History Recap / DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius

* ComplexityAddiction: It's a commonly pointed-out PlotHole that Solon's plan to give Brain in a Jar Morbius a new body is far more complicated than it needs to be. Much of the plot is driven by his intention to cut off the Doctor's "magnificent" head and use it as the final piece of the FrankensteinsMonster body that he built for Morbius to live in. It would have been a lot more straightforward just to put Morbius into the Doctor's body--or even Condo's. This was mostly a holdover from earlier drafts of the script in which Condo was absent and Solon was a robot stitching together bodies from downed spaceships with no understanding of how they looked together and the PlotHole was big enough that Creator/TerranceDicks wanted his name taken off the script. The production subtitles on the DVD suggest that, as someone who already spent a lot of time on the mishmash body, Solon may be experiencing "the same logic blind spot that engulfs someone when they are trying to assemble a flatpack wardrobe in that they would rather spend time and effort hammering in new bits, cutting off useless parts and searching for non-existent screws so that they can actually get the darn thing installed than start afresh with something far more suitable for the purpose intended".

* MotherNatureFatherScience: Solon and Condo are both male, and Morbius is/was a fascistic Time Lord scientist who is also male. We also have an the Sisterhood of Karn, who, despite possessing what is actually Time Lord technology, treat it as a force of nature and worship it.

* SacredFlames: The Sisterhood of Karn tend to a sacred flame from which they distil the Elixir of Life: a potent aid to healing. According to the Doctor, the flame is fed by a vent of natural gas. The gas picks up various minerals as it travels through which, when heated up by the flame and cooled back down, condense to form the elixir. The flame is dying, but the Doctor diagnoses the problem as a build up of soot from centuries of burning, and clears the blockage with a firework.

'''Production code:''' 4K

Written by Creator/TerranceDicks and Creator/RobertHolmes ([[AlanSmithee under the pseudonym Robin Bland]]). This four-episode serial first aired from January 3--24, 1976.

%% ZCE * WorkingForABodyUpgrade: Condo.
%% ZCE * TheXOfY

[[caption-width-right:350:Yeah, in just a few seconds, Sarah's gonna ''wish'' she stayed blind...]]

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

The one with the passive-aggressive pseudonym. Also the one that created a stir with the suggestion that past lives of the Doctor existed before [[Creator/WilliamHartnell the First]]. Also the one where Creator/TomBaker and Creator/ElisabethSladen get to make puns!

* BloodierAndGorier: Practically the first thing you see is Condo coming in with a severed head. It's the head of an insectoid alien, but still.
%% ZCE * BodyHorror: Morbius' Franken-Body.

* GentleGiant: Condo, more or less. His {{Berserk Button}}s are his missing arm (which Solon uses to blackmail him), and that time that Solon effectively betrayed him by offering him up as a replacement sacrifice to the Sisterhood of Karn in exchange for the Doctor's life (Or, at least, his head).

* HeroicSacrifice: Maren gives the Doctor the last of the elixir of life, fully knowing that she'll die if she doesn't drink it herself.

* HypocriticalHumour: "You murderous animal!" says Solon, right after blowing out Condo's guts on screen. Double as BlackComedy on account of the gore.

* TheIgor: Condo.

** To say nothing of Morbius himself. For a guy who's nothing but a brain and vocal cords, he hams it up.

* SacredFlames: The Sisterhood of Karn tend to a sacred flame from which the distil the Elixir of Life: a potent aid to healing. According to the Doctor, the flame is fed by a vent of natural gas. The gas picks up various minerals as it travels through which, when heated up by the flame and cooled back down, condense to form the elixir. The flame is dying, but the Doctor diagnoses the problem as a build up of soot from centuries of burning, and clears the blockage with a firework.

* CreatorCameo: Aside from the Doctors, the faces seen during the mind-bending contest are production unit manager George Gallaccio, Creator/RobertHolmes, production assistant Creator/GraemeHarper, director Douglas Camfield, producer Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe, production assistant Christopher Baker, writer Robert Banks Stewart, and director Christopher Barry.

* {{Retcon}}:
** This story attempts to retcon the previously established fact, explicitly stated in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]"[[note]]in that story, one of the Time Lords referred to the Hartnell incarnation as "the earliest Doctor"[[/note]], that Creator/WilliamHartnell was the first incarnation of the Doctor. During the mind-bending contest between the Doctor and Morbius, eight faces of apparently prior incarnations (this was confirmed as the production team's intent by [[invoked]]WordOfGod).
** This retcon would subsequently be indirectly re-retconned, by the revelation in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]" that Time Lords could only regenerate 12 times for a total of 13 incarnations, and the Creator/PeterDavison incarnation, who would have been the 13th incarnation including the eight faces shown here, successfully regenerating in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]". To explain the discrepancy, fandom turned to the explanation that the faces shown were actually Morbius's prior incarnations, which fits with everything that is shown on-screen in this story even though it was not the authorial intent.
** This was then retconned for a third time in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren The Timeless Children]]", which revealed that the Doctor was not a Time Lord at all and had unlimited regenerations but had had their memory of the pre-Hartnell ones erased. The eight faces from this story were shown onscreen among the Doctors pre-Hartnell incarnations.

** The novelization partially fixes this plot hole by stating that Time Lord brains are too large to fit in human craniums, at least explaining why he couldn't use Condo's.

