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The Masque of Mandragora is a serial in the Britishmarker science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 4 September to 25 September 1976. It opened Season 14 of the series.


An encounter with the living energy structure known as the Mandragora Helix leads the TARDIS to 15th century Italymarker. Between palace intrigue, the machinations of a sinister cult and a rogue fragment of Helix energy, the Fourth Doctor and Sarah have their hands full. There is not much time, for when Mandragora swallows the Moon, it will be time to strike.


The Fourth Doctor shows Sarah some of the other parts of the TARDIS interior, and they come across the older, secondary console room, which, unlike the primary room is decorated with wood panelling and has a more archaic feel. Activating the viewscreen, the Doctor sees a swirl of living energy in the time vortex — the Mandragora Helix, which starts to draw them in. The intelligence within the Helix starts to psychically attack them as the Doctor tries to pilot the TARDIS through it. The ship ends up inside the Helix itself, and the Doctor and Sarah duck behind the TARDIS as a fragment of glowing Helix energy flies by. They escape in the TARDIS, not knowing that the fragment has entered with them.

In 15th century San Martino in Italymarker, a peasant revolt is violently put down by Count Federico and his men led by Captain Rossini. In a palace, Federico's brother the Duke of San Martino lies dying, attended to by his son Giuliano and Giuliano's companion Marco. The Duke's death had been foretold by Hieronymous, the court astrologer, but Giuliano, a man of science, does not believe in such superstition. In fact, Hieronymous is working for Federico, and the horoscope's prediction of the Duke's death was helped along by poison. Hieronymous tells the Count that he feels his powers are growing, but all Federico wants is for the astrologer to foretell Giuliano's death next, and he will take care of the rest.

The TARDIS materialises in a field near San Martino, and when the Doctor and Sarah go out to explore, the energy fragment flies out of the TARDIS, unseen. Sarah wanders off and is kidnapped by a group of men in hooded robes. The Doctor tries to rescue her but is knocked out, and when he awakes he witnesses the energy fragment fly towards and kill a peasant. Searching for Sarah, the Doctor is confronted by the Count's men and arrested.

At the court, the Doctor tries to tell Federico that the energy fragment could spell the end of the world. The Count at first thinks the Doctor is a seer, like Hieronymous, but when the astrologer quizzes the Doctor, it becomes clear that the Doctor does not believe in any of it. Federico orders the Doctor to be executed as a spy. Meanwhile, Sarah is brought before a priest and told that she is the foretold sacrifice to Demnos, the Roman god of moonlight and solstice. She is dressed in a white robe and told that she will be sacrificed when the moon rises over the southern obelisk. Back at the palace courtyard, the Doctor is led to the executioner, forced to his knees for decapitation.

Before the executioner's sword lands, the Doctor unfurls his scarf and hooks it around the executioner's ankle, throwing him off balance. The Doctor escapes out of the palace grounds and finds his way into some catacombs beneath the city. The guards, fearing the Brethren of Demnos who reside in those passages, stop their pursuit. Inside, Sarah is laid out on an altar. A purple-robed figure wearing a golden mask is about to stab her with a silver dagger when the Doctor snatches Sarah away, just as the fragment appears in the chamber, suffusing it with a red glow and providing a distraction for the two to escape.

Giuliano examines the body of a guard that was killed earlier by the passage of the fragment, and while he does not know the cause of the guard's death, he dismisses ideas that it was some kind of fire demon. The Doctor and Sarah are found by some palace guards. In the temple, the Helix manifests itself as a pillar of red light and tells the purple-robed figure that he alone will be given undreamed-of powers to carry out its will on Earth and become the planet's supreme ruler. After the Helix vanishes, the figure removes the golden mask, revealing the face of Hieronymous.



