The Brain of Morbius is a masterpiece of storytelling, a brilliant example of Doctor Who at its best. This is writing, acting and producing at its finest and a definite cornerstone of the Tom Baker era of the show.
Story: 11
Even though it is blatantly obvious that The Brain of Morbius is inspired by Frankenstein (even going as far as to directly rip off scenes from it, the most obvious example of which is seen at the end of Episode Four, in which the Sisterhood of Karn pursue Morbius with torches and corner him at the edge of a cliff) it still manages to blend in enough sci-fi elements to feel fresh and interesting. The writers manage to capture the atmosphere of the original work and throw it into a new setting seasoned with a villain, who is driven by completely different motives than Victor Frankenstein. And with some of the best cliffhangers in the series' history, the audience is bound to be binging through the four episodes in one sitting.
The main plot with Solon and Morbius is the driving force of the story but it blends in naturally with the secondary plot, involving the Sisterhood of Karn and their struggle to keep the fire of eternal life burning. The Sisterhood brings a welcome, yet somewhat superfluous, change to the otherwise linear story progression. The plot could have worked even without them, but their inclusion made it possible for the script to include a philosophical pondering about whether eternal life is something one should strive to achieve or not.
There are plenty of great moments to remember from this episode. The ritual performed by the Sisterhood in Episode One is very interesting, as well as every scene with the talking brain of Morbius, well performed by Michael Spice. Only Spice could deliver a convincing monologue in which he confesses to being jealous of vegetables! Episode Four is a classic in its own right. It contains the aforementioned Frankenstein rip-off but also the controversial mind-bending sequence of the climax. I am not going to delve further into the never-ending debate about whether or not the faces are seen should be considered as earlier incarnations of the Doctor, but at least they provide a good reason for the production team (including producer Hinchcliffe, writer Holmes and director Barry) to make an uncredited cameo appearance.
Acting: 12
Tom Baker continues to excel in his versatile and energetic performance as the series' lead, this time living by the rules he established in Robot ("There's no point in being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes"). Elisabeth Sladen gives off her best performance so far in this story. Sarah has to spend much of the story wandering around completely blind and Sladen performs this convincingly.
But the guest stars once again steal the show. Philip Madoc returns to Doctor Who, having previously appeared on the show as the cold and manipulative War Lord in Patrick Troughton's final adventure The War Games, as well as the bickering Eelek in the less fondly remembered The Krotons. This time around he goes completely bananas as the crazed and power-hungry scientist Solon. Solon is a great character, with a good motive for his actions and with a natural character progression. It is a highly enjoyable performance, particularly in scenes in which Madoc performs alongside Colin Fay.
I am going to seize this moment to share my love for Colin Fay and his character, in particular, the half-witted but sympathetic sidekick Condo. People may have very differing opinions of this character, but I fell in love with him in an instant. Condo is a mix of Igor from Frankenstein and Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the few lines he is given are delivered by Fay with brilliance. He is easily the most tragic character of the entire story, which becomes obvious when he admits his feelings towards Sarah and when he is brutally shot by his superior after noticing that he has been duped and exploited.
Perhaps the most delicious ingredient of this ghostly recipe is not only the incredible cast but their heavenly delivery of the dialogue given to them. This is mostly thanks to the expertise with which Dicks and Holmes craft their dialogue (examples of which include the Doctor stating that "events have moved along while I've been asleep" and "You thought I was dead; you're always making that mistake") but also due to the amazing way the cast performs the lines. Tom Baker and Philip Madoc seem to enjoy themselves a bit too much, even going as far as to throw in a few improvised lines (such as Solon's classic "I'm sorry, the pun was irresistible").
Cynthia Greenville is one of the better supporting actresses to appear on the show. She personifies the creepy, old leader of the Sisterhood adequately.
The Doctor: 11
The Doctor once again gets to utilize his knowledge and brilliance to help the Sisterhood of Karn while doing his best to stop Solon. He does get into trouble more than usual, but at least he finds clever ways to get out of those situations (when he's not saved by Sarah or Solon).
