Day 27: The Temple of Evil

Whilst the discussions about the implications of time travel go on,
Ian becomes a warrior and dresses up as a chicken.

This episode contains probably one of the most important scenes in Doctor Who history, namely the one where the Doctor informs Barbara that "You cannot change history, not one line!". The context of the piece is simple, the TARDIS arrived in an Aztec temple, and they made Barbara their god. As their god, she wishes to decree that human sacrifices are, on the whole, a bit stupid and should be stopped. The Doctor knows that this will have a major effect on the web of time, and wishes to keep history on its course. This scene is important for so many reasons. Firstly, it shows a rift between two of our main characters. This is nothing new, it was, after all, the thing that made the first couple of episode interesting. However, it is the first time where we can actually see an argument for both sides, and the script and direction aren't clear on whose side you should take. In earlier episodes, we would take Ian or Barbara's side, because they were the easiest to relate to, and they were the ones who were doing the more sane options. But now, we see both sides. One the one hand, Barbara is right, human sacrifice is barbaric, and is something that should be stopped. And they've interfered before in the course of events, the Daleks would have wiped out the Thals had they not interfered, and Marco Polo would surely have died in the desert had they not saved him from dehydration. But the Doctor is more experienced in these events, he is someone who has travelled in time before, he knows what the limitations are, and what the consequences are for meddling in these affairs. And that's another point that's made here, this is one of the first times where time travel is no longer a mechanism to go from one story to another, it's a plot point, and integral to the way that the story unfolds. It goes to show that this story is taking the concepts that have been laid out, and using them in more lateral ways. Other writers would just use time travel as a way to go from A to B, something that's just like a boat or a plane except with the added bonus of history as a destination, but this is one of the first times where we see the consequences of time travel and we're able to see that time travel is not as simple as just using a boat or a plane, it's far more complex than that.