July 30: The Brain of Morbius Parts Three & Four

Morbius may just be a brain in a jar, but he still gets one of the best villain rants ever: "Solon, I think of nothing else [than gaining a body again]!  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."

In fact, it's Solon's reassurances that Morbius will have a body again that leads to Morbius's panicking, as he learns that the Doctor is a Time Lord.  "That is why his head is so perfect.  From one of your own race, from one of those who turned up on you and tried to destroy you, you get a new head for Morbius.  The crowning irony," Solon tells him.  "Fool!" Morbius cries, alarmed at the thought that the Time Lords have found him.  "I'm sorry, the pun was irresistible," Solon says, misunderstanding Morbius.  But yes, this is the moment in which Morbius decides to stick his head in a plastic fishbowl, never mind the consequences -- he has to be able to escape from the Time Lords and the Sisterhood, who he thinks are working together.

Yet the Doctor's not exactly getting along with the Sisterhood.  He's doing better than the last time he was there, but even after solving the problem of their dying Sacred Flame (thanks to a firecracker knocking some soot loose) they're not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt: "And so now, Doctor, you expect us to show gratitude?" Maren asks disdainfully.  Next thing we see of the Doctor, he's lying on a stretcher, about to be taken back to Solon.  (Actually, it's never made clear if the Sisterhood is really returning the Doctor to Solon or if it's just a ruse to get the Doctor back inside Solon's place.)

Intriguingly, they also spend the entire episode with Sarah still blind -- which leads to lots of nice blind acting from Elisabeth Sladen, as she's forced to assist Solon in his operation -- since Condo became angry when he saw that Morbius had his arm and fought with Solon, inadvertently knocking Morbius's brain onto the floor in the process.  She does finally regain her eyesight though -- just in time for the completed Morbius creature to menace her...

Morbius and the Doctor engaged in a mindbending contest.
(The Brain of Morbius Part Four) ©BBC

Part four has a couple odd moments, it must be said.  The strangest part is after an already questionable moment where the Doctor orders Solon to kill Morbius and then wanders off after Sarah, apparently just trusting that Solon will obey; but stranger is the decision, after Solon traps them downstairs, for the Doctor to make cyanogen and send it up the ventilation shaft.  Does he hope Solon will investigate?  Because what actually happens is that the gas kills Solon instead (all right, maaaaaaybe it only knocks him out, but we never hear from him again) -- it's only because Morbius now has "the lungs of a birastrop" and is thus immune to cyanide gas that the Doctor and Sarah are freed.  This leads to a mindbending contest between Morbius and the Doctor⁹³, the result of which leaves Morbius crazed and the Doctor on the verge of death.  But Morbius pitches over a cliff to his death, and the Doctor is restored thanks to some of the Sisterhood's Elixir.  The galaxy is safe from Morbius and the Doctor and Sarah depart (albeit with a rather odd-looking and -sounding dematerialization effect -- what was director Christopher Barry going for here?).

It's got some strange moments, sure, but The Brain of Morbius continues the recent trend of brimming with such confidence that any flaws are simply brushed aside.  This self-assured approach (never once does this story seem uncertain about where it's going or why things are happening) makes this a tremendous success -- highly entertaining in almost every regard, with everyone involved on the top of the game.  The mystic nature of the Sisterhood is also a nice touch -- and provides a good contrast to both Solon's "mad scientist" scheme and the Doctor's rational approach.  A superb tale.







⁹³ All right, let's talk about the Morbius Doctors.  During the mind duel, we see various former faces of Morbius and the Doctor: in order, braincase Morbius, the Morbius face that Solon has a bust of, then Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton, and William Hartnell.  There's a cut away to Sarah (so possibly they started showing Morbius faces again when we weren't looking), then back to eight unfamiliar faces as Morbius crows, "Your puny mind is powerless against the strength of Morbius!  Back!  Back to your beginning!"  So the clear intention is that these are pre-Hartnell Doctors (and producer Philip Hinchcliffe has confirmed that that was what they were going for).  
     Obviously this causes all sorts of continuity problems with other stories, so fandom has bent over backwards trying to explain what these faces are, with theories ranging from "They're Morbius" (which doesn't really at all fit with what's actually going on) to "The Doctor's faking it" (well, ok then -- boring but plausible) to the very 90s theory of "They're the faces of the Other, the Gallifreyan who was there with Rassilon and was reincarnated much later as the Doctor" (that's putting it very roughly -- see the New Adventure books for more if you're really curious (or you can follow this link, but I'm not sure it helps)).  Nowadays, in the post-50th-anniversary world where we know of other incarnations who "don't count" as the Doctor, we could also speculate that these are incarnations from before he called himself "Doctor", a title which seems to coincide with a new regenerative cycle -- but that opens up a lot more cans of worms.  It might be simpler to just go with the "faking it" theory.