* ComicTrio: Solon, an [[MadArtist obsessive]], grandiloquent idiot who thinks he is a genius despite his plan being a glaringly obvious IdiotPlot[[invoked]] that a toddler could see the issues with; Condo, his even stupider thrall who does the grunt work; and Morbius, an actual genius, well aware that Solon's plan is terrible, and powerless to do anything about it between his [[BrainInAJar diminished physical status]] and suicidal depression.

** This story attempts to retcon the previously established fact, explicitly stated in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]"[[note]]in that story, one of the Time Lords referred to the Hartnell incarnation as "the earliest Doctor"[[/note]], that Creator/WilliamHartnell was the first incarnation of the Doctor. During the mind-bending contest between the Doctor and Morbius, eight faces of apparently prior incarnations (this was confirmed as the production team's intent by WordOfGod).

* {{Retcon}}: The faces seen during the Doctor's mind duel with Morbius after the First Doctor's image disappears were originally meant to be the secret incarnations of the Doctor who had come before the First Doctor. These faces were later retconned to be Morbius' incarnations from back when he still had a body. Admittedly, it's a more elegant retcon than most, since the idea that the faces used to belong to the Doctor was never stated out loud, but was rather kept as an implication for the time being. This would eventually be ret-retconned when it was revealed the Doctor actually ''did'' have secret incarnations before the first, with one of the faces from this story included in the montage.
* SacredFlames: The Sisterhood of Karn tend to a sacred flame from which the distill the Elixir of Life: a potent aid to healing. According to the Doctor, the flame is fed by a vent of natural gas. The gas picks up various minerals as it travels through which, when heated up by the flame and cooled back down, condense to form the elixir. The flame is dying, but the Doctor diagnoses the problem as a build up of soot from centuries of burning, and clears the blockage with a firework.

* BigBad: Morbius.

* BodyHorror: Morbius' Franken-Body.

* BottleEpisode: This was written to be the season's cheap story -- it's not particularly extreme as one, but it has only a couple of fairly simple sets, is light on the special effects and features mostly heavily made-up HumanAliens with only a couple of proper monsters showing up. At least one of the monsters was a recycled monster costume from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS9E4TheMutants "The Mutants"]]. In fact, the original script had a villainous robot character in it, but to save money on building a robot the script was rewritten to convert it into Mehendri Solon, a HumanAlien MadScientist, and his [[TheIgor disabled servant]]. This all ended up working in the story's favour, as Solon is able to be a lot more expressive and entertaining than some guy in a robot mask would ever be able to manage, the simple visuals force the serial to rely on very tight and intelligent dialogue storytelling, and it's ranked amongst Creator/TomBaker's best serials.

** In the final episode, the Doctor leaves Solon alone in his lab with the unconscious Morbius for five minutes, trusting him to destroy Morbius himself. Surprise surprise, Solon revives Morbius instead.

* {{Retcon}}: The faces seen during the Doctor's mind duel with Morbius after the First Doctor's image disappears were originally meant to be the secret incarnations of the Doctor who had come before the First Doctor. These faces were later retconned to be Morbius' incarnations from back when he still had a body. Admittedly, it's a more elegant retcon than most, since the idea that the faces used to belong to the Doctor was never stated out loud, but was rather kept as an implication for the time being.

Written by Creator/TerranceDicks and Creator/RobertHolmes ([[AlanSmithee under the pseudonym Robin Bland]]). This serial first aired January 3-24, 1976.

* ArbitrarySkepticism: [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens The Sisterhood]] practice PsychicPowers, but refuse to believe that there's a way to bring back a deceased Time Lord, even after the Doctor says he felt his presence [[DetectEvil in his mind]].

* ComicTrio: Solon, an [[MadArtist obsessive]], grandiloquent idiot who thinks he is a genius despite his plan being a glaringly obvious IdiotPlot that a toddler could see the issues with; Condo, his even stupider thrall who does the grunt work; and Morbius, an actual genius, well aware that Solon's plan is terrible, and powerless to do anything about it between his [[BrainInAJar diminished physical status]] and suicidal depression.

* IdiotBall: The Doctor has already deduced that Solon has been lying to him, is part of a cult worshipping a Time Lord war criminal, and has a fairly creepy fixation on his head (and has tried to [[OrganTheft drug him to remove it once already]]). Yet when Solon says that Sarah's blinding is permanent and can only be cured by the Sisterhood, he accepts this without question and heads off to talk to the Sisterhood even though in their last encounter they'd tried to burn him alive. This also isn't a great plan from Solon's perspective, since the Sisterhood only execute people by burning them for religious reasons, a method which would have destroyed his head.

The one with the passive-aggressive pseudonym. Also the one that created a stir with the suggestion that past lives of the Doctor existed before [[Creator/WilliamHartnell the First]]. Also the one where Tom Baker and Lis Sladen get to make puns!

%% ZCE * GentleGiant: Condo, more or less.

* ExpositionOfImmortality: This episode contains a sequence in which the three previous incarnations of the Doctor are shown, and eight additional faces beyond that. This led to suspicions that the Doctor had incarnations dating even further back than the First Doctor. Morbius asks ''"How far back Doctor, how long have you lived?"'' -- suggesting that even by Time Lord standards, the Doctor has been around for a while.

* FrankensteinsMonster: This episode is an obvious homage.

* HypocriticalHumor: "You murderous animal!" says Solon, right after blowing out Condo's guts on screen. Double as BlackComedy on account of the gore.