‘You can’t fight a whole way of life, Barbara.’
Reflecting writer John Lucarotti’s personal fascination with Mexico’s indigenous history, The Aztecs is one of the best-regarded stories from the early years of Doctor Who. It is also unusual in that, unlike most of the series’ 1960s historicals, its setting had not been extensively used in British popular fiction. In this Archive, Doris Sutherland examines the serial in relation to the sources and narratives from which Lucarotti might have drawn and sees how The Aztecs stands up both as entertainment and as history.
Doris V. Sutherland is a writer whose work ranges from the creator-owned comic Midnight Widows to official Doctor Who tie-in media for BBC Sounds, Big Finish and Candy Jar Books. Her interests include archive television, world mythology and the history of horror literature.
