In the grounds of an old priory in 1911, Egyptian mummies are walking, and the Doctor and Sarah find that an ancient and powerful evil is menacing mankind. 

The classic 1975 Doctor Who Tom Baker four-parter gets a makeover ahead of this season’s finale, Empire of Death, as an episode of Tales from the TARDIS. Originally launched in November 2023 as part of Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary celebrations, the first six instalments featured Doctors and companions discussing a classic story within the confines of the Memory TARDIS, which was then shown in an edited form.

Now the Fifteen Doctor and Ruby get to join in the fun in this seventh instalment, by bookending this edit of Pyramids of Mars, providing some useful back story to the god Sutekh, revealed in The Legend of Ruby Sunday to be this year’s ’big bad’. And what a great idea this is, because a lot of new/younger viewers are likely to have said ‘who?’ when Sutekh’s name was mentioned.

I cannot imagine that anyone visiting this website hasn’t seen such a popular serial (if you haven’t, you’re in for a treat), so it’s a given that the four-parter is a solid 10/10. The bigger question is to whether it benefits from its 75-minute run time, the argument being that modern audiences need a bit more pace. On this matter, I struggle to see how a perfect story benefits from losing 25% of its run time, but it’s well done, and the 21st Century VFX upgrade on some of the effects is not too great a distraction.

You don’t get an awful lot of new Ncuti and Millie material, but seen as a lead-in to the season finale, this serves as helpful supporting material.

Verdict: Give me the original any day, but as a means of filling in newer viewers on all things Sutekh, it does what it sets out to do. 8/10

Nick Joy