The Companions: 9
Elisabeth Sladen does a remarkably good job with the material she is given, but I am saddened to see Sarah reduced into a simple, screaming damsel in distress for the majority of this adventure. The Sisterhood is supposedly meant to act as a stand-in for the otherwise so brave and insightful Sarah but even they can not replace her properly. Sarah is helpless for most of the story when she usually does just fine on her own. This is an outrageous step backwards in her character development!
The Monster/Villain: 12
I love the mad Solon, I love his clumsy and dim-witted servant and I love the horrifyingly power-hungry Morbius. As a trio of villains, they are among the very best in the series' history. Solon is, together with Tobias Vaugh from The Invasion, my favourite non-Time Lord villain in the entire series.
A minor hiccup is notable in the way the story handles its villains. Solon's fate is left ambiguous, which in this context is somewhat annoying. And we do not get to see Morbius reborn until Episode Four. This is a common way of storytelling, exploited several times even on Doctor Who, but I would have loved to see and hear more of Morbius in his new body. The way Morbius is defeated is also a bit too cheesy for the tone that dominates the rest of the adventure.
Production: 11
The series' longest-serving designer Barry Newberry delivers some highly impressive set design - everything from Solon's dark and grimy laboratory to the red and orange fire caves of the Sisterhood (which remind me of Kali's temple in the 1984 movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). The outdoor set might not be quite as convincing, but it still looks fairly good.
The attention to detail is also inexplicably good. The costumes of the Sisterhood are one of the best the series has to offer and the makeup, particularly on Condo, is very realistic. And let us not forget the horrifying brain in the jar (very different from the brains in the jar in Episode Two of The Keys of Marinus!) and the new body of Morbius - they are both brilliantly realistic and terrifyingly gruesome at the same time!
Everything is strongly held together by director Christopher Barry, who certainly has experience of Gothic stories from before, having directed the classic Third Doctor story The Daemons and several other atmospheric adventures. The Brain of Morbius might very well be Barry's best work, at least since The Daleks.
Pacing: 11
This is a well-paced adventure even with the lack of action. The atmosphere and acting keep it going, as well as the fascinatingly handled source material.
Atmosphere: 12
The atmosphere of this adventure is tense from the very beginning. Everything is dark and eerie and the effect is made even stronger by some of the best music Dudley Simpson has ever conducted for the show. It is also positively shocking how realistic and violent The Brain of Morbius feels, as opposed to most other stories. Condo is brutally shot, leaving a very realistic looking, bleeding wound and people are strangled in the most horrifying ways. The level of violence in this story is nothing compared to what television is capable of today, but it still feels extremely unsettling when compared to what Doctor Who usually delivers.
Impact: 12
The Brain of Morbius is often referred to as one of the most influential Doctor Who stories when talking about its mix of storytelling, acting and production. It's also one of the stories leading up to the eventual end of the popular Gothic horror era of the show.
Replay Value: 12
The Brain of Morbius is among the five stories I would never-ever grow tired of watching.
Random Observations:
The Sisterhood of Karn debuts here and reappears several times throughout Doctor Who's expanded universe. Their only other appearance on TV so far is in the 2013 minisode The Night of the Doctor.
Condo joins my list of lovable secondary characters, along with such names as Bellal from Death to the Daleks and Tommy from Planet of the Spiders.
From the case marked "Let's Save Money By Reusing Old Props And Hope That Nobody Notices": The mutt from the beginning of the story is a reused costume from the Season 9 story The Mutants.
This story is written under the pseudonym of Robin Bland, standing for writer Terrance Dicks and script editor Robert Holmes. Holmes rewrote large portions of the script, which made Dicks unhappy. He asked producer Philip Hinchcliffe to remove his writing credit for the story and replace it "with some bland pseudonym". The iconic Robin Bland was born!
