4th Doctor
Pyramids of Mars
Serial 4G
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Producer
Philip Hinchcliffe

Script Editor
Robert Holmes

Designer
Christine Ruscoe

  Written by Stephen Harris*
Directed by Paddy Russell
Incidental Music by Dudley Simpson

Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Bernard Archard (Marcus Scarman), Michael Sheard (Laurence Scarman) [1-3], Peter Copley (Dr. Warlock) [1-2], Peter Mayock (Ibrahim Namin) [1-2], Michael Bilton (Collins) [1], Vik Tablian (Ahmed) [1]; Nick Burnell, Melvyn Bedford, Kevin Selway (Mummies); George Tovey (Ernie Clements) [2], Gabriel Woolf (Sutekh) [3-4].


* Pseudonym for Robert Holmes and Lewis Griefer.
Gabriel Woolf also provided Sutekh's Voice in Part 2 and Horus' Voice in Part 4, both uncredited.


Returning to UNIT HQ on Earth, the TARDIS is thrown violently about by a mysterious force and Sarah and the Doctor arrive instead at an old priory in the year 1911. The owner, Marcus Scarman, has been excavating ancient tombs and is possessed by the spirit of Sutekh, bringer of 'the gift of death to all mankind'.

Sutekh has lain for thousands of years in his pyramid prison and Scarman and his robot mummies plan to release this ancient and evil power. Will Sutekh the all-powerful be freed from his bonds and destroy the world, or will the Doctor manage to bring about his destruction?


Original Broadcast (UK)
Part One		      25th October, 1975		5h45pm - 6h10pm
Part Two		      1st November, 1975		5h45pm - 6h10pm
Part Three		      8th November, 1975		5h45pm - 6h30pm
Part Four		      15th November, 1975		5h45pm - 6h10pm
Notes:
  • Released on video as a movie compilation; re-released in episodic format on video and DVD. [+/-]


      PYRAMIDS OF MARS
    U.S. Video Release U.K. Video Re-release


      |
    • U.K. Release: February 1985 / U.S. Release: February 1988
      PAL - BBC video BBCB2014  
      PAL - BBC video BBCV2014/4055  
      NTSC - CBS/FOX video 3713  
      NTSC - Warner video E1109  

      Movie Compilation format with 2 minutes cut.

      Re-released in North America in March 1998 at a discounted price as part of The Gateway Collection with a new cover.

    U.S. DVD Release

    • U.K. Release: February 1994
      PAL - BBC video BBCV5520  

      This version is episodic and unedited.


    • U.K. Release: March 2004 / U.S. Release: September 2004
      PAL Region 2 - BBCDVD1350  (2 DVD)
      NTSC Region 1 - Warner DVD E2023  (2 DVD)

    U.K. DVD Release

      DVD FEATURES:
      • Commentary by Elisabeth Sladen, Michael Sheard and Producer Philip Hinchcliffe.
      • 'Osirian Gothic' - Recollections of the cast and crew.
      • 'Serial Thrillers' - A look at Philip Hinchcliffe's era as the show's producer.
      • 'Now and Then: The Locations of Pyramids of Mars' featurette.
      • 'Oh Mummy' - Sutekh's career post-Pyramids of Mars.
      • Deleted Scene.
      • Photo Gallery.
      • Production Information Subtitles.
      • Howard Da Silva Introductions (Region 1 only).
      • Who's Who (Region 1 only).

      LINK: The Restoration Team work for The Pyramids of Mars DVD.

  • Novelised as Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars by Terrance Dicks. [+/-]

    Original Logo Cover Neon Logo Cover

    • Paperback Edition - W. H. Allen.
      Original Logo on Cover.
      First Edition: December 1976. Reprinted in 1979.
      ISBN: 0 426 11666 6.
      Cover by Chris Achilleos.
      Price: 45p.

    • Hardcover Edition - Allan Wingate.
      First Edition: 1976.
      ISBN:?.
      Virgin Edition Cover by ?.
      Price £?.

    • Hardcover Edition - W. H. Allen.
      First Edition: 1978.
      ISBN: ?.
      Cover by ?.
      Price: £2.95.

    • Paperback Edition - W. H. Allen.
      Neon Logo on Cover.
      First Edition: 1982. Reprinted in 1983.
      ISBN: 0 426 11666 6.
      Cover by Andrew Skilleter.
      Price: £1.25.

