The Masque of Mandragora

Dear Gary—

Following on the heels of such brilliant stories as Pyramids of Mars and The Brain of Morbius, I find The Masque of Mandragora rather mundane. It has a promising start, and I’m not just talking about the TARDIS intro scene, which is quite good. I am talking about the idea of the living Helix energy entering the TARDIS and then being let loose by an unsuspecting Doctor out into the world. There are so many possibilities there, and I feel that the resulting story does not do them justice.

Let me return, however, to the opening TARDIS scene for a moment. The Doctor and Sarah are shown walking through the halls of the TARDIS. From the very first Hartnell episode we have always known that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than on the outside, but “how big is big?” to quote the Doctor. Periodically we have seen other rooms than the control room, but for the first time we get a sense of the enormity of it. “There are no measurements in infinity,” the Doctor tells Sarah after a peek into his “boot cupboard” that looks more like a lounge with a single pair of boots in the foreground. “You humans have got such limited little minds; I don’t know why I like you so much,” he continues. (“Because you have such good taste.” “That’s true, that’s very true.”) Ultimately they end up in a new control room—a secondary control room, or perhaps it was the original—all brown and wood and studyish, rather Sherlock Holmesian—with some nice touches of previous Doctors like the second’s recorder that Sarah plays and the third’s ruffled shirt that the Doctor uses as a dust rag.

With this nice set up we get an intense scene as the Mandragora Helix energy attacks and pulls them in. Arriving in the unknown, the Doctor steps tentatively out of the TARDIS (“It’s bigger than my boot cupboard”) and a glowing red ball of energy swoops down, entering the TARDIS unbeknownst to the Doctor. (I do find it rather hard to believe that the Doctor would have been so careless as to have left the TARDIS door open and that he doesn’t realize that the energy ball has entered, but then we wouldn’t have a story, or maybe would have a different story.)

Suddenly the action shifts to 15^th Century Italy. The Doctor and Sarah arrive and the energy is unleashed and the potential is wasted.

What follows is a very good story, solidly written and solidly acted as usual, but to my mind it just doesn’t match up with the start.

The plot of the power struggle between Count Federico and his nephew Giuliano is all very Shakespearean, but it has nothing to do with the Helix. The Doctor arrives at this pivotal time in history, between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, and is pulled into a petty family squabble; meanwhile the Helix is out there waiting to wreak its havoc. The plot tries to tie it together with Hieronymous the court astrologer who is siding with the Count and who has been contacted by the Helix, but to my mind it just gets in the way. Helix Hieronymous is not truly working with the Count; his schemes are above local politics; the Count, therefore, becomes superfluous, as does the power struggle.

It’s a pity, because under other circumstances the Count would make a great Doctor Who villain (“Only the dead fail to stand in my presence”), but as it is he is sidelined. The political wrangling between the Count and his nephew serve only to throw up roadblocks for the Doctor. Now if the Helix had contacted the Count, or if Hieronymous had truly been working on the Count’s behalf, this would have all tied up more neatly.

But Hieronymous is an independent agent who has wormed his way into his position and into the good graces of the Count all in preparation for the power he believes will be his through the Helix.

Which brings me to another disappointing aspect of the story. Apparently the Helix has laid plans for this particular takeover for quite some time. This was not some random entering of the TARDIS and random arrival in 15^th Century Italy. This was planned. If it had not been for the Doctor, the Helix says, some other space/time traveler would have carried the Helix to its destination (some other space/time traveler!?). To me the interesting premise of the story was that the evils that result are directly due to the negligence of the Doctor. Similar to The Ark, I was expecting the exploration of what happens when the Doctor’s travels, no matter how innocent, result in time altering chaos. But the Mandragora Helix lets the Doctor off the hook.

And so we get a superfluous power struggle as the central plot point while the Doctor tries to reason with everyone that it doesn’t really matter “because you don’t have a future if you don’t listen to me.” Meanwhile the Helix is treated more like the superfluous element and shunted off to some conventional cultists chanting in stereotypical robes and catacombs and planning the predictable sacrifice of Sarah Jane.

All of this is cloaked in a reason vs. superstition/Dark Ages vs. Renaissance argument. This too is a promise unfulfilled because it all gets rather muddled. Giuliano is planning a masque in honor of his accession to the Dukedom, and all of the enlightened elite of the time (including Leonardo da Vinci whom the Doctor is anxious to meet) are invited (“You’re going to hold a dance?”). This is a bit of a red herring, really. Presumably we are to believe that all of these figures assembled at one place will be annihilated when the Helix obtains full power thus plunging the world back into the darkness. But that is moot—when the Helix is unleashed, according to the Doctor, all sense of purpose will be drained out of the world—“the ability granted to every intelligent species to shape its own destiny.” So what difference if they are all gathered as one? Their fate is sealed regardless. They will become, as the Doctor states, “idle, mindless, useless sheep.” And if I’m not mistaken, the guests at the masque are all killed anyway, except for the Doctor, Sarah, the Duke and his overly attentive companion, so does that mean that Leonardo and the rest of the great minds of the time did die, or did they just decide not to show at the dance?

Then there is the Duke Giuliano. He is supposedly an intelligent and enlightened mind, yet he hasn’t figured out that the Count killed his father? He denounces Hieronymous as a fake yet can’t figure out how his prediction of death came true? And the Count, set up as the counterpoint of Giuliano, is not the voice of superstition. He espouses it for his own ends but does not believe. The Count is a brute not a mystic. And Hieronymous is a fake—up until he gets the Helix power his predictions are at the behest of the Count. His followers are your typical dismal cultists, this particular variety, the Doctor points out, was supposed to have died out in the third century. The only real power these pathetic leftovers derive comes from the Helix which is intent on draining ambition not fostering superstition.

 The clincher—the Mandragora Helix has not chosen 15^th Century Italy for its arrival because of the momentous point in history, it has chosen it because of the alignment of its constellation (an alignment set to repeat itself, so the Doctor says, at the end of the 20^th Century).

Swashbuckling his way through the extraneous plot, the Doctor succeeds with a little bit of wire and a metal breastplate to zap the Mandragora Helix “back to square one.” After all, he says, “it’s part of a Time Lords’ job to insist on justice for all species,” so he cannot allow the Helix to interfere in Mankind’s progress. And just like that it comes to an abrupt end. The Count has already been disposed of back at the end of episode three, the plot recognizing the irrelevant nature of the political intrigues at last, and the cult has been vaporized along with the Helix. Da Vinci must have somehow survived the carnage in the ball room and the Duke and his loving companion are free to carry on their merry way with no apparent repercussions from the masque massacre.

“We seem to have an awful lot of questions,” the Doctor says at one point in our story. “It’s about time we started finding some answers.”

Sometimes, unlike the Doctor, it is best not to think too hard and just enjoy the story for the story. Because despite all of the disappointments, The Masque of Mandragora is a good story. We can take a lesson, too, from Sarah Jane. “How is it I can understand you?” she asks the Doctor when under the influence of Helix Hieronymous. She never bothered to ask this question before, which is a tipoff to the Doctor that she is not herself; like the uninfluenced Sarah Jane, the audience should just accept this gift of the Time Lords and not question it.

And so, dear Gary, I hope you accept this gift . . .