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The Brain Of Morbius
daveyboy7472
Posts: 16,468
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Another Classic from a brilliant Season. There is very little to fault about this story, everything about it is utterly superb. Philip Madoc steals the show as Solon but all the other characters such as Maren, Condo and even Morbius himself were excellent characters.
If ever a story was the ultimate example of the Hinchcliffe Era this would be it. I don't know if others feel the same but I think it went as close to a Horror Film as you could get and was maybe the most 'Goth' out of all Tom Baker's first three Seasons.
There was blood aplenty, especially when Condo got shot. But there were also the strangulations from Morbius as he took his revenge out on the Sisterhood. And the Sisterhood itself showed they could be just as brutal in their destruction of other's spaceships.
What's fascinating about this story is that it is really a Sarah story rather than a Doctor one, I feel. All three cliffhangers involve her, she has an enormous input into the story and I think Lis Sladen did an absolutely convincing job of playing Sarah after she'd been blinded.
The incidental music is again excellent, conveying the creepiness of the story but the visual feel of it also makes it a great one as well. I loved the mind bending contest at the end, it was good to quickly see the other Doctors back onscreen, albeit temporarily.
I love this story, it's right up there with the best from Tom Baker's Era.
If ever a story was the ultimate example of the Hinchcliffe Era this would be it. I don't know if others feel the same but I think it went as close to a Horror Film as you could get and was maybe the most 'Goth' out of all Tom Baker's first three Seasons.
There was blood aplenty, especially when Condo got shot. But there were also the strangulations from Morbius as he took his revenge out on the Sisterhood. And the Sisterhood itself showed they could be just as brutal in their destruction of other's spaceships.
What's fascinating about this story is that it is really a Sarah story rather than a Doctor one, I feel. All three cliffhangers involve her, she has an enormous input into the story and I think Lis Sladen did an absolutely convincing job of playing Sarah after she'd been blinded.
The incidental music is again excellent, conveying the creepiness of the story but the visual feel of it also makes it a great one as well. I loved the mind bending contest at the end, it was good to quickly see the other Doctors back onscreen, albeit temporarily.
I love this story, it's right up there with the best from Tom Baker's Era.
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Loved this story, it was a rip off of Frankinstein, but who cares!:D
This was the first time, I think, that I 'realised' that the Doctor was up against another Timelord as I hadn't clocked the whole Gallifrey thing until then (well I was only 6 at the time!)
Blows the 12 regenerations theory out of the water!
I don't ever recall Pertwee referring to previous incarnations at all during his time bar The Three Doctors, off course. In this story, though, he did say he had several faces so far after telling Solon he had 'A Grey Model before this one' which Sarah said she liked.
I don't think it can be proven either way who those faces after the three previous Doctors appeared in the mind-bending contest actually were. My initial thoughts were they were Morbius as the clay model of his head is inserted in there(I think). And even if it wasn't, I always felt it was Morbius rather than The Doctor.
Frankenstein was at the back of my mind, even then.
Loved the Morbius creature and it's huge claw and bubble head! Sarah-Jane played the damsel in distress perfectly, without being TOO girly!! I felt sorry for poor Condo - especially when he realised why his arm had been chopped off! Then the poor guy was killed off! That Brain landing on the floor was a bit gruesome too....but fun!
Solon was also a brilliant character - the actor (Philip Madoc) appeared in other DW episodes, as well as the 1960's movie with Peter Cushing.
All-in all - an excellent gothic adventure, and even though it was another cheap studio-bound story....9+/10 (I always reserve rating something 10!!)
Also, it's difficult not to feel a little stab of sympathy for Morbius, in the same way that I do for the Family of Blood; evil as he may be, his punishment is a truly hellish one, as his speech about his situation reveals.
Re the faces we see during the dual, bear in mind that Morbius loses the dual, so it's not unreasonable to suspect that the faces we see after Hartnell's are his, not the Doctor's.
It's a cracking story - always in my top ten.
It's been a while since I watched it - what does Terrance actually say about the plot changes that don't make sense?
Terrance's main point about the changes to his script concern Solon, who was added instead of a servant robot. Obviously a robot has no appreciation of aesthetic sensibilities, so cobbles together a body regardless of appearance. However, Solon is meant to be a peerless surgeon, so why would he create a hideous body to house Morbius' brain in? This is compounded by Solon only wanting the Doctor's head when he has an actual Time Lord's body available to try and encase the brain in! Still, as I say, I enjoy it irrespective of these peculiarities.
Not simply moving Morbius' brain into the Doctor's body could perhaps be explained by the fact that Solon had spent years building the body for Morbius, and had made it stronger than a regular Time Lord body (the new cobbled together body has the lungs of a Birastrop as Morbius proudly states at one point), but I think I'm pushing it somewhat!! In reality Terrance is quite right, it's a bit of a gaff isn't it?
And I'm with you on the enjoyment factor - the story is delivered with such verve and excitement and total commitment from the actors that any failings in the script are totally overlooked.
Ah, the answer to that one is obvious...
Solon is quite, quite mad, you know.
He an obsessive, intent on concentrating on the fine details and looses track of the bigger picture entirely. He's assembled his creature from the 'perfect' components and it simply doesn't occur to him that it looks terrifyingly bizarre.
It would be quite easy to write Solon off as mad, but he comes across otherwise on screen. He's quite focused on his plans, and is more dedicated than obsessive. Also, the Doctor leaving Solon alone with Morbius to disassemble his creation was quite silly, as Solon would obviously try to correct Morbius, not destroy him. It was one of those moments where people do illogical things in a story only to keep it going.
Another interesting thing I gleaned from the dvd retrospective documentary was that Philip Hinchcliffe wasn't satisfied with how the show ended up! :eek:
Surely that's explicable. Solon is concerned with practical utility of the body, not with aesthetics.
If he was concerned about the practical utility of the body, why did he make Morbius a lumbering beast?
Because he thought toughness was more important. And he was presumably limited in what kind of body parts he could get from wrecked spacecraft too.
It just makes more sense to place a Time Lord brain inside an actual Time Lord which has become available to me.