    • Paperback Edition - Virgin Publishing Ltd.
      First Edition: March 1993.
      ISBN: 0 426 11666 6.
      Cover by Alister Pearson.
      Price £3.50.
      Retitled: Doctor Who - Pyramids of Mars.
  • Doctor Who Magazine Archive: Issue #300.
 
 
 
 
Part One
(drn: 25'22")

1911, Egypt: Professor Marcus Scarman enters a tomb from the 1st dynasty of the Pharaohs, unopened until now. He opens a tapestry to find an eye design built into the stone wall-the Eye Of Horus. Three servants are with him and try to warn him away, one of them being servant Ahmed. As he continues the trio flee. Marcus opens the wall behind the eye design and finds an inner chamber. Entering, a green/blue light hits him and he yells, falling.

The TARDIS spins in space. The Doctor is pensive as the rotor moves up and down. Sarah comes running into the control room to show him a white dress-gown she found in the wardrobe room. "Hello Vicky," the Doctor says. She asks if he likes it. "Yes, yes, I always did. Victoria wore it. She travelled with me for a time." "Well as long as Albert didn't wear it," Sarah jokes. She tells him they should be glad they are going home. "The Earth isn't my home, Sarah," he murmurs, serious, "I'm a Time Lord." She mimics him and puts the gown wrap over her head. "You don't understand the implications. I'm not a human being. I walk in eternity." He's lived something like 750 years -- middle aged Sarah jokes. He feels it is too old for him to go around running after the Brigadier--he should find something better to do. Sarah tells him if he's tired of being UNIT's scientific advisor, he could always resign. The TARDIS shakes and throws them both off their feet. As the Doctor struggles to set the console right, Sarah, on the floor sees the image of a terrible face -- a jackal shaped head like an animal. Relative continuum stabilizer failed. "Nothing can enter the TARDIS," he says when she tells him about the face. He doesn't believe she saw something unless mental projection of that force is beyond imagination. The Doctor wonders if he can find out from the end of the spectrum...but Sarah stops him, "It was totally malevolent." The TARDIS bumps to a halt.

They have materialized in the correct point in space but not in time. They have been thrown off course...they are in a house in the old priory that burnt down before UNIT HQ was built. "Something's very wrong. Something's going on that is contrary to the laws of the universe," the Doctor says. In the next room is Namin, an Egyptian playing chords on an organ. There is a mummy case and four runs. Collins, the butler, stops him to announce Dr. Warlock, the oldest friend of Professor Marcus Scarman's. Scarman owns this house. Warlock claims forced entry and has questions for Hedi Namin. Warlock talked with Scarman's brother Laurence and found that Ibrahim Namin barred the brother from the house on orders from Marcus. Laurence lives in the lodge and Warlock lives in the village. Namin shows Warlock the orders. Namin has brought back relics from the dig in Egypt.

Sarah doesn't like the musty smell. "Not all of it is must, some of it is mummies." He smiles, out of his earlier serious mood. Collins, listening at the door, then sees the door the Doctor and Sarah are behind. He is trying it but takes out a French picklock which belonged to Marie Antoinette, "...a charming lady, lost her head, poor thing..." it never failed. They hide as the door opens and Collins comes in. The Doctor feigns that this room would make an ideal laboratory. Collins says they came with Dr. Warlock and warns them of the temper filled Namin. The Doctor makes jokes about the mummies to Sarah and Namin's relatives being in this room where there is a sarcophagus and the other relics. Collins wants them to warn Warlock and go the way they came. They go out the window onto the large grounds of the huge gothic mansion. As Collins watches at the window, the mummy case beings to open.

The Doctor and Sarah overhear Namin and Warlock arguing. Namin tells him there are ancient powers building in this house. Warlock threatens to go the police. Marcus's baggage is in his hotel and he has not been seen for weeks.

They hear Collins scream and rush out. Sarah and the Doctor enter the room via the window. Warlock finds Collin's strangled and does not see the mummy case closing. Namin spouts some dogma about the high one coming to the house once all unbelievers are ridden from the house. He pulls a gun and shoots but the Doctor, from behind, wraps his scarf about Namin's neck and pulls him backward, deflecting the shot. The Doctor and Sarah get Warlock out, Namin losing his fez. Namin undoes the mummy case and behind it is the mummy. Using his ring, he activates it uttering some spell with the name Sutekh.

