Production Code: 4M
First Transmitted
1 - 04/09/1976 18:10
2 - 11/09/1976 18:05
3 - 18/09/1976 18:10
4 - 25/09/1976 18:10
Plot
The TARDIS is temporarily captured by the Mandragora Helix, a spiral of energy with a controlling influence, at the centre of which the ship is infiltrated by a sparkling ball of energy.
The travellers then move on to the Dukedom of San Martino in Renaissance Italy, where the Doctor quickly realises that the Mandragora energy is loose. The energy enters an underground temple and reveals itself to the outlawed Brotherhood of Demnos, whose leader, the court astrologer Hieronymous, is instructed to make ready for Mandragora's full appearance.
Hieronymous is a pawn in Count Federico's schemes to usurp his young nephew Giuliano, whose accession to the Dukedom is being marked with a celebratory masque.
At the height of the ball, the Brethren attack the court and kill many guests. Hieronymous, now completely absorbed by Mandragora, confronts the Doctor in the underground temple and attempts to blast him down.
The Doctor, however, has earthed both himself and the altar so that the energy simply drains away, leaving the planet safe - at least until the constellations are again in the correct configuration for the Helix to make contact.
Episode Endings
The Doctor is brought before a leather-masked executioner as Count Federico watches from an overlooking balcony. At a signal from Federico, the executioner raises his heavy sword and prepares to swing it down to cut off the Doctor's head.
Giuliano and Sarah are waiting outside while the Doctor investigates the tunnels leading to the Brotherhood's underground temple. Suddenly Federico arrives with a group of men and, leaving Giuliano to fend them off, Sarah races to alert the Doctor. In the tunnels she is recaptured by the Brotherhood, who were earlier thwarted in an attempt to sacrifice her. The High Priest tells her: 'Demnos will not be cheated of his pleasure, little one.'
Federico and the Doctor arrive in the underground temple, where the masked Hieronymous has been leading the Brotherhood in a ceremony to receive the Helix energy. Federico strides up to Hieronymous and, branding him a traitor, snatches away his mask. Beneath is nothing but a halo of light. Hieronymous fells Federico with a blast of energy from his hand.
The Doctor tells Sarah that Mandragora's constellation will be in a position for it to make a further attack on the Earth in about five hundred years' time - at the end of the 20th Century. They enter the TARDIS and, as Giuliano watches from a distance, it dematerialises.
Roots
Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death.
Romeo and Juliet.
Hamlet.
Machiavelli's The Prince and The Mandragora.
Innocenti Medici wore a gold mask and monk's habit in public.
Hieronymous is possibly named after the contemporaneous Hironymous de Savanorda.
Dialogue Triumphs
The Doctor : "Humans have got such limited little minds. I don't know why I like you so much."
Sarah Jane Smith : "Because you have such good taste."
The Doctor : "That's true. That's very true."
Sarah Jane Smith : [To the Doctor] "The worse the situation, the worse your jokes get."
Hieronymous : "Had it not been you, there would have been other travellers drawn into Mandragora's Helix. Earth had to be possessed and checked. Man's curiosity might lead him away from this planet until, ultimately, the galaxy itself might not contain him. We of Mandragora will not allow a rival power within our domain."
The Doctor : [His reaction to the court's action on being attacked] "You're going to hold a dance?"
Dialogue Disasters
[In broad Cockney] "I ain't goin' in there, Giovanni."
"They say there are places where the bat droppings are as high as a man."
Continuity
The TARDIS boot cupboard is seen to be a lounge with a standard lamp and one pair of boots. The secondary control room includes a shaving mirror, a recorder, the chair seen in certain Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee stories, and the third Doctor's smoking jacket.
The Doctor can mimic another's voice exactly, can ride horses, fences well, but hasn't met Leonardo Da Vinci. He carries a football rattle and insists that justice for all species is part of a Time Lord's job.
The Mandragora Helix is one of a number of Helix intelligences, spiralling energy masses that can manipulate energy into matter. Mandragora is aware of the Time Lords.
Sarah is 5'4' ('just').
QV
Location
San Martino, Italy, [c. 1470-1482 when Da Vinci was in Florence]. The Cult of Demnos is a 3rd Century Roman cult, kept going until the 15th century.
Untelevised
The Doctor learnt fencing from a Captain in Cleopatra's bodyguard, and met Florence Nightingale (see The Evil of the Daleks, The Sea Devils). Between this story and City of Death he meets Leonardo Da Vinci again.
Trivia
A new style of lettering is used, in a serif font, for the series' on-screen titles from this point.
The TARDIS's wood-panelled secondary control room is introduced.
A new police box prop for the TARDIS exterior is introduced in this story, the old one having by this point worn out.
The Doctor explains for the first time that he and his companions are able to understand unfamiliar languages by virtue of a 'Time Lord gift'.
Myth
Many of the period costumes seen in this story were first used in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 feature film production of Romeo and Juliet. (They were first used in Renato Castellani's 1954 feature film production of Romeo and Juliet.)
Goofs
The Doctor only knows that Sarah's under Hieronymous' influence when she shows an undue amount of curiosity.
Hieronymous tells the Doctor that he's been told another follower of Mandragora will join him, but they never show up.
Why does the ball of Helix energy kill people randomly? [Does it just hit them, or is it trying to possess them?]
The Helix's influence over the centuries is shown in the Brotherhood's masks, 'pre-Diluvian sandstone with a complex circuit of base metal' [the Doctor accepts the Great Flood?], but why are these necessary?
Why does the Helix have to be at a particular angle to Earth at the end of the 20th century to try again?
The time scheme is a bit of a mess: a clash of evening and broad daylight scenes, and an impossibly quickly arranged masque.
Nobody notices the Doctor and Sarah's out-of-period clothing.
Fashion Victim
The Brotherhood leader's silver perm.
Hieronymous' comedy beard.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Tom Baker
Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
Brother - Brian Ellis
Captain Rossini - Antony Carrick
Count Federico - John Laurimore
Dancer - Peggy Dixon
Dancer - Jack Edwards
Dancer - Alistair Fullerton
Dancer - Michael Reid
Dancer - Kathy Wolff
Entertainer - Stuart Fell
Giuliano - Gareth Armstrong
Guard - James Appleby
Guard - John Clamp
Hieronymous - Norman Jones
High Priest - Robert James
Marco - Tim Piggott-Smith
Pikemen - Peter Walshe
Pikemen - Jay Neill
Soldier - Pat Gorman
Titan Voice - Peter Tuddenham
Crew
Director - Rodney Bennett
The Masque of Mandragora