Writer John Lucarotti was a widely travelled man. After leaving Canada he settled in Mexico for a time. There he became interested in the history and culture of the Aztecs. On being asked to come up with a second story for Doctor Who he selected this as the backdrop - so it has fairly sound research behind it. The designer, Barry Newbery, was also able to do some research, there having been a recent exhibition of Aztec artefacts at the British Museum and a TV documentary. The costumes were also looked into, but the practicalities of teatime TV in 1964 meant that the Aztecs we see on screen are rather overdressed.
They would have worn a lot less, the men in loincloths for instance. On leaving the TARDIS Susan comments on the pictures adorning the walls of the tomb they have landed in - and this is why we know what the Aztecs looked like. They left images of themselves behind.
The date usually selected for The Aztecs is around 1450. The Aztec Empire came into being in 1427 when three city states formed an alliance. We don't know which city the TARDIS has arrived in. It certainly can't be the capital, Tenochtitlan, as that was where the ruler lived, and there is no mention of him in this story. In fact there is no mention of any ruler. Each city state would have its ruling dynasty. You would think that the sudden appearance of the reincarnation of a High Priest would have led to a visit by the city's elite. In The Aztecs, the city appears to be run between the High Priest of Sacrifice - Tlotoxl - and the High Priest of Knowledge - Autloc. Though important figures, they would not be running the place between them.
Barbara has picked up a serpent-shaped armlet from the tomb, and it is on seeing this that Autloc declares her to be the reincarnation of Yetaxa. Yetaxa died around 1430, so the elderly Autloc would undoubtedly have known him. It seems odd then that when Tlotoxl starts to challenge her, Autloc doesn't simply ask questions which only Yetaxa would have known - personal stuff like who his parents were or what his favourite colour was. Instead they test her knowledge of their religion and customs - things which most ordinary Aztec citizens could probably answer.
Yetaxa was a High Priest, but later Barbara is spoken of as if she is the reincarnation of a god.
As part of the tests to prove her divinity Barbara gets to name the easier-to-pronounce deities, like Tlaloc. Jacqueline Hill isn't forced to say Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, for instance. It also seems a bit of a coincidence that Tlotoxl, High Priest of Sacrifice, has a name which is almost an anagram of the death deity Xolotl. Did his parents expect him to end up where he did?
Everyone seems to pronounce his name differently.
Talking of coincidence, Ian just happens to make an enemy of the son of the tomb-builder, whilst the Doctor makes a friend of the lady who was possibly his lover. The way she talks of him seems to suggest this.
Whilst cocoa was drunk as part of Aztec wedding ceremonies, when beans were exchanged, it did not constitute a marriage proposal - otherwise people would be proposing to each other all the time.
One other thing about the plot is the fact that whilst the TARDIS can translate language, it can't change people's appearances. The Aztecs must surely notice the pale skin tones of the new arrivals -especially when they had a prophesy about a white man with a black beard coming to visit them. All Ian had to do to overcome Ixta was to have grown some stubble.
On two occasions the camera collides with a piece of scenery, most noticeably at the end of the first episode just before Tlotoxl's big close up. He almost knocks the sacrificial stone out of position when he falls against it.
William Hartnell misses his mark and spends most of one scene with his face obscured by Barbara's feathered headdress.
Everyone struggles to make the stone which covers the secret entrance to the temple look heavier than polystyrene.
There was a problem for Newbery when the production was moved from Lime Grove to the larger studios of the BBC's new Television Centre. Some of the Garden of Peace set went missing. Luckily, some pieces of set had been built for the filmed sequences of Susan in the seminary (pre-filming at Ealing, to allow Carole Ann Ford to have a holiday during the making of this story). Newbery got hold of these set pieces and improvised. The cyclorama of the Aztec cityscape proved to be too small for the larger studio, and at one point you can see the edge. Modern video remastering techniques have also shown up the creases in the cloth, though it's unlikely anyone watching on old 405-line TVs would have noticed.
Fluffs this time aren't confined to Hartnell, though he does get one good one:
"Susan my child, I'm glad... I'll tell you how glad I am to see you later".
Keith Pyott (Autloc) has real trouble pronouncing 'seminary' - saying "semininery" at one point.
Ian Cullen (Ixta) only just gets his line about surviving 7 other warriors out.
John Ringham (Tlotoxl) delivers: "Let there be no more talk against us that the gods are against us".
Not necessarily a bad thing, but Ringham plays him exactly like Laurence Olivier's Richard III.
And finally, the actor playing the Perfect Victim (Andre Boulay) can't act for toffee. Sure enough, his entry on IMDb states that he was active between 1962 and 1964 only, with a total of 6 credits to his name.
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