On the grounds, Warlock cannot go on as he is bleeding. He directs them to the lodge where Laurence lives. Warlock passes out and the Doctor sends Sarah on ahead past a small white picket fence toward the lodge. The Doctor carries Warlock but leaves the old man's bowler hat behind. Namin is hunting them with his gun and is outside. Sarah hides in a ditch but sees a walking mummy marching through the woods, also searching.

The Doctor carries Warlock, who has passed out. Namin finds the bowler hat. In the hole, Sarah remains very still as the mummy has come to a standstill overhead. Finally, it leaves so she does also, watching carefully. She makes it to the rather large lodge. In the woods, the Doctor sees a mummy too and he and Warlock remain very still as Namin is very close to them. A loud booming organ note sounds heralding what Namin says is his all powerful lord's arrival. Namin and the mummy leave.

Sarah and Laurence arrive. Warlock will survive if they can staunch the bleeding. Sarah tells the Doctor she saw a mummy. Mummies, he says are embalmed eviscerated corpses, they don't walk. "Well this one did," she insists. The foursome move toward the lodge.

Namin utters more spell like utterances before the sarcophagus.

Sarah puts a blanket over Warlock on the couch. He seems all right now. The Doctor tells Laurence not to fetch the police, the police would only hamper his investigation. "Yes! That's why I'm here. Something's interfering with time, Mr. Scarman and time is my business." "WHO are you?" He asks as the Doctor stares wide eyed. Sarah introduces herself to Laurence and shakes his hand. He asks who her companion is. "My companion? Ahh, that's just the Doctor. We travel in time, Mr. Scarman, I'm really from 1980," she smiles. He finds that preposterous. "Yes, sorry," she clasps her hands together. The Doctor asks what year this is and has to repeat himself. "Don't be obtuse, man!" It is 1911 -- an excellent year, one of the Doctor's favourites. The Doctor congratulates him. Laurence has invented the radio telescope 40 years early. It is a receiver containing highly dangerous electrical current. Laurence calls it a Marconiscope which the purpose of is to receive transmissions from the stars. When asked how he knows that, the Doctor says, "I have the advantage of being slightly ahead of you. Sometimes behind you, but normally ahead of you." "I see." "I'm sure you don't..." the Doctor says but thinks it is nice of him to try. Laurence is happy to show him and it works, crudely. He cannot switch it off and it blows smoke. A pattern repeated over and over again like an SOS, the aerial pointed toward Mars. The Doctor takes out a mini radio scope from his pocket and finds it is the same signal over and over. He wants to decipher the message and sets about trying.

Three mummies in all have been activated as Namin plays the organ.

The message: Beware Sutekh, better known as Set, killed by Horus, god of light. Laurence wonders about Egyptology and Mars being together. The Doctor tells them that the world is facing its greatest threat. The corporeal form being brought from these forces are greater a danger than even the Doctor has ever encountered. Laurence asks about his old hunting rifle. The Doctor says, "I never carry firearms," and leaves. Laurence gets it out and was going to suggest that he bring it. Sarah looks back at him, "Bring it!"

Namin in the organ room, calls forth the time tunnel of multi colours which appears within the open casket. The Doctor arrives at the house and watches Namin summon forth a smoking evil black robed alien presense with pointed fingers. Laurence and Sarah soon arrive but the Doctor waves them back, angered that they have come. Namin believes this is Sutekh, wrongly. It is The Servant of Sutekh and it orders Namin to look at his face... not the face of Sutekh, "I am the servant of Sutekh, he needs no other. Die!" He touches Namin's shoulders and the shoulders smoke up and he falls screaming, "I bring Sutekh's gift of death to all humans." Namin screams and falls, dying...

Part Two
(drn: 23'53")

The Servant uses Marcus's form and Laurence calls out his name. The Doctor "shhs" him while the Servant orders the mummies to take out the generator loops (the canopic urns) to activate the forcefield. The trio hide as the mummies and Marcus AKA the Servant exit the room and finally the building. Taking Laurence's gun the Doctor hid behind a satyr statue. The trio come out of hiding and the Doctor returns Laurence's rifle to him.

