Doctor Who: The Myth Makers Review

STORY

The Doctor has adopted many guises in his time, so when the

TARDIS lands on the plains of Asia Minor, near the besieged

city of Troy, he is hailed as the god Zeus! Taken to the Greek

camp by Achilles, the Doctor meets Agamemnon and Odysseus

and is forced to admit his less-than-godlike status - he is given

just two days to come up with a strategy for defeating the

Trojans.

Vicki meanwhile, has been captured by the Trojans who have

taken the Ship into the city to be presented to King Priam -

she is tasked with a plan to vanquish the Greeks! The Doctor's

initial scheme of a catapult is abandoned when the famed (but

wholly fictional) wooden horse appears to be his only option.

The Trojan horse is constructed, and as it delivers it's deadly

cargo of Greeks, the Doctor is reunited with his companions.

But as the sacking of Troy rages, Vicki elects to stay behind -

like Susan before her, she has found love, with Troilus, and

they escape the carnage. The badly injured Steven is helped

onboard the departing TARDIS by handmaiden Katarina -

The Daleks' Master Plan beckons.

ANALYSIS

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city

of Troy (located in modern Turkey) by the Achaeans, after Paris

seized Helen from her husband, Menelaus, the King of Sparta.

The decade-long siege finally ended when the Greeks apparently

sailed away, but the city fell to their Trojan Horse ruse. The end

of the conflict is narrated by Homer in the Iliad. The Romans

later settled on the site, now called Ilium - they believed that

Trojan survivors had fled to ancient Italy.

"The Myth Makers [set circa 1184 BC] carries the standard for

that splendid diversity of styles for which Doctor Who is beloved"

says the CD sleeve notes. 

The serial veers "ever so slightly from the 'history as education'

brief agreed at the programme's inception, veteran TV and radio

writer Donald Cotton (1928-1999) chose to retell ancient Greek

myth as high comedy." This was Cotton's first script for the show

(described by the BBC press release as "the most sophisticated

used in the series") and was intended to build on the success of

The Romans. 

A tongue-in-cheek historical (no doubt based on his own radio

plays) is very much in evidence in the first three episodes, and

William Hartnell and company make the most of the Carry On

style humour.

The final instalment however, sees a noticeable shift in tone, and

much like The Massacre (only three months away), the full horror

 of the ensuing genocide is blatantly portrayed. "Not even the

TARDIS crew emerges unscathed, the departure of [Vicki, and]

serious wounding of [Steven] left 1960's viewers shell-shocked."

The prophetess Cassandra casts a dark shadow over future

episodes, when she predicts the death of the newest time

traveller, Katarina (Adrienne Hill) - she became the first of the

Doctor's companions to die on-screen, in Day of Armageddon.

BACKGROUND

• this four-part adventure originally aired in October and November 1965, and achieved average ratings of 8.35M
• the working titles were The Trojans and The Trojan War
• the original title for episode one was Deux Ex Machina (literally a "god in the machine" meaning a contrived plot device), a reference to the Doctor's alias as the Father of the gods
• the third instalment was originally called Is There a Doctor in the Horse?
• location filming took place at Frensham Ponds, Surrey - later used for The Highlanders
• this was the ninth and final TV story for the much under-rated Vicki, played by Maureen O'Brien - here she is aged 16, and Priam christens her Cressida: later immortalised by Chaucer and Shakespeare (actual influences for Cotton) - Steven assumed the alias of Diomede 
• Keith Topping's novel Byzantium! gave Vicki the surname Pallister
• John Wiles (1925-1999) became the series' second and shortest serving producer with The Myth Makers (he replaced Verity Lambert), and because he chose not to employ John Cura (1902-1969) and his telesnaps service, there is very little visual record left of his time on the show
• all four episodes are missing from the BBC archives
• Peter Purves (Steven Taylor) provided linking narration on the CD soundtrack, issued in 2001, 2003, and 2010
• Cotton novelised his scripts for Target in 1985 - he also wrote The Gunfighters, and the rejected submission, The Herdsmen 
• the cast included Barrie Ingham (as Paris), recently seen as Alydon in Dr. Who and the Daleks; Max Adrian (Priam) had appeared opposite Hartnell in Nothing Like Publicity (1936); Tutte Lemkow (Cyclops) starred in Marco Polo and The Crusade; Francis de Wolff (Agamemnon) was Vasor in The Keys of Marinus; and Ivor Salter (Odysseus) featured in The Space Museum and Black Orchid
• directing his only contribution to Doctor Who, Michael Leeston Smith (1916-2001) had been a cameraman on the earliest Quatermass serials