temporarily cuts off the blood supply to the brain, and can kill. Perhaps Ian has somehow obtained knowledge of the Vulcan nerve pinch from Star Trek, although even that requires the projection of telepathic energy from the fingertips into a nerve cluster (well, sometimes!). I'm not sure a science teacher from London, 1963, would know how to do that, so the mystery of Ian's thumb remains unsolved...

There's plenty of screen time given over to the guest characters in this episode, which I enjoyed much more than The Temple of Evil. It seems pacier, better lit by Howard King (you can see much more of Barry Newbery's beautiful sets now), and with more intrigue and scheming from the thoroughly slimy Tlotoxl. John Ringham would have made a fine incarnation of the Master! I also love Keith Pyott's understated performance as Autloc, a highly likeable ally for Barbara. Pyott has the sort of face which tells you everything you need to know without words. It's such a shame he'd be dead within four years, aged 66.

Ixta seems determined to avenge his humiliation at the hands - or should I say thumb - of Ian, and plots with Cameca to acquire a poison with which to defeat him in battle. Cameca has no idea Ixta is fighting the Doctor's colleague, and neither does the Doctor know that Ixta's opponent is Ian. The viewer is screaming at the screen to tell him not to aid and abet Ixta's plan, but the Doctor is too focused on obtaining the knowledge he needs to gain access to the tomb, and ultimately his TARDIS. Is the Doctor wooing Cameca just to get back to the Ship? He does seem to genuinely like her, but we've seen how ruthless and selfish the Doctor can be before. Maybe this is just a different manifestation of his innate self-preservation?

Anyway, it says a lot about Ixta that he will sink to this level in order to defeat Ian. "What better way to destroy your enemies than to let them destroy themselves?" he says. Well, surely it's more honourable to defeat them fairly and squarely? Has Ixta no scruples? As he's in league with the scheming Tlotoxl, perhaps not.

Meanwhile, Susan is in the seminary studying the Code of the Good Housewife on film insert. Carole Ann Ford is on holiday this week (and next), but they've had the foresight to pre-record scenes to insert into the story. Autloc is trying to make the precocious young girl into a properly honourable Aztec woman, but as soon as that old chestnut "arranged marriage" is mentioned, Susan's Westernized rebelliousness rears its head. Nice bit of continuity there from John Lucarotti - Susan would obviously have remembered Ping-Cho's fate from Marco Polo.

Ooh! Ooh! When the Doctor creeps into the temple to speak to Barbara, it's actually the bit they used and colourised to show him stealing his TARDIS in The Name of the Doctor 49 years later. It's such a distinctive little move from Hartnell as he checks that nobody's following him - who'd have though that tiny bit would be used so magnificently all those years later? And when the Doctor is arrested and taken away, Hartnell doesn't half give his protestations some welly, which you can clearly hear even as he's well out of shot and off set!

A quick mention for Richard Rodney Bennett's gorgeous percussive music here. It's odd that Doctor Who should have had such a prestigious composer for these four weeks (he was a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music at that time, and by the time of his death at the age of 76 on Christmas Eve, 2012, he was a knight of the realm), but he, along with the equally as prestigious conductor Marcus Dods, do a lovely job of evoking the Aztec culture.

We end with another fight scene, not quite so staged and laboured this time, as it's more wrestling than armed combat. It does have a balletic quality to it, though, with too much hesitation and not enough oomph. Plus, there's the forehead-slapping bit where Ixta scratches Ian's wrist with the poison, and William Russell moves purposefully over to the camera to show 7.4 million viewers his bleeding wound! Very Acorn Antiques!

First broadcast: May 30th, 1964

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The very first scene is brilliant, with William Hartnell and Jacqueline Hill on fine form. All good actors rise to the quality material given to them.
The Bad: William Russell showing the camera his wrist wound, like a child running to mummy, is really badly done.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

NEXT TIME: The Bride of Sacrifice...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: The Temple of Evil (episode 1); The Bride of Sacrifice (episode 3); The Day of Darkness (episode 4)

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.co.uk/2013/05/the-aztecs.html

The Aztecs is available on Special Edition DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Aztecs-Special-DVD/dp/B00AREPA1I