Sarah, Laurence, and the Doctor go into the organ room. The Doctor checks Namin. Horus and the other Osirians must have cornered Sutekh on Earth. The others put Sutekh in bondage and now Sutekh is breaking free of his ancient bonds and if he succeeds he will destroy the whole world. He destroyed his own world, Phaester Osirius and the others cornered him in Egypt where the culture was patterned on the Osirian pattern. The Doctor finds the entrance to the time space tunnel -- the lodestone on the Sarcophagus. It nearly sucks the Doctor into it but when Sarah yells, "Doctor!" he screams, "Keep back!" to her. He manages to get a small bomb from his jacket and toss it behind him. The blast knocks him forward.

Poacher on the grounds outside, Ernie Clements, sees a mummy in a bear trap. He watches it pull both sides of the trap off its ankle. With a rifle, he runs off.

Sarah and Laurence try to wake the Doctor up. Laurence finds a priest hole he and Marcus found when they were boys. Sarah asks Laurence to give her a hand to get the very large Doctor into the hole.

Outside, Ernie runs into the invisible deflector shield and bounces off it onto his back, losing his hat. He feels the wall with his hands and gets a slight shock. He throws a stick at it and that bounces off as well, "Holy Moses." Recovering his hat, he runs off.

Warlock in the lodge is visited by Marcus. He is happy to see Marcus but Marcus is the Servant and acts strange to him. The Servant knows it is Warlock. It tells Warlock he came to find the other Scarman and the other humans. Warlock stands to talk to him, describing the Doctor's group... "Laurence and the Doctor and some very plucky young girl..."

"Who is the Doctor?" Marcus asks. Warlock explains about the Doctor whom "Marcus" says is interfering. "All humans inside the deflection barrier will be destroyed," the Servant says. A mummy comes in and the Servant orders it to destroy the human. It does as Ernie listens outside. Ernie runs off, "Murdering swine." The Servant and the mummy exit the lodge.

The Doctor murmurs about a parallax coil, a simple trap. Sutekh thinks of everything. He asks where they are and wonders about a priest hole in a Victorian gothic folly. "Oh, so pedantic at a time like this," Sarah helps him sit up. The Doctor wants to know more about where Sutekh is. Sutekh is controlling operations here by mental force. The Doctor can block it with a jamming signal--an ethetic impulse transmitted precisely along the right axis -- and using the equipment at the lodge. It is the in the ring of Namin. They need that ring but the mummies return and on order from the Servant drag the body away. Marcus's body comes over to the hole and feels it, seemingly recalling the priest hole. At the window, Ernie fires his rifle into the back of the Servant. The Servant takes the impact but the smoke that came out of him goes back into the hole in his front and heals the wound. The Servant goes to the window and Ernie recognizes it as Professor Scarman. At the moment of the firing, Laurence called out, "Marcus." Ernie runs from the mummies that have been ordered by the Servant to seek and kill.

After it leaves, the Doctor comes out and gives the signal to Laurence and Sarah. They leave to find the Egyptian. They see drag marks on the floor and hide as the Servant and mummies leave with a major piece of scientific equipment. The Doctor finds Namin's ring on his body. Laurence finds a resonating unit, part of an anti gravity device. The Doctor figures they are building a rocket. "Egyptian mummies building rockets, that's crazy," Sarah claims and wants to know more. The mummies are service robots. They will use the rocket to fire at Sutekh's tomb...beneath the pyramid. When the mummies and Servant return, Sarah and the Doctor hide in the TARDIS, the Doctor's hand comes out and pulls Laurence inside.

Inside the console room, the TARDIS astounds the Doctor, "It's preposterous." Sarah is pensive now but wants the Doctor to leave. Sarah claims they know the world didn't end in 1911 and wants to know why they can't leave. The Doctor tells her they will see what happened to the world if they leave now. They leave. Laurence returns to the room and claims this is something out of that novelist chap's books...Mr. Wells. "1980, Sarah if you want to get off," the Doctor opens the doors. Outside is a desolate, dark world, empty of life. A howling dust bowl. The doors close. Sarah says, "It's a trick." It is the world as Sutekh would leave it: a desolate planet circling a dead sun. Every point in time has its alternatives, the Doctor explains. They have looked into alternative time. The future can be shaped: the actions of the present change the future. To a small extent a man can change the course of history. It takes a being of Sutekh's almost unlimited power to destroy the future. "We've got to go back," Sarah answers the Doctor. He smiles.

