The Brain of Morbius is a Doctor Who story I have known and
loved for many years. It, along with Pyramids of Mars, was the first and only
of my collection for the longest time. I can’t believe that I never once noticed
that the copy I own is a heavily edited version. It was not until this last
viewing that I began to think that there seemed to be scenes missing; the
action seemed to jump forward with some important events glossed over; and it
seemed awfully short at under an hour. Something was wrong, I thought. Sure
enough, I looked it up on line and discovered that it had been released in
abridged form. It’s time I upgrade my collection from mostly VHS to DVD.
While waiting for the DVD to arrive, I have in the meantime
found a complete copy that a friend made for us so I can now write more
knowledgably about one of the all-time great stories of Doctor Who, The Brain
of Morbius, a wonderfully atmospheric retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
I love how the story begins, as many stories have of late,
with a delightful exchange between the Doctor and Sarah. The Doctor tears out
of the TARDIS raging at the dark and stormy sky, positive that the Time Lords
have once again waylaid him for their own purpose. “I don’t know and I don’t really
care,” he tells Sarah when she asks where they are. “Ah, come on . . . come on, stop being so childish,”
Sarah chides while the Doctor practices double loops with his yoyo. “I’m just
going to sit here and do nothing,” the Doctor sulks. “So there,” Sarah
punctuates as she goes off to explore.
Even Sarah’s discovery of a graveyard of crashed ships doesn’t
pull the Doctor out of his churlish mood. When Sarah screams, however, the
Doctor is immediately at her side. The sight of a headless Mutt (a nice nod to
The Mutants from the third Doctor’s run) peaks his interest; the grim fact that
the decapitation occurred after the crash is worthy of investigation. The
Doctor is now fully committed.
“I was born in these parts,” the Doctor tells Sarah as he
begins to take a look around. “I thought I recognized the stars.” A fabulous
detail, the Doctor, gentleman of the universe, time and space hobo, traveler to
distant galaxies and alternate realities, the Doctor stands looking up at the
stars and senses home, even within a couple of billion miles (unforgivably one
of the parts cut out of my 59 minute long VHS copy).
The Brain of Morbius gives us several glimpses into Time
Lord History parceled liberally throughout our story. The Time Lord Council was
once ruled by Morbius who tried to steer the Time Lords down a path of death
and destruction. Morbius was placed on trial for rebellion, a trial that
attracted the attention of galaxies far and wide (I’m picturing a carnival
atmosphere similar to the Scopes Monkey Trial), and condemned to death in a
dispersal chamber. The Sisterhood of Karn, longtime opponents of Morbius, serves
as guardian of the Elixir of Life, an elixir they share with the Time Lords.
All of this serves as a backdrop to our Frankenstein story. Dr. Frankenstein and Igor are represented by
Solon and Condo respectively. Their monster is Morbius, or more accurately, the
brain of Morbius that Solon has been keeping alive, and the body he has pieced
together from the casualties of the numerous shipwrecks on Karn. All Solon
needs to complete his monster is a head. In walks the Doctor.
“Oh, what a magnificent head,” Solon exclaims upon first
sight of the Doctor. “Superb head,” he adds for emphasis.
“Well, I’m glad you like it. I have had several. I used to
have an old grey model before this. Some people liked it,” the Doctor replies.
“I did,” Sarah adds in a marvelous reference to her time
with the third Doctor.
“I said, some people liked it,” the Doctor continues, “but I
prefer this model.”
(So do I, Doctor; so do I.)
Philip Madoc as the mad scientist Solon is worthy of note;
he plays the part to perfection. He can put on the face of suave and genial
host or deferential supplicant when needed, but we can always see behind the
mask his single-minded purpose, and he throws off the façade quickly, as
impatient to get on with his work as he is with Condo, or as Solon calls him, “you
chicken brained biological disaster.” With simple lines, like “That is an
insect!” as he examines the Mutt head Condo brings him, or “Mind his head!” as
Condo carries the unconscious Doctor, Phillip Madoc tells us volumes about
Solon’s character.
And Solon is no blindly fanatical follower of Morbius. As
Morbius himself points out, “You desire to be known as the creator of Morbius
rather than his servant.”
This brings us to Morbius. As we learn over the course of
the story, Morbius was an evil and dangerous Time Lord, gathering up a
following of mercenaries and destroying countless planets. Long believed dead,
Solon has kept Morbius’ brain alive, apparently a plan hatched between the two evil
geniuses to trick the Time Lords. However Solon has been taking too long with
his experiments and Morbius grows restless.
“Yet I am still here,” Morbius’ brain laments. “I can see
nothing, feel nothing. You have locked me into hell for eternity. If this is
all there is for me, I would sooner die now.” And later, “Trapped like this,
like a sponge beneath the sea. Yet even a sponge has more life than I. Can you
understand a thousandth of my agony? I, Morbius, who once led the High Council
of the Time Lords and dreamed the greatest dreams in history, now reduced to
this, to a condition where I envy a vegetable.”
“Events have moved along while I’ve been sleeping . . .”