Review by Theo KallströmVIP 6BlockedParent2020-06-22T15:58:40Z
The Brain of Morbius is a masterpiece of storytelling, a brilliant example of Doctor Who at its best. This is writing, acting and producing at its finest and a definite cornerstone of the Tom Baker era of the show.
Story: 11
Even though it is blatantly obvious that The Brain of Morbius is inspired by Frankenstein (even going as far as to directly rip off scenes from it, the most obvious example of which is seen at the end of Episode Four, in which the Sisterhood of Karn pursue Morbius with torches and corner him at the edge of a cliff) it still manages to blend in enough sci-fi elements to feel fresh and interesting. The writers manage to capture the atmosphere of the original work and throw it into a new setting seasoned with a villain, who is driven by completely different motives than Victor Frankenstein. And with some of the best cliffhangers in the series' history, the audience is bound to be binging through the four episodes in one sitting.
The main plot with Solon and Morbius is the driving force of the story but it blends in naturally with the secondary plot, involving the Sisterhood of Karn and their struggle to keep the fire of eternal life burning. The Sisterhood brings a welcome, yet somewhat superfluous, change to the otherwise linear story progression. The plot could have worked even without them, but their inclusion made it possible for the script to include a philosophical pondering about whether eternal life is something one should strive to achieve or not.
There are plenty of great moments to remember from this episode. The ritual performed by the Sisterhood in Episode One is very interesting, as well as every scene with the talking brain of Morbius, well performed by Michael Spice. Only Spice could deliver a convincing monologue in which he confesses to being jealous of vegetables! Episode Four is a classic in its own right. It contains the aforementioned Frankenstein rip-off but also the controversial mind-bending sequence of the climax. I am not going to delve further into the never-ending debate about whether or not the faces are seen should be considered as earlier incarnations of the Doctor, but at least they provide a good reason for the production team (including producer Hinchcliffe, writer Holmes and director Barry) to make an uncredited cameo appearance.
Acting: 12
Tom Baker continues to excel in his versatile and energetic performance as the series' lead, this time living by the rules he established in Robot ("There's no point in being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes"). Elisabeth Sladen gives off her best performance so far in this story. Sarah has to spend much of the story wandering around completely blind and Sladen performs this convincingly.
But the guest stars once again steal the show. Philip Madoc returns to Doctor Who, having previously appeared on the show as the cold and manipulative War Lord in Patrick Troughton's final adventure The War Games, as well as the bickering Eelek in the less fondly remembered The Krotons. This time around he goes completely bananas as the crazed and power-hungry scientist Solon. Solon is a great character, with a good motive for his actions and with a natural character progression. It is a highly enjoyable performance, particularly in scenes in which Madoc performs alongside Colin Fay.
I am going to seize this moment to share my love for Colin Fay and his character, in particular, the half-witted but sympathetic sidekick Condo. People may have very differing opinions of this character, but I fell in love with him in an instant. Condo is a mix of Igor from Frankenstein and Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the few lines he is given are delivered by Fay with brilliance. He is easily the most tragic character of the entire story, which becomes obvious when he admits his feelings towards Sarah and when he is brutally shot by his superior after noticing that he has been duped and exploited.
Perhaps the most delicious ingredient of this ghostly recipe is not only the incredible cast but their heavenly delivery of the dialogue given to them. This is mostly thanks to the expertise with which Dicks and Holmes craft their dialogue (examples of which include the Doctor stating that "events have moved along while I've been asleep" and "You thought I was dead; you're always making that mistake") but also due to the amazing way the cast performs the lines. Tom Baker and Philip Madoc seem to enjoy themselves a bit too much, even going as far as to throw in a few improvised lines (such as Solon's classic "I'm sorry, the pun was irresistible").
Cynthia Greenville is one of the better supporting actresses to appear on the show. She personifies the creepy, old leader of the Sisterhood adequately.
The Doctor: 11
The Doctor once again gets to utilize his knowledge and brilliance to help the Sisterhood of Karn while doing his best to stop Solon. He does get into trouble more than usual, but at least he finds clever ways to get out of those situations (when he's not saved by Sarah or Solon).