Ernie evades more mummies in the woodlands. But he is stopped by the forcefield and has to run another way. The mummies seem to be gaining on him.

The Servant crosses his heart with his hands and speaks to Sutekh via the sarcophagus. Sutekh's voice tells him that the destruction of the humans must not delay the completion of the rocket. The Servant will recall two of the service robots to work on it.

In the lodge, Sarah looks sadly at the body of Warlock. She covers his body with the blanket. Laurence cannot believe his brother did this. Marcus is not his brother... he no longer exists -- he vanishes from the moment he entered the tomb. The Doctor explains this to Laurence and taps him on the shoulder as he bends over in pain at this. Sarah comes to touch him to comfort him. Marcus is just the embodiment of Sutekh controlling Marcus...Sutekh's will using it -- the paralysed Sutekh arms and legs. It was against the code of the other Osirians to kill Sutekh...to kill him would mean they were no better than he. The forcefield that imprisons Sutekh is controlled by a power source on Mars, thus the rocket will be aimed at the power source on Mars. The monitoring system on Mars detected Marcus's stumbling onto the tomb and set off an SOS from there. This is what they picked up earlier. The Doctor works to convert Laurence's equipment into a jamming device. Sutekh would destroy any world where life was found. The Doctor needs a magneto. When Laurence goes to find one -- he listens to the Doctor and Sarah talking. Even though they try to be discreet, they discuss Marcus...who will collapse if the mental beam can be blocked. He is not really alive in any real sense anyway. If the beam is blocked, deprived of his mental control, Sutekh will be as powerless as the day Horus left him.

They hear screams from outside. Ernie falls as the mummies close in on him. They pull him up. They put him between them, between their massive metallic but bandaged wrapped chests. They move toward each other and crush the man to death. His first screams brought Laurence outside. Laurence fires his rifle at them. The Doctor and Sarah rush out. The Doctor has his hat on and pulls Laurence back inside the lodge. Sarah follows, gasping. The mummies drop the dead Ernie. Not wanting them to destroy his brother, Laurence tries to stop Sarah from turning on the power but she has to fight him off. She turns it on.

The Servant starts to falter. Sutekh's voice calls, "Stop them!!!" He is watching the Servant from his tomb under the pyramid in Egypt via a TV screen.

Two mummies enter the lodge. They knock the Doctor down. Sarah attacks the one that starts to move at the Doctor's prone form. A mummy grabs Laurence's rifle from his grip and tosses it down. Laurence is knocked unconscious onto the couch. Sarah is brushed aside by the mummy robot she attacked and it closes in on her. "Doctor! Doctor!" She manages to scream as it uses a massive hand to center on her throat, "Doc-tor! Doctorrrrrr!" It begins choking her to death...

Part Three
(drn: 24'32")

The Doctor grabs the mummy's leg and yells for Sarah to use the ring. The device gives a high pitched whine and the other mummy hits it and it blows apart before it returns to control. Sarah yells for the one active mummy to return to control. It does. The Doctor asks if Laurence is all right. He says he thinks so. "You don't deserve to be! You nearly got us all killed." The Doctor yells at him and sternly tells him that Marcus is no longer his brother -- just a walking animated cadaver.

Sutekh tells the Servant that a deliberate attempt to stop his cytronic control was made. He wants the humans killed but only after the missile is fired at the appointed hour... his freedom comes before all.

The Doctor sneaks around the grounds with his long scarf and hat on. He passes a brick wall and building to a gate. Three mummies have built a pyramid shaped rocket. Sarah joins him. He tells her it is an Osirian war rocket... it transposes with a projection... pyramid power. The Servant arrives and the two go back to the lodge. There Laurence is looking at an old picture of his brother and he. The Doctor figures the robots, one of which is down and out in the lodge, are being controlled by a cytronic particle accelerator which is in Sutekh's tomb. Scarman came here through a two way time space tunnel. Laurence starts to ask something... but the Doctor stops him, yelling but then talks to himself. Laurence is asked what would be better... and the Doctor is told that Ernie Clements, the poacher, had blasting gelignite -- explosives -- for fishing. Laurence was told that Ernie had a hut on the other side of the wood. The Doctor and Sarah go to leave, the Doctor telling Laurence they will find it without his help. "You think I'll let you down again?" The Doctor taps him on the shoulder and tells him if he wants to help he can start unwrapping the mummy.