The Helix attack stops, but the Doctor is prevented from venturing further into the temple. He leaves to find Giuliano fighting off the guards and joins in with a sword of his own. Giulianio is wounded, and suddenly, the Brethren emerge from the forest armed with staves and force the guards to retreat. The Doctor and Giuliano go into the catacombs. The priest is eager to sacrifice Sarah, but Hieronymous decides to use her as bait for the Doctor. Hieronymous allowed the Brethren to save Giuliano because the young prince may still have value. Sarah is brought back to the astrologer's chambers, and is drugged and hypnotised to believe the Doctor is an evil sorcerer. Hieronymous gives her a poisoned needle to kill the Doctor.


In the catacombs, Giuliano and the Doctor find Sarah, who cannot remember anything after her capture by the cult. They make their way into the palace dungeons through a secret passage. The Doctor goes to confront Hieronymous, whom he has deduced is the leader of the Brethren, in his rooms. Sarah secretly follows, trying to carry out her post-hypnotic orders. When the Doctor speaks to Hieronymous, Sarah sneaks up behind with the needle, but the Doctor manages to snap her out of the trance, just as the guards come for Hieronymous. The astrologer escapes, but the guards capture the Doctor and Sarah as well as Giuliano.

In the dungeons, Federico accuses the prisoners of being followers of Demnos. Rossini rushes in, informing the Count that members of the Brethren are gathering on the streets and moving towards the temple. The Doctor tries to convince Federico that Hieronymous is the real threat. Federico wants to see for himself, and takes the Doctor with him and some guards, leaving the others as hostages. In the temple, Hieronymous summons the Helix, which begins infusing him and his followers with power. Disguised in hoods, the Doctor, Federico and the guards enter and witness the ceremony. Federico steps forward, calls Hieronymous a traitor, and rips off the golden mask, only to reveal glowing energy in the place of a face. Hieronymous raises a finger, and electrical energy stabs out at the Count, reducing him to ashes.

Hieronymous then fires at and kills the two guards as well, but fortunately does not seem to have seen the Doctor. The Doctor joins the circle around the Helix as Hieronymous announces that Mandragora will swallow the Moon the next evening and then the Brethren will strike. The Doctor slips away unnoticed. Back in the palace dungeons, Rossini is about to kill the prisoners when the Doctor arrives and reveals that Federico is dead. With that, the guards change their allegiance to Giuliano, and take Rossini into custody. The Doctor observes that the Brethren are still a danger. He tells Giuliano to fortify the palace in preparation for their attack.

In the meantime, the Brethren are driving people out of the city, killing those who refuse with bolts of fire, isolating the palace. Giuliano wants to cancel the masque that will celebrate his accession, but Marco is confident they can defend the palace against the Brethren, and that to cancel the masque would be a sign of weakness. The Doctor does some astronomical observations and calculates there will be a lunar eclipse that evening — Mandragora swallowing the Moon — and when the Helix takes over, it will remove all sense of purpose from mankind. Right now, however, the Helix energy is spread thinly over all the Brethren, and it could be exhausted. He asks Giuliano for a breastplate and a length of wire. Wearing the breastplate under his coat, if he has guessed right about the nature of Helix energy, he could drain it off.

Hieronymous knows of a secret way into the palace, and he intends to infiltrate his men under cover of the masque. The Doctor makes his way into the temple, and grounds the altar with wire. Hieronymous addresses the Doctor as "Time Lord", and says that Earth has to be possessed; if mankind's ambition is not checked, it will eventually spread into the Galaxy and the powers of Mandragora will not allow a rival within their domain. Hieronymous fires a bolt of energy into the Doctor's chest, knocking him back painfully, but the Doctor survives. More bolts fire into the Doctor, but he continues to egg Hieronymous on.

At the masque, the Brethren make their appearance, and the masqueraders run about in panic as they fire into the crowd, killing two. Hieronymous then appears and tells the Brethren to take the others down into the temple for the final sacrifice. The Moon goes into eclipse, and the Brethren place their hands on the altar as a ball of Helix energy descends. However, it consumes the Brethren instead, expanding and then fading away. "Hieronymous" removes his mask — it was the Doctor, imitating the cult leader's voice. The Doctor explains it as a case of "energy squared", putting the Mandragora Helix back where it came from.