The Companions: 9
Elisabeth Sladen does a remarkably good job with the material she is given, but I am saddened to see Sarah reduced into a simple, screaming damsel in distress for the majority of this adventure. The Sisterhood is supposedly meant to act as a stand-in for the otherwise so brave and insightful Sarah but even they can not replace her properly. Sarah is helpless for most of the story when she usually does just fine on her own. This is an outrageous step backwards in her character development!
The Monster/Villain: 12
I love the mad Solon, I love his clumsy and dim-witted servant and I love the horrifyingly power-hungry Morbius. As a trio of villains, they are among the very best in the series' history. Solon is, together with Tobias Vaugh from The Invasion, my favourite non-Time Lord villain in the entire series.
A minor hiccup is notable in the way the story handles its villains. Solon's fate is left ambiguous, which in this context is somewhat annoying. And we do not get to see Morbius reborn until Episode Four. This is a common way of storytelling, exploited several times even on Doctor Who, but I would have loved to see and hear more of Morbius in his new body. The way Morbius is defeated is also a bit too cheesy for the tone that dominates the rest of the adventure.
Production: 11
The series' longest-serving designer Barry Newberry delivers some highly impressive set design - everything from Solon's dark and grimy laboratory to the red and orange fire caves of the Sisterhood (which remind me of Kali's temple in the 1984 movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). The outdoor set might not be quite as convincing, but it still looks fairly good.
The attention to detail is also inexplicably good. The costumes of the Sisterhood are one of the best the series has to offer and the makeup, particularly on Condo, is very realistic. And let us not forget the horrifying brain in the jar (very different from the brains in the jar in Episode Two of The Keys of Marinus!) and the new body of Morbius - they are both brilliantly realistic and terrifyingly gruesome at the same time!
Everything is strongly held together by director Christopher Barry, who certainly has experience of Gothic stories from before, having directed the classic Third Doctor story The Daemons and several other atmospheric adventures. The Brain of Morbius might very well be Barry's best work, at least since The Daleks.
Pacing: 11
This is a well-paced adventure even with the lack of action. The atmosphere and acting keep it going, as well as the fascinatingly handled source material.
Atmosphere: 12
The atmosphere of this adventure is tense from the very beginning. Everything is dark and eerie and the effect is made even stronger by some of the best music Dudley Simpson has ever conducted for the show. It is also positively shocking how realistic and violent The Brain of Morbius feels, as opposed to most other stories. Condo is brutally shot, leaving a very realistic looking, bleeding wound and people are strangled in the most horrifying ways. The level of violence in this story is nothing compared to what television is capable of today, but it still feels extremely unsettling when compared to what Doctor Who usually delivers.
Impact: 12
The Brain of Morbius is often referred to as one of the most influential Doctor Who stories when talking about its mix of storytelling, acting and production. It's also one of the stories leading up to the eventual end of the popular Gothic horror era of the show.
Replay Value: 12
The Brain of Morbius is among the five stories I would never-ever grow tired of watching.
Random Observations:
The Sisterhood of Karn debuts here and reappears several times throughout Doctor Who's expanded universe. Their only other appearance on TV so far is in the 2013 minisode The Night of the Doctor.
Condo joins my list of lovable secondary characters, along with such names as Bellal from Death to the Daleks and Tommy from Planet of the Spiders.
From the case marked "Let's Save Money By Reusing Old Props And Hope That Nobody Notices": The mutt from the beginning of the story is a reused costume from the Season 9 story The Mutants.
This story is written under the pseudonym of Robin Bland, standing for writer Terrance Dicks and script editor Robert Holmes. Holmes rewrote large portions of the script, which made Dicks unhappy. He asked producer Philip Hinchcliffe to remove his writing credit for the story and replace it "with some bland pseudonym". The iconic Robin Bland was born!
Score: 113/120