The Doctor and Sarah find the forcefield which is like walking into a brick wall if they hit it. The Doctor uses a stick. They find a generator loop, which they must deactivate to get through the forcefield. The Doctor does not find any obvious booby traps. Using the sonic screwdriver, he begins, then asks if she is going to help or admire the scenery. She tells him his shoes need repairing and that she was just waiting for him to tell her what to do. He uses the sonic screwdriver while she holds it. The Doctor says, "Deactivating a generator loop without the correct key is like repairing a watch with a hammer and chisel -- one false move and you'll never know the time again." He tells her if it starts to get warm to let him know. She tells him that she will be heard breaking the sound barrier. Sutekh picks up the interference. The Doctor takes the shaft out of the urn and the mechanism out of the shaft. He puts it in his pocket just to make sure.

The Servant does not know how the barrier to the east has been deactivated. The power in that area is gone from Sutekh's monitor. Some alien presence. The alien who dares to intrude, the humans who help him, animals -- birds, fish, reptiles, all life will perish before Sutekh the Destroyer, only he shall live.

At the outside of the hut, the Doctor tells Sarah that not even his lot, the Time Lords, can stand against Sutekh. It only took the combined might of 740 of his fellow Osirians lead by Horus. It was recorded on the tomb of Thuthmosis the 3rd. Sarah sticks her hand in a cage.... but the Doctor warns her there could be a ferret in there.

Laurence has undone the wrappings from the mummy robot. Beneath is a wire frame.

Sarah finds a box and tosses it roughly to the Doctor who gasps... it is highly explosive. One good sneeze could set it off. He puts it down and she says, "Sorry." They can't find any fuses or ignite wires and no detonators. Sarah suggests, "Perhaps he sneezed." The Doctor scowls at her.

The Servant finds the Doctor's sabotage of the generator loop. He goes to the lodge to find the mummy unwrapped. Laurence comes running in, "Marcus." Laurence tries to get through to Marcus, who recognizes the word brother "as Horus was brother to Sutekh." Laurence shows him the photo of them as boys. It seems as though Marcus comes through, "I was Marcus..." The Servant fights it and says, "No, I am Sutekh..." As Laurence continues, the Servant tosses the picture down on the ground, breaking the glass frame. The Servant grabs Laurence, asking about the others and about the Doctor. His hands seem to hurt Laurence, even burn him.

Carefully, the Doctor and Sarah store the explosive near the brick wall near a small gate to the open area where the rocket is being built. Not knowing how they are going to ignite it, the two return to the lodge. The man seems to be asleep on the cushion chair. "Well done, Mr. Scarman," The Doctor says of the robot wrappings. Sarah shakes him and Laurence falls, dead. Strangled -- not the mummies. The Doctor pushes the body out of his way and over, "His late brother must have called."

Sarah finds it horrible. "He was so concerned about his brother."

The Doctor reminds her he told him not to think of it as his brother.

Sarah gasps, "Ohhh, sometimes you don't seem..."

"Human?"

"A man has just been murdered..." she starts to scold him.

"Four men, Sarah, five..." he reminds her it will be the first of millions... "Know thine enemy... admirable advice."

The robot is typical Osirian simplicity. The binding are chemically impregnanted to protect the robots from damage and corrosion. He will use them as a disguise. Two robots have a warhead which will be placed under the detonation head. The Servant makes them continue. The Doctor is wrapped by now. Sarah tells him it must have been a nasty accident. "Don't provoke me," he says. They leave, Sarah taking the rifle.

The Servant tells Sutekh they are ready to fire, they need only the coordinates to the pyramids of Mars. Sutekh releases them to the Servant and they arrive smoking... in a cylinder... the Servant must engage the coordinates into the projection dome monitor.

Sarah gets the explosive and hands it to the Doctor-mummy. Sarah knows how to use a rifle and she will fire at the explosive after he sets it at the rocket. She watches from the old gate as the Doctor, dressed as the mummy, goes up the ramp and puts the explosive pack on the rim. As the Doctor starts to leave, the Servant returns and asks him to stop and turn about. Sarah hides. The Servant asks if the robot has a damaged relay. The Servant gives the coordinate tube to the Doctor to place it on the dome monitor. The Doctor goes inside the pyramid and when the Servant and another mummy go, he leaves the area. Sarah fires and the shot hits but a blast stops and Sutekh contains the explosion with mental power. The Doctor is behind Sarah now -- the only thing left to do is to break his concentration.

