The TARDIS departs from Arbitan's island on the planet Marinus.
A short time later it arrives within a stone chamber. Barbara and Susan are the first to leave the ship and find they are in a tomb. The history teacher examines the skeletal remains with its grave goods and surmises that they are Aztec in origin, dating to around 1430 AD. She picks up a bracelet shaped like a serpent and puts it on. As Susan goes back inside the TARDIS, Barbara finds that one of the walls is really a great stone door, which swings opens on an overhead pivot. She passes through this and finds herself in another chamber containing a large throne. She is in a room at the top of a pyramid, overlooking a great city. She is suddenly confronted by an elderly man, accompanied by a number of guards, who demands to know who she is and how she came to be here. He becomes distracted on spotting the bracelet on her arm.
In the tomb the Doctor leaves the ship with Ian and Susan, angry that Barbara has gone off on her own.
On finding her missing, they search the chamber and find the door. All three pass through, and the door closes behind them.
The elderly man is waiting in the throne room, and introduces himself as Autloc, High Priest of Knowledge. Barbara appears clad in Aztec robes, with feathered headdress, and Autloc hails her as the "Great Spirit of Yetaxa". After Autloc has gone, she explains that he saw the bracelet from the tomb she was wearing and assumed that she must be a reincarnation of its occupant - a High Priest named Yetaxa.
The travellers have realised that they cannot get back into the tomb from the throne room, so having Barbara play her role will give them time to find another way in.
Another man arrives - the High Priest of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl. He informs Barbara that her sudden reappearance is fortuitous as a ceremony is about to be made to appease the Rain God. She will be introduced to the people as part of this ceremony. He suggests that roles should be found for the servants of Yetaxa. Ian should lead their army whilst the Doctor should spend his time in the gardens at the foot of the pyramid with the rest of the society's older members. The Doctor is unhappy that they are being split up, but they do not want to offend the High Priests. Barbara is able to keep Susan with her as her handmaid.
Ian discovers that there is already a candidate lined up to lead the army - a warrior named Ixta. They will have to fight for the role - to the death. The Doctor meets an elderly lady named Cameca and starts to question her about the tomb. He learns that the architect is now dead, but she knows the man's son.
Ian arrives in the garden with terrible news. He is to help Ixta escort a sacrificial victim to the ceremony of the Rain God. The Doctor warns him not to interfere, then goes to the throne room to tell Barbara the same. However, she declares that she will not allow the sacrifice to take place. She intends to change this society - and so change history. The Doctor is horrified by this and insists that she must not do it.
The ceremony commences.
Just as Tlotoxl is about to cut out the victim's heart, Barbara and Susan both intervene. The victim is encouraged by Tlotoxl to kill himself - throwing himself off the pyramid to his death. The rains start to fall.
The High Priest of Sacrifice is furious. He is convinced that Barbara is not Yetaxa, and is determined to destroy her...
Next episode: The Warriors of Death
Written by: John Lucarotti
Recorded: Friday 1st May 1964 - Lime Grove Studio D
First broadcast: 5:15pm, Saturday 23rd May 1964
Ratings: 7.4 million / AI 62
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: John Crockett
Guest cast: John Ringham (Tlotoxl), Keith Pyott (Autloc), Ian Cullen (Ixta), Margot Van der Burgh (Cameca), David Anderson (Aztec Warrior Captain), Tom Booth (Sacrificial Victim).
The opening episode of a story which has always gone under the overall title of The Aztecs. It was commissioned as such.
The Keys of Marinus was the second story in a row not to have a throw-forward to the next adventure, but the final scene of the previous episode is shown as this instalment opens, showing that it follows immediately after events on Marinus.
John Lucarotti had come up with Marco Polo after having previously written a drama about the Venetian explorer for Canadian television. As well as living in Canada, he had also lived for a time in Mexico, and so had developed an interest in the country's history and customs.
Looking for a historical background for a new story, the Aztec culture was the obvious choice.
Their art, architecture and other great technological achievements (obtained without the use of metals or the wheel) were in sharp contrast to their belief in the power of human sacrifice to commune with their deities, of whom there were many. This dichotomy would provide a hook for the story.
Lucarotti was living on a boat moored in Majorca at this time and had health issues, which complicated the pre-production process. He made infrequent visits to London where he was able to meet with David Whitaker. On one visit he handed in his scripts which were two-thirds complete. He then spent the rest of the day in Whitaker's office, completing the remainder.
The names of the characters were entirely made up by Lucarotti, rather than use those of real historical figures. Ixta's name derives from the city of Ixtapalapa.
