Once upon a time in college, to celebrate the 50th anniversary, my friends and I did a Doctor Who marathon of sorts. One story from each doctor over the course of a week. Just so happens that we picked Sutekh’s appearance for our Fourth Doctor story. We were underwhelmed by “Pyramids of Mars” and ended up picking a story from the Fourth Doctor/Romana era. There was no way we could know Sutekh would come back around during the Fifteenth Doctor’s tenure.
In the pantheon of Egyptian gods, Sutekh is the god of death. I learned a little about him while writing a Yu-Gi-Oh fan fiction in high school. Sometimes known as Set or Seth, this deity reigned over violence, storms, deserts, and pretty much everything else unpleasant. In the world of Doctor Who, he’s still the god of death. However, like other myths portrayed on Doctor Who, the god-like power doesn’t make him a deity, only mistakable for one. Though not literally a god, Sutekh possessed immense power even on his first encounter with the Doctor. Those powers put him on par with and in league with powerful forces like the Toymaker, the Trickster, and Maestro.
By the time Sutekh encountered the Fourth Doctor, he had been imprisoned by Horus for a long time. Having recently taken control of an archaeologist named Marcus Scarman, his scheme centered around shooting a missile at the Eye of Horus on Mars, which held him captive. To his credit, unlike most villains, he was able to destroy the Eye and free himself… but the Doctor managed to get back to Earth first and trap him in a time corridor. Supposedly.
The Doctor banked on him aging to death in the time vortex. Unbeknownst to the Doctor (and all companions he had in the years following) Sutekh survived by latching onto the TARDIS–which made for a funny series of memes after the most recent season finale. Using the Doctor’s memory of his granddaughter Susan to create a trap, Sutekh reformed and spread his death dust across time and space. But using his own trap involving the mystery of Ruby’s mother, the Doctor managed to send Sutekh back into the time stream to really be destroyed this time. Probably. Maybe. Who knows?
As much as I recall the complaints of heavy plot armor to explain his defeat at the hands of the Fifteenth Doctor (and I’m not sure I can disagree with those complaints) I enjoyed the return of Sutekh. I think I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy the retelling and reframing of mythology for Doctor Who (probably why I’ve also enjoyed Once Upon a Time and Percy Jackson). There’s something about making fairytales and myths relatable and fresh to the viewer. Even better when the story can motivate me to learn about the original myth or source material. Whether he had that effect on you or not, he definitely made me rethink the idea that all dogs are good dogs. Hard to see a good dog in those evil glowing eyes. But maybe I’ll feel differently when I rewatch the story before the new season of Doctor Who… now if only they’d give us a premiere date for that.
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