7 Fortunate Accidents That Ended Up Saving Doctor Who
4. Robert Holmes Rewriting Pyramids Of Mars At The Last Second
Apparently this serial initially involved “Subek” trying to poison grain to disintegrate the moon, which would have killed the Brigadier in the process. Alas, the script editor decided that it wasn’t quite what Doctor Who was about.
So Holmes stripped it down into a story set in an old house where Sutekh manipulates events from Mars to release him from an age-old imprisonment.
The script isn’t brilliant. Sutekh’s “your evil is my good” is fairly stereotypically demonic and it ends with a Fisher Price 'My First Puzzle Game' maze sequence. However, since the story is so small scale, the cast and direction are allowed to shine though and the story drips atmosphere. It’s incredibly rich and it wasn’t just saved, it was made brilliant.