The Doctor runs into the room but hides back at the door, then at the curtains as the Servant is called by Sutekh, who explains about the crude explosive device that he is containing. The Doctor, after the Servant leaves, goes to the space time tunnel in the Sarcophagus. He enters it and travels along the corridor.

The Servant returns to the rocket. He tells a robot to remove the device on the ramp.

The Doctor arrives in the tomb and sees the entrance way blocked by the curtain. He finds the opening open and enters where Sutekh is, "Sutekh, last of the Osirians!" Sutekh turns to look at him.

Distracted, Sutekh, cannot hold the blast and the gelignite blows up. The rocket blows up into flame and pieces.

Sutekh looks at the fire from his monitor room in the tomb. He turns, the only mobility he seems to have and his eyes light up blue. This seems to fire a burning into the Doctor and paralyses the Doctor against the wall of the tomb... he shakes his head... Sutekh's eyes are glaring at the Doctor...

Part Four
(drn: 24'52")

Sutekh makes the Doctor his play thing. He can keep the Doctor alive for centuries wracked by excruciating pain. He makes the Doctor tell where he is from. He asks the binary location of Gallifrey. Sutekh realizes the Doctor is a Time Lord. The Doctor tells him he has renounced the society of Time Lords and is now simply a traveller... Sutekh makes him tell him that he is a traveller in time and space. The Doctor is offered an alliance and an empire. The Doctor is made to kneel when he tells Sutekh he will not. Sutekh's name is hated in every civilized world as Satan, Set, or Sadok. Sutekh calls him a grovelling insect.

The Servant-Scarman calls: the robots have found Sarah who is now unconscious in one of their hands. Sutekh tells him he has no use for any of the humans...he has their leader. He tells Scarman to have it killed. The Doctor's pleas to the contrary make Sutekh realize he should keep Sarah alive. The Doctor tells Sutekh that he fears all life forms will come to rival him in power so he kills them. The Doctor tells him that all sentient life forms are their kith. Horus held that view; Sutekh refutes it. Sutekh tells him that the argument is cloud to his real motives, "She travels with you." Sutekh sees the TARDIS on his screen. He argues that he is not evil, "Your evil is my good. I am Sutekh the destroyer. Where I tread I leave nothing but dust and darkness. I find that good." The Doctor calls him names and curses him. Sutekh blasts him down. Any more insolence and Sutekh will thread his system into a million fibers. Sutekh makes the TARDIS key come off from around the Doctor's neck and sends it via the space time tunnel to Scarman.

The Doctor tells Sutekh that the TARDIS controls are isomorphicone to one they respond only to him. Sutekh's mind goes into the Doctor. Sutekh tells Scarman if the Time Lord shows an uncooperative nature... Sarah is to be killed. The Doctor arrives via the time tunnel and is taken over by Sutekh. The Doctor says that Sutekh is supreme and answers Scarman's questions which shows he is under Sutekh's total control. Sutekh tells Scarman to dispose of the Doctor when they arrive at the pyramid of Mars--he knows of the Time Lord species and how they are. The Doctor lets Scarman, Sarah, and a robot into the TARDIS. He closes the doors.

The TARDIS goes to Mars. Sutekh's mind detects an ante chamber under the main pyramid. He orders Scarman to seek the control center there. Scarman orders the mummy to kill the Time Lord after waving his arms to open a door. Despite Sarah's efforts, the mummy chokes the Doctor down. Scarman and the mummy go through the door. Sarah cries over the Doctor's body. His hand touches her head and she jumps. "You're soaking my shirt." His respiratory bypass system saved him in this tight squeeze. Sutekh relaxed his grip when he didn't need the Doctor any more. The door that Scarman went through is no longer visible.

Scarman and the mummy are stopped by Sutekh. A relay switch is a power conductor terminal. The release for it is concealed. Scarman scans with his hands so Sutekh can find it. Scarman opens the door.