Barbara is the main focus of this episode. Thrust into a position of great influence she elects to make use of this to change certain aspects of Aztec culture - namely the human sacrifices. She sees these as the primary reason why this culture will be destroyed when the Spanish Conquistadores turn up in 1519. The highlight of the episode (if not the whole story) is the argument she then has with the Doctor about changing history. He maintains that she cannot do this - "Not one line!" - suggesting that he has some bitter personal experience of this.
This story prompted viewers to write into the production office asking about the nature of History in particular / Time in general in the programme - necessitating Whitaker to come up with a response. He very much came down in favour of History as being something that could never be changed - and future writers needn't suggest otherwise. The Doctor could see only the general course of History, but not all the details. He gave as an example someone travelling along a road that dips up and down through hills. You can see the road when it crests the hills, allowing you to form an idea of the general direction, but you cannot see into the dips where you might be blind to some details. You might be able to alter some of the twists and turns of the road down in the dips, but it still has to remain true to the main direction as seen on the crests of the hills.
As it is, Barbara has a somewhat blinkered view of the Aztecs and their fate, despite this being a specialised subject for her (suggesting that she may have studied History before getting into teaching, as teacher training did not allow for specialisation). It wasn't just human sacrifice which the Spanish objected to. As representatives of a Catholic power they would have been opposed to any form of pantheistic pagan religion. Forced conversion would have happened anyway. We also now know that their very presence led to decline of the Aztecs, irrespective of politics or religion, thanks to the spread of illnesses from Europe to which they had no immunity.
Other troubling aspects of Barbara's actions and intentions we will come back to, once we get to the final instalment of this story.
William Hartnell had settled into the role of the Doctor so well by this stage that it actually became a bit of a problem. He would learn his lines for the week on the Sunday prior to rehearsals starting, and then become irritated at having to change them as part of the rehearsal process.
A fluff which didn't make it into the broadcast episode was when he referred to the Aztecs as "Anzacs" during the camera rehearsals.
The actor lived in rural Kent and travelled up to London every Monday morning for work. Rehearsals would begin an hour later on this day because of this. He would then stay in digs through the week (i.e. temporary accommodation), returning to Kent on the last train Friday night or first thing Saturday morning. Through the week he was fond of frequenting a local pub where he would play darts.
In this pre-internet era designer Barry Newbery faced the challenge of creating realistic sets and props for the production. He visited the British Museum, and read many text books, and he also managed to view a recent ITV documentary about the Aztecs. Some things he picked up on were their lack of a written alphabet, but did use cartoon-like characters in their art. This was used in this episode when Susan notices the figures painted on the inside of the tomb door.
This door took a great deal of working out to operate properly - opening and closing when required but remaining firmly in place when not being used. He experimented with different stage weights inside the door prop.
The skeleton on the tomb set was a real one, with a mask based on a genuine one from the British Museum. He was a little annoyed when this wasn't seen properly on screen, after he had taken so much trouble over it.
One major concern he had was that the setting was mainly the top of a pyramid, which would command sweeping views over the city. This would require a lot of space between the set and the painted cyclorama - something you did not have in Lime Grove D.
Costume designer Daphne Dare opted to be less realistic, as the Aztecs would have been more scantily dressed - men wearing only loincloths and a cloak. Ixta was actually scripted as being bare-chested.
The jaguar and eagle helmets worn by Ian and Ixta were accurate, representing two branches of the Aztec military.
As he recalled it later, John Ringham was particularly annoyed when some studio visitors were critical of his costume during afternoon rehearsals. As they were just rehearsals he had not donned the full outfit he would wear for recording that evening. Curiously, a number of photographs were taken from that afternoon's rehearsals, in which it looks like Ringham has his full costume and make-up in place, but it is William Hartnell who is not yet costumed - wearing a light pullover and flannels. It may be that Ringham was remembering the recording of a later episode.
- The closing credits were originally supposed to run over an image of raindrops falling onto the sacrificial stone.
- There is an improvement of half a million viewers on the previous episode, thanks to the return of Juke Box Jury which had been on a one week break.
- Tom Booth's leap to his death from the pyramid was part of the filming at Ealing on Tuesday 14th April.
- Only one Aztec god is mentioned in the script - Tlaloc the Rain God. This was mainly down to the fact that it was felt that certain members of the cast would struggle with names like Huitzilopochtli.
- John Ringham elected to base his performance of Tlotoxl upon Olivier's Richard III (filmed in 1955). John Crockett encouraged him to make the character as villainous as possible, claiming that he wanted every child in Britain to hate him.
- David Anderson was a martial arts expert and fight arranger.
- The Radio Times covered the episode on the Thursday before transmission, as was now the usual practice for the start of each new story. The article focussed on Jacqueline Hill.
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