“The Brain of Morbius” is an adventure of the thirteenth season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1976. It follows “The Android Invasion” and it’s a four parts adventure written by Robin Bland and directed by Christopher Barry.

The story

The Tardis materializes on the planet Karn. The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) is convinced that the Time Lords have diverted its course to force him to solve some problems for them. Along with Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), he seeks refuge from the storm in which they arrived and nearby they find the residence of Solon, a scientist who is carrying out a strange research.

The Sisterhood of Karn is in crisis because the elixir of immortality no longer flows from the heart of the planet. The arrival of the Doctor convinces their leader Maren that the Time Lords want to destroy them breaking an ancient pact. Therefore they decide to kill the Doctor.

Extras

This DVD has a decent amount of extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, Radio Time Listings, a coming soon DVDs promo and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.

There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonists Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen, actor Philip Madoc, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and director Christopher Barry.

Getting A Head. A documentary on the production of this adventure.

Designs on Karn. Designer Barry Newbery tells how he created the style of this adventure.

September Tour. A reconstruction of 3D CGI sets constructed for this adventure.

Sketch Gallery. A selection of original sketches and artworks for the DVD.

There are also two “Easter eggs”. One contains a letter from a young fan who complains that the series was becoming too scary and stupid and an answer by Robert Holmes. The other contains some additional trivia about this adventure.

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The script for “The Brain of Morbius” was originally written by Terrance Dicks and mixed elements of gothic horror greatly inspired by the novel “Frankenstein” with science fiction elements. Producer Philip Hinchcliffe was interested in the topic of robots so Dicks had written the story of a robot that assembles a new body for its owner.

Unfortunately, Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes felt that the robot was too expensive so the script had to be heavily modified. At that point, however, Dicks had gone on holiday and as usual time in the production of “Doctor Who” was narrow so Holmes had to do it.

The result was a story much more similar to Frankenstein than the original version. Terrance Dicks, however, believed that the removal of the robot had ruined the core idea of the story and asked for his name to be removed. For this reason, it’s credited to the pseudonym Robert Bland.

“The Brain of Morbius” is an adventure typical of that era characterized by gothic horror which has strengths but also weaknesses. Even the atmosphere is very reminiscent of the classic movies based on the novel “Frankenstein” from the storm that welcomes the arrival of the Doctor and Sarah Jane on Karn.

The story of the scientist Solon is intertwined with the one of the Time Lords because Morbius is one of them sentenced to death for his crimes. His brain, however, was saved by his followers and Solon is building a new body using parts of the unfortunate creatures who are forced to crashland on the planet Karn.

Solon lacks only a suitable head and when the Doctor arrives on the planet he becomes the obvious “candidate” as a “donor”. Here comes the first problem of the story because the body built by Solon is made of parts from individuals belonging to different species. The Doctor and Morbius are both Time Lords so the obvious choice would be to transplant the brain of Morbius into the body of the Doctor.

In the original script, the robot who built a new body for Morbius had no aesthetic sense, instead Solon should think that for Morbius it would be much better to have the body of a Time Lord also from the aesthetic point of view.

Within the story of Solon and Morbius there’s the plot about the Sisterhood of Karn. The Sisters are immortal thanks to an elixir that flows naturally from the planet but its flow seems to have worn off. When the Doctor arrives on the planet, the Sisters believe that the Time Lords want to get rid of them so they capture the Doctor and sentence him to death.

The Sisters seem to have considerable mental powers including teleportation. In “The Brain of Morbius” however they use this particular power in a curiously selective way and not when it would be really useful.

“The Brain of Morbius” is a violent story in which the Doctor and Sarah Jane seriously risk their lives and take great risks to save each other. This is one of the highlights of this adventure because it shows once again the close relationship existing between them. In the classic “Doctor Who” series an explicit choice was made not to have romance between the Doctor and his companions but it’s no coincidence that in the new series Sarah Jane was reintroduced as basically a Doctor’s ex opposite Rose.

Among the dramatic moments of “The Brain of Morbius” there’s however one that always makes me grin when Sarah Jane sneaks among the Sisters to save the Doctor wearing a cloak conveniently left in the right place and none of them realize that there’s an intruder though her face isn’t particularly well covered.

A truly dramatic moment in “The Brain of Morbius” is the notorius mind wrestling between the Doctor and Morbius. During this clash the faces of the previous Doctors are shown but also other faces, which at the time were supposed to belong to previous regenerations of the Doctor. Only in the adventure of the next season “The Deadly Assassin“, also written by Robert Holmes, the concept that the Time Lord can regenerate twelve times was introduced.

Because they showed eight extra faces, which for the record belonged to members of the production team, that posed a problem, especially after the following regenerations of the Doctor. That caused a lot of arguing within “Doctor Who” fandom. As in “The Brain of Morbius” it’s never said explicitly that those faces were of Doctors earlier than the one we know as the First Doctor, we can argue that they belonged to Morbius.

The story of the Time Lords is intertwined with the one of the Sisterhood of Karn. For the Sisters, immortality means stagnation and this is one of the themes of “The Brain of Morbius”. The problem is that this idea, also exposed by the Doctor, is based on the principle that the body doesn’t age but the mind does. The solution should be having the possibility to maintain not only a young body but also an elastic mind.

In 2008, Big Finish produced the audio adventure “Vengeance of Morbius” – available on Amazon UK, Amazon U.S.A. and Amazon Canada – as part of a series with the Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller.

Overall, I think that “The Brain of Morbius” is an enjoyable adventure but not a classic. Given the presence of extras good but not extraordinary in the DVD I recommend buying it to “Doctor Who” fans.