The Doctor makes the waves with his arms and the door opens for him. Sarah follows him to a door but he stops short -- the door is too obvious. There must be a trap. Horus would have laid traps. Horus, the Doctor explains was an Osirian--all their guile and ingenuity. They had dome shaped heads and spinal cords like spiral staircases. The Doctor finds the release and the pair go through the opening door.

Scarman and the mummy enter a strangely lit and patterned room.

The Doctor uses a fishing rod to open a door that has been electrified.

Scarman stands back so Sutekh can scan Horus's stratagems to open the trap. The floor is charged with explosives. The fifth row up and the extreme right selenoid should be pressed. Sarah and the Doctor come running in but duck back, barely avoiding the mummy's gaze and detection. Scarman orders the mummy to follow him, "Come!"

After they go, the Doctor and Sarah approach the "Chinese puzzle" as Sarah calls it. The puzzle has a key. It reminds Sarah of the city of Exillons. It is a scale of measurements. The Doctor warns her not to touch anything... one false move and they can be blown to perdition. The Doctor does some math. Sarah calls him a show off. He uses his scarf to measure -- about 7 stitches. He puts Sarah behind him in case he is wrong. He is right and they go inside. Sarah is trapped inside a decaatron crystal tube that just suddenly appears around her. He calls to her to keep calm. "Oh Sarah," he says to himself, "I should never have brought you here."

Sutekh tells Scarman to make the sign of the eye to open the inner chamber door. Scarman obeys and the door opens.

On the dirt on the tube, the Doctor writes to Sarah: RELAX. She sits down. The Doctor cannot do it. There are two switches on the bottom of the tube. One button is to death and the other is life. Two gold wrapped mummy robots, the Twin Guardians of Horus appear. The gold wrapped robots are both contra programmed so that one would always give a false indication to the Doctor who is told by a voice that he has one question to have answered by one of the robots. The voice stated that one is programmed to tell the truth and one is programmed to deceive. The Doctor asks one mummy if he were to ask the other what was the correct switch. The robot pointed to the death switch so the Doctor pushes the other one. Then he drags Sarah and runs.

The Scarman robot fights the Horus gold mummy robot. Scarman's face becomes the Servant jackal face and his eyes glow and fire a blast at the orb that is the power station. The Servant becomes Scarman again, "I'm free, free at last..." He falls and turns to dust and ash. Sutekh seems to have won... the doors all open to the traps.

Sutekh is making plans for his vengeance but the Doctor pulls Sarah along snapping something about "the time factor." He rushes into the TARDIS, followed by Sarah. The TARDIS leaves Mars and appears back at the Priory. The pair run out with some equipment. Sutekh can move again for the first time. He makes his helmet vanish and his real image... the jackal appears. He will rule the cosmos.

He moves through the time tunnel toward Sarah and the Doctor. The Doctor has put Sutekh in a corridor of eternity... a temporal trap. A thousand years beyond the 20th century...then another ten thousand. Sutekh tries threatening the Doctor first -- telling him that he will destroy the cosmos, then he tells him he will spare the Earth--- "I will give it to you as a plaything!!!!" The Doctor tells him that the time of the Osirians has long passed. Sutekh yells as he moves backward into the tunnel, "Noooo!"

"He lived about seven thousand years."

Sarah says Sutekh is dead. She asks what the Doctor did with the time control from the TARDIS. He moved the threshold of the time space tunnel into the far future... he could never have reached the end. The Doctor realized the Eye of Horus on Mars was still holding Sutekh for two minutes after it was broken. They had two minutes to get back... the time radio waves pass from Mars to Earth. The Egyptians called Sutekh the Typhonian Beast. The Doctor moves to the Sarcophagus and hits something, causing a fire. He forgot the thermal balance would equalize. Sarah reminds him the Priory burns to the ground. He agrees they should go -- he doesn't want to be blamed for starting a fire. "We had enough of that in 1666." He laughs.

"What?" Sarah asked.

Fire blasts through the Priory House.

The Doctor and Sarah run to the TARDIS, surrounded by fire. The Doctor pushes her into the TARDIS and it dematerialises, leaving a silent fire to burn down the entire mansion...

Source: Charles Mento

Continuity Notes:
  • The Fifth Doctor battles Sutekh's fellow renegade Nephthys in the book The Sands of Time.
  • Other Osirian artifacts play an important role in Scarab of Death, and Bernice leaves to research the Osirians at the end of Legacy.
 
 
 
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