It must be a unique turn of events for all four main characters in Doctor Who to enjoy their finest moment in the same story.

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In The Aztecs Barbara becomes a goddess. Ian fights to the death against a battle-hardened warrior. The Doctor pulls a woman half* his age (*more on this later). And Susan is sidelined by the writers to get her out the way.

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Sheer perfection all round.

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We’re only on the sixth story but over the course of the next 149, rarely will the show reach such heights again. The Aztecs is an outstanding piece of drama that crams so much story into its four episodes that, when re-watching it, we were honestly dumbstruck to discover it wasn’t a six-parter. The restraint shown to limit its run-time and ensure it licks along at a tremendous pace contributes to its sheer balls-out brilliance. It’s a masterclass in concise storytelling that many other bloated stories could learn from (mentioning no names, Doctor Who and the Silurians).

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The Aztecs’ success is even more impressive given it gets off to a terrible start. But once we’re four seconds in and the piss-poor TARDIS miniature is forgotten, away we go – and in double-quick time too. The entire premise is set up within the first minute and a half – a swift history lecture for the audience warning of the Aztecs’ savage ways (this is the ultimate school trip for History teacher Barbara), a grave-robbed bracelet and Barbara is trapped outside the tomb. And then we hurtle straight into the story, which is an absolute belter.

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It riffs on – or rehashes, if we’re being unkind – many of the themes from An Unearthly Child: the TARDIS crew trapped on a bygone earth, trying to adapt to the locals’ customs without getting their skulls caved in, and grappling with the moral dilemma around interfering in historical timelines.

 

But every aspect here is sharper than in that debut story.

 

The acting is stronger, every character has agency and the jeopardy is intensified (the crew are in mortal peril and the heart races with every nervous lie they tell). It also looks beautiful. The sets are well realised and we’ll be tolerant of the painted cityscape backcloth.

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Another recurring theme of these early stories is the Doctor’s own character arc. We love the fact that he routinely messes things up (and we’re not referring to Hartnell’s line fluffs, endearing as they are). In a similar way to the belligerent bugger being solely to blame for them getting stuck on Skaro, here he almost gets Ian bludgeoned thanks to his hasty poison needle deal with the warrior.

 

We applaud such fallibility: Doc One is making things up as he goes and relying on his wits (rather than sonic screwdrivers or overly complex timey-wimey rug-pulling) - and it sometimes goes wrong. The stakes are massively upped for the viewer by the very fact that the character is not an indestructible, all-knowing superhero.

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We’re half a dozen stories in and while the Doctor is warming to his human companions (at times), on the whole he's still an irascible sod. Which is why it’s so delightful to see him unwinding in the Garden of Peace. Being referred to as “the old man” might make him do his lemon-sucking face but he’s instantly at home in this garden, which we’re told is reserved for those aged over 52. It’s a mystery why Saga hasn’t trademarked the idea already.

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The Doctor’s lurv storyline with Cameca is, of course, wonderful and he seems far more relaxed in the company of somebody nearer his own age (careful who you share cocoa with though, readers). That said, he’s somewhere between 250 and 450 years old at this stage (fandom is split on the matter) so the best case scenario is he’s about five times her age, which puts a whole different complexion on the relationship. Best not to dwell on that detail for too long.

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As great as Hartnell is here, the serial is well and truly stolen by Jacqueline Hill. The safety of the Doctor, Ian and Susan rests entirely on her keeping the “goddess” charade going and Hill does a wonderful job of making the audience feel the insane levels of pressure that this responsibility bares.

 

One of the joys of these historicals is that the sense of peril is very, very real. A Dalek or, later, a Cyberman will invariably kidnap the crew for interrogation (after setting their weapons to stun, for the benefit of a decent cliffhanger). Or adopt that irritating “we need them alive for our masterplan to work” writers’ circle cliché.

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But not here.

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One false move and the Aztecs will sacrifice them on their altar. There’s no reasoning with 15th century warriors, or stalling them by slipping a coat beneath their wheels. The crew’s utter sense of desperation to get back to the TARDIS is palpable. And Jacqueline Hill carries this enormous sense of emotion.

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We also love how gleefully she adopts the role of goddess, and how she enjoys issuing instructions to her chastened male companions. The Doctor, in particular, can barely hide his contempt at being bossed about by a woman earthling.

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It’s amusing how quickly the Aztecs anoint Barbara as their goddess. She’s missing for about 30 seconds before the Doctor and the others catch up with her, by which time she is already on the throne. Even Putin goes through a more rigorous selection process than this.

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Of course, Barbara’s “you can’t rewrite history” scene with the Doctor is a copper-bottomed classic, brilliantly acted by both and setting a standard for the entire show. No-one could have known this quirky little educational children’s show would still be on TV six decades later but Barbara’s desperation to intervene in the human sacrifice, and the Doctor’s insistence against it, is absolutely fundamental to the show’s core, whether in the 1960s or the 2020s.

 

There may be more famous examples of this dilemma in the years to come, with Five refusing to go back to save Adric (don’t worry, Doc, nobody blames you), or Four’s “do I have the right?” tour de force. But it starts here (again, improving on a theme from An Unearthly Child when the crew taught the cavemen to make fire).

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This may be the Barbara Show but Ian is also having a blast throughout – the jolliest we see him until his Polaroid montage tour of London. Quite how a Science teacher can overpower an Aztec warrior in hand-to-hand combat, we’ll never know. But we guess that’s all part of the fun, as is his hilarious one-upmanship with Ixta (we adore Ian’s levels of smugness after the old thumb takedown trick).

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Sadly, the powers-that-be pensioned off historical stories almost as quickly as their leading man, in favour of battling monsters each week. And who says TV dumbs down for its audience? Let’s face it, it defies credulity that with the TARDIS’s ability to go anywhere in space and time – past, present or future – it would always rock up somewhere with a pantomime villain up to no good.

 

If you’d told us in 1964 that we’d have to settle for baddies made of bubble-wrap and would never again see our heroes stumble upon real tribes from history where simply being strangers is enough to get their brains mushed, we’d fling ourselves over the city wall before you could say “it hasn’t rained for a while”.

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Historicals don’t always work as magnificently as this one but The Aztecs is an absolute stellar example of what the format can achieve. It’s an intelligent and captivating story, brilliantly acted with impressive character development.

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It’s a masterpiece that sits at the very top of the pile. Where it will stay until a curly-haired fan of scarves arrives on the scene in ten years’ time.

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