4G3 - Pyramids of Mars 3

Pyramids of Mars has never really hit me, and I'm only now starting to realize why. It's a very uninvolved story that has two almost completely independent storylines: one with Sutekh and his servants slowly preparing to free the last of the Osirians from his prison on Mars, and another with The Doctor and Sarah Jane gradually coming up with a way to stop them.

There is no real sense of urgency or danger to the story. Apart from the cliffhangers to Episode Two and Three, the Doctor is scarcely placed in any real danger during the first three episode of the story. Given that Sarah spends most of her scenes along side The Doctor, she is never in any real peril, either. The robot mummies are intended to be foreboding and frightening, but they only ever succeed in killing peripheral characters like Warlock, Collins, and Clements the poacher. In fact, Clements looks like he was written in solely for the purpose of being someone for the mummies to kill onscreen, and as someone to hide gelignite in his poacher's shed for The Doctor and Sarah to find later on.

Marcus Scarman, Sutekh, and the mummies all have one thing going against them - they are all either incredibly slow or completely immobile. The lack of intensity in their slow movement makes for some creepy, yet terribly unexciting scenes. This is most evident in the scenes that follow Sarah exploding the gelignite on the Osirian rocket. One would think that removing a package that's in the process of exploding would be or prime importance, but, looking at the way Scarman and the mummies react to it, you'd almost think they were in on the deal themselves...