Events have moved along. The Sisterhood, fearful that the
Doctor has come to steal the last remaining Elixir from them, has stolen away
his unconscious body form Solon’s laboratory and plans his execution; Solon
pleads first for the Doctor’s life and then simply for his head; Sarah frees
the Doctor, being blinded in the process by a ray from Sister Maren’s ring; the
Doctor fixes the Eternal Flame for the Sisterhood so that there will be Elixir
once more; Condo dumps Morbius’ brain on the floor; Solon shoots Condo (who has
turned on his master when he finds his arm that Solon has been holding hostage
has been stitched onto the monster’s body); Solon uses a blind Sarah to
complete the operation to transfer Morbius’ brain into a manufactured brain
case and onto the monster’s body; Sarah recovers her eyesight just in time to
see Monster Morbius; Monster Morbius kills Solon.
Sorry for the abridgment, Gary, but events do move quickly
along in The Brain of Morbius, and all are entertaining and worth mentioning. I
hate to leave anything out. Now that I have given a brief overview, let me turn
to some deeper observations.
First, the Sisterhood. This is a fascinating concept, a sort
of female yin to the Time Lord yang. They are rather pathetic upon close
examination, holed up on a desolate planet, guarding a dying flame, chanting incessantly,
drinking an elixir to give them perpetual life, but a life not even a vegetable
would envy to paraphrase Morbius, and now that elixir is drying up—drying up
like Maren their leader. And yet I can imagine them once upon a time being a
vital and living force. Perhaps now that the Doctor has replenished their flame
and Maren is dead they will become revitalized under Ohica’s leadership.
Next, Sarah. I remember, Gary, how impressed I was with the character
of Sarah Jane Smith when she first appeared in The Time Warrior, and feeling a
bit disappointed that the promise of the character was never fully realized as
the series progressed. I was wrong. Sarah does have her occasional twisted
ankle, kidnapping, and screaming spell, but overall Sarah Jane Smith is one of
the strongest companions the Doctor ever has had or ever will have, male or
female. I would rank her right up there with Ian and Barbara. It is not just
the camaraderie and the ability to cajole the Doctor out of moods. All, or most
all, companions have such qualities. Sarah has that added resourcefulness,
bravery, and intelligence that renders her invaluable to the Doctor. And as
often as she is rescued, she does her share of rescuing as well.
The Brain of Morbius showcases all of these qualities in
Sarah. I will single out her blindness. Sarah’s blindness does not leave her
helpless. She might stumble over things, but when she hears a mysterious voice
in the cavernous depths of the castle she goes to investigate, and when she
hears Solon plot against the Doctor she locks him in his lab and faces the
treacherous journey to find the Doctor. Even Solon recognizes her value, blind
and all, and has her assist him in his operation. And through it all she
maintains her sense of humor.
No wonder Condo has a crush on her. And this brings me to
Condo. The Hunchback of Karn. Condo believes Solon will restore his arm to him
if he only plays Igor to Solon’s Frankenstein. Condo does his dim-witted best
to assist Solon, despite Solon’s obvious contempt. But Condo doesn’t want to
hurt the girl—she’s pretty. And when Condo discovers his long lost arm attached
to the monstrosity on the bed he has had enough. Poor Condo, shot in the belly,
but even still as he lies bleeding the screams of Sarah rouse him and he manages
one last and noble act before dying.
Of course, I can’t talk about The Brain of Morbius without
talking about Morbius. No longer just a brain. He has been given a body
stitched from the broken remains of corpses littering the surface of Karn. No
longer trapped like a sponge. No longer envious of a vegetable. He has been
given a body. But what a body!? His first glimpse of himself in the mirror is
priceless, but he soon gets over it. He is free at last and ready to resume his
tyranny of time and space.
Good thing the Doctor has kept his head.
“What does it feel like to be the biggest mongrel in the universe?”
the Doctor asks. “To be free again is all that matters," Morbius concludes, but
the Doctor and Sarah continue to mock. “Potpourri would be appropriate,” the
Doctor offers as a new name for Morbius, but Sarah comes up with the clincher: “How
about Chop Suey?”
“Chop Suey, the galactic emperor.”
Sticks and stones . . . “You will be the first to die!”
The Doctor, knowing the brain in the manufactured case after
a hurried operation is liable to be unstable, challenges Morbius to a sort of “Time
Lord wrestling” or mind bending as it is called, despite Morbius being a Time
Lord of the first rank and the Doctor being “a mere nobody.”
I find the contraption they use for their mind bending a
curious thing. What is it and what is it doing in Solon’s laboratory? Is it specifically
designed for Time Lord mind bending? Or do they just happen to use it for this
purpose? Whatever the case, it comes in handy. But I find the contest itself to
be a bit anti-climatic. For the destruction it causes (Morbius’ brain fairly
explodes and the Doctor nearly dies), it doesn’t take much time and they don’t
really seem to be expending much energy. Morbius gloats through the entire
process, despite his losing, and visions of past generations appear in the
middle. I have to speculate that the majority of the generations depicted are
those of Morbius as the Doctor only has the three previous that we know of. At
any rate, the mind-blown Morbius wanders off to be chased by the Sisterhood (under
the direction of Ohica) over the edge of a cliff and to his ignoble death.
“Death is the price we pay for progress,” the Doctor has
advised the Sisterhood, and taking this advice to heart Maren sacrifices
herself, giving up the few remaining drops of Elixir to the Doctor in order to
save his life. The time for the Doctor’s death has not yet arrived (he is only
749 after all . . .).
“Death is the price we pay for progress.” It is a sad and
hard truth, Gary. Death is the price we pay . . . .
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