Yes, yes, we know - villains gets killed by their bosses all the time in Doctor Who, and they generally have it coming. But there's something particularly awful about the death of Namin at the hands of the possessed Marcus Scarman in Pyramids of Mars. Now, what could it be? Could it be Scarman's creepy protective fetishwear? Could it be Peter Mayock's particularly bloodcurdling scream? (Come to think of it, that's what sells the scene more than anything else.) No - it's the smoke. The smoke pouring out of Namin's shoulders. Yeah, that smoke. Mind you, if you think about this moment for too long, all of the horror disappears. After all, why would Scarman be generating enough heat to leave smoking footprints in the carpet and to kill Namin but not enough to send both the carpet and Namin's jacket into flames? But it's still a deeply terrifying moment, and for many of us who were quite young when this aired, it's a moment that gave us more than a week or two of nightmares. If nothing else, you gave smoking jackets a wide berth for a while after that, just in case.
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
