1.5: The Keys of Marinus

In which Terry Nation breaks the story table, and we meet Yartek, leader of the alien Voord.

Broadcast: April to May 1964

Watched: May 2019

1. The Sea of Death

I was worrying a bit because it’s Nation, and The Daleks was such a drag, but… actually I rather enjoyed that. Some properly good model work (the island, the submarines, the Voord falling into the pit). The business with the revolving wall, and some of the dialogue, is hilarious. (“Impossible at this temperature, and anyway, it’s much too warm!”) And Arbitan is very nearly a good performance, though his demise is ridiculous. 

Anyway. That was fun.

2. The Velvet Web

And so was that, in a *completely* different way. It’s basically The Matrix trilogy done in 24 minutes, but quite a lot less annoying. 

Very much a product of its time I think: the idea that prosperity is basically “having enough grapes” feels like it reflects a world just coming out of post-war austerity. Plus there might be some communist allegory in there if you squint.

The only slight issue is, when we see things from Barbara’s point of view, I’m not sure we get enough of a sense that this paradise is actually a complete hellhole: it just looks like the nice things are now out of shot. 

Excellent creepy acting by all the brainwashed people though. Love that it ends in rioters burning down a city, and Ian shrugging, “Yep, seems fair”.

3. The Screaming Jungle

Less good. The scary plants are fun, although amazingly low-tech; the lone man going slowly mad surrounded by them is a bit cliched; and the bobbins about the missing key is a load of rubbish. It’s fine, I just didn’t get the, “F*** yeah, Doctor Who!" vibe I got from the last one.

It is kind of fun the way a lot of early Doctor Who doesn’t really fit into the neat story table pattern I grew up with though, any more than the 21st century stuff does. The last two episodes have both been episodes of the Marinus storyline… but they’re also stories in their own right, in a way most individual episodes aren’t. Also, Ian and Barbara, not the Doctor, