The Myth Makers

Dear Gary—

Sadly, another lost story. And sadly, another parting with a companion. I am grateful for the reconstructed versions I can find on line; at least I can get a flavor of it, but I have to say, The Myth Makers is another mixed bag that doesn’t quite work as a whole. Like The Romans, The Myth Makers injects a healthy dose of comedy into the historical, but unlike The Romans the humor here doesn’t quite get it right.

We start with a rather comical fight scene between Achilles and Hector, but when the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor emerges the startled Hector is struck dead.  “You must not kick a man when he is down,” admonishes the Doctor, but that seems to be the grim note this story takes, offering up its characters as clowns and then brutally striking them down.

The Doctor, presumed to be Zeus by Achilles, declares, “I refuse to enter into any kind of vulgar bawdry;” however the story doesn’t hesitate to rush in where the Doctor fears to tread.

There are some nice moments, though. I especially like the fact that we are getting to know Steven better. For the longest time my only exposure to Steven was his brief introduction in the makeshift monkey bar cage of The Chase and the one surviving episode of the later story The Celestial Toymaker. Watching these last few stories has served to round out his character for me, and I am rather liking Steven. He is not as combative with the Doctor as Ian had been, but he does slip in some sly, good natured zingers.

“You know, I don’t think they’d appreciate your kind of sarcasm,” the Doctor tells Steven; but I do. The unreliable TARDIS is always reliable for providing fodder for friendly ribbing, and when Steven states that their landing in the middle of the Trojan War is “just another miscalculation by the Doctor,” the Doctor counters that he would hardly call it a miscalculation. Rather, he continues, “with all eternity to choose from I did rather well to get us back to earth.”

And I have to say that I enjoyed most of the story. The humor sucked me in and was carrying me right along. “The whole story is obviously absurd,” the Doctor says of the Trojan Horse, and he speculates that it was merely an invention by Homer as a good dramatic device. The Myth Makers treats this chapter of history as absurd, depicting Paris and Achilles as cowards, Helen as a tramp, Odysseus as a braggart, and all as jesters for our entertainment.

“Woe to the horse.”

“Too late to say ‘whoa’ to the horse.”

The horse is on a runaway course. The Myth Makers started running with this farce and found itself plummeting downhill quickly. And as the Doctor says of the horse, there was “not time to make shock absorbers.”

Steven, in an attempt to locate the captured Vicki, gives himself up to Paris. “I beg your pardon?” Paris exclaims. “I say, this sort of thing is just not done; I mean, surely you’d rather die than be taken prisoner.” With lines such as that one can only laugh. But we’re only being set up for a most tragic and cruel finish.

King Priam and his daughter Cassandra offer more comedy, and there are some genuinely warm moments between Priam and Vicki. Vicki seems to have found a friend in Priam and a budding romance with his son Troilus. But again we are merely being set up for the painful end.

The Doctor, too, begins to find the whole thing distasteful. When Odysseus (who has played the fool for us throughout) suddenly turns nasty the Doctor proclaims, “I’ve gone far enough with you.” “My Lord Odysseus,” he continues, “you go adventuring on your own. Be off with you.”

But our clowns turn to murderers and our jesters are slain. It was all a Trojan Horse with a belly full of horror.

And then, with no real warning, Vicki is gone. Left behind to start a new life with the young and newly orphaned Troilus.  With only a few snatched hours of acquaintance. And the Doctor, rather irresponsibly I think, takes off in the TARDIS with the young Trojan handmaiden Katarina still on board.

“You must call me Doctor,” the Doctor tells the confused Katrina. “I am not a Doc; and I am not a god.” Quite a concise and accurate definition.

Young Katarina, however, believes herself in limbo. “This is a journey through the beyond,” she states.

A journey through the beyond . . . through the stars . . . through the swirling eternity of time . . .perhaps to find its way to you, dear Gary.