The Doctor and Sarah make their goodbyes to Giuliano. Just before they leave in the TARDIS, Doctor tells Sarah that while Giuliano will not have any more trouble with Mandragora, humanity will. The constellation will be in position again in 500 years, at about the end of the 20th century…


  • With the start of the new season, the previous police box exterior was replaced, as the old one had deteriorated owing to wear and tear. The new one would be used regularly until Shada. In addition, a new serif font is used for the episode titles.
  • This serial also marks the first appearance of the TARDIS's secondary console room, designed by Barry Newbery, which continued to be used until the end of the season, making its final appearance in The Robots of Death. Some stories suggest that the set warped in storage between seasons, thus becoming unusable, while others suggest that new producer Graham Williams didn't care for the wooden set. The original, futuristic interior was restored the following season.
  • In the console room, the Doctor dusts with a frilly white undershirt like those worn by the Third Doctor and Sarah picks up a recorder like the one played by the Second Doctor.
  • At one point Sarah questions why she can understand 15th-century Italian. The Doctor doesn't explain, eventually saying only that this is "a Time Lord gift I allow you to share." In The End of the World, Rose asks the Ninth Doctor a similar question and the Doctor tells her that altering her language perception is a function of the TARDIS's telepathic field. In The Christmas Invasion, it is revealed that the Doctor is "part of the circuit" of the TARDIS's telepathic translation gift, and so it does not function while he is in a post-regenerative coma; furthermore, it is extended to various people standing near the TARDIS as well as Rose when he recovers.
  • The Mandragora Helix showed up again in the spin-off media, on schedule, at the end of the 20th century in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip The Mark of Mandragora (DWM #169 - #172). It is defeated by the Seventh Doctor and Ace with the help of UNIT Captain Muriel Frost. The BBC Books Past Doctor Adventures novel The Eleventh Tiger by David A. McIntee features an energy helix that is strongly implied to be the same one featured in The Masque of Mandragora. The Mandragora Helix returned once more in the BBC Books New Series Adventures novel Beautiful Chaos by Gary Russell.
  • According to the Sarah Jane Smith audio series from Big Finish Productions, after his encounter with the Doctor and Sarah, Giuliano takes charge of the Brotherhood of Demnos and re-forms them into a group called "the Orphans of the Future". He also writes a text, the Book of Tomorrows, recording what he has learned about the future, including a prediction about an alien force that will return around the end of the 20th century. Later, the group divides into two chapters over the question of whether this force is benign (as the White Chapter believes) or malevolent (as the Crimson Chapter believes). Both chapters interpret the Book of Tomorrows as saying that the arrival of the aliens will be preceded by the Herald, whom they eventually identify as Sarah Jane Smith. The Crimson Chapter hopes to forestall the aliens' arrival by killing Sarah Jane, while the White Chapter goes to great lengths to keep her alive.


  • Working titles for this story included The Catacombs of Death and The Curse of Mandragora.
  • Location shooting for the serial was done at the resort of Portmeirionmarker in Walesmarker, better known as the setting for the cult series The Prisoner.

Outside references

Mandragora is the Latin name of the plant mandrake, which is believed in folklore to have magical qualities.

Martin Wiggins, senior lecturer and fellow at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon, has compared this story's plot with Hamlet: Giuliano, like Hamlet, is an intellectual and inexperienced prince opposed by his usurping uncle. The conflict between science and religion in this story also echoes Hamlet's discussions about the nature of the supernatural world.

In print


Broadcast and VHS release

  • This story was released on VHS in August 1991.

  • It has been revealed that this serial will be released on DVD in February 2010.


External links


Target novelisation

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