Hm, it seems that Alexander and those around him are quite commonly saved from the consequences of the king's temper thanks to timely intervention by his friends. We had basically the same cliffhanger resolution last time, which is a shame; but then it's straight on with the story, which continues to impress.
It amuses me how faithful to the TV of the time my imagined visuals are. As Alexander sets a torch to the funeral pyre, I picture a flare caused by the light levels. Cameras at that time could only cope with a fairly narrow range of grey; if you wanted to represent lighting you only had to paint something white and it would appear to be glowing. You can see it sometimes in the episodes that were made, when someone waves a torch and the camera is overwhelmed: it looks a little as if the film is burning.
It does seem as if the older performers are struggling a little as well. Carole Ann Ford sounds a bit tired and breathless at times, and right at the end William Russell does too. It doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story, but I did wonder whether they were, perhaps, recording slightly too much in a day. I'll keep an eye on how they progress.
Back in the story, Seleucus finally joins the conspiracy properly, the Doctor congratulates himself on how well he's done extracting heavy hydrogen from oil (which again is more than I needed to know), and we discover that Barbara really wants to leave before the king's death. This last surprised me, as I expected the history teacher to want to see as much as possible; but it was a good surprise which made a great deal of sense on reflection, showing an understanding of human nature and modern sensibilities.
Speaking of modern sensibilities, I finally twigged what Moris Farhi is doing with Alexander, which is to credit him with large parts of the up-to-date morality of the 1960s. The bad guys are left to voice all the archaic opinions - "die a woman's death", indeed! - while the conquering hero gets to lecture about his dreams of equality, of the marriage of East and West. I suspect this overstates the case rather, but fair enough - to complain about this in a story which makes a much better than average attempt to use actual history (even if is myth-history) would be churlish, to say the least.
Hephaestion is given a heroic death. We never really got to know him as well as the other victims, so I mourned him less; and equally, Glaucias was the most faceless of the conspirators, so his death was only an opportunity to show off the bravery of Alexander's best friend. However, I gave an internal cheer when Alexander cut down Iollas, nasty murdering swine that he was. Again this is an example of me getting swept up in the portrayal of Alexander, who had almost certainly killed far more men with no greater justification (and I'm not a supporter of capital punishment in real life anyway); but this is entertainment, which I hold to different standards.
And then we get to the cliffhanger; and I do mean the cliffhanger, because it's basically the same one again. This is a weakness in the writing, and while it's not fatal to the mood it is beginning to take just a little of the shine off.
It's notable how often the number four crops up in this story. There are four travellers, four conspirators, four friends of Alexander - and this episode has (IIRC) four deaths. Perhaps next episode will be the fourth and final time this cliffhanger is used...
Development of a Script, Part 4: Adaptation Again
Another change Nigel Robinson made to the script was Ian's gift to Alexander. Originally it was to be a wristwatch, but Robinson felt that this was too reminiscent of a later Hartnell story as well as potentially having too great an impact on history. Essentially he was working as script editor as well as adapter (is that a word?), since that sort of tidying up of details is definitely editorial.
And speaking of gifts, this boxset was another of my Christmas presents. I hadn't got around to mentioning it because there has always been plenty to fill up the reviews, but I had to bring it up now because the concept of gift-giving is at the heart of this episode. And did you know that "gift" is a German word for poison? Highly appropriate!
Rating:
7.5/10.
Next Time:
Episode 5, In the Arena.
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