The Aztecs - This story takes our team back to Earth and is a historical adventure. Following the previous historical, Marco Polo, I approached this one with a little trepidation. Seeing it is four episodes alleviated these fears as hopefully the story is not dragged out.
Story - This adventure has two main threads, one which reflects the historical nature of the piece and one which reflects the time travel nature of the show. Thread one sees Barbara mistaken as a God and is worshipped so, this leads to thread two, the decision by Barbara to try and change history by stopping human sacrifices.
Thread one - This part of the story takes inspiration from the true story of Hernan Cortes who, upon encountering the Aztec people, was worshipped as a God as he matched the description from Aztec prophecy. The documentary extra on the DVD was very informative on this point.
Thread two - The discussion of altering history arises and is quickly shot down by the Doctor. As it is established history things cannot be changed. Fixed points in time come up quite often in 'New Who' and seeing the idea come up in the sixth story, to me, shows that the key themes of the show continue to be utilised.
Side notes - Honourable mentions from this story go to the fight scenes, which are well choreographed, but due to limitations in the budget, the actors cannot go full throttle for fear of breaking the props. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLPR_uB4-5s) Another sub-plot concerns the Doctor and his accidental engagement to an Aztec lady. His reaction when he realises what has happened is priceless and reminded me of the 11th Doctors reaction to Amy at the end of Flesh and Stone.
Other bits - It has been announced this week that the second half of the latest series of Doctor Who is to begin on 30/03/13, as such I've upped the total episode count to 798.
Anywho, next time is The Sensorites...
30 of 798 episodes watched
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