Wednesday 14 January 2015

Day 418: The Brain of Morbius Part 1

This is one of those stories that I feel incredibly guilty about. It's generally held up as a great classic of Doctor Who, dealing with Time Lord mythology in a fantastic script that's been brilliantly brought to life. It's also one that I've never seen before. Much of what I know of this story comes from reading synopses, watching clips, chatting about it with friends and listening to the audiobook version a few years ago, yet this is something that I have never gotten around to watching until today. There's part of me that could feel disappointed, because much of the story has been spoiled for me, and yet there's also a large part of me that's still just as excited to watch this, mainly because the visual component adds an awful lot to the piece.

An example of this is to be found in a scene where The Sisterhood of Karn (more on them later) transports the TARDIS to them through a mystical ceremony. Two things make this scene memorable, one being the choreography of the Sisterhood from Geraldine Stephenson, which injects a mystical air to the proceedings by feeling like an ancient ritual, passed down from generation to generation. The mystical air is helped by the direction from Christopher Barry, which takes full advantage of the multi-camera set-up prevalent at the BBC at the time by taking several angles of the ceremony and fading between them, never allowing one image to dominate the screen at any one time. This adds to the air of mysticism as well as creating a disconcerting air for the viewer, letting them know that things are going to be different this time.

No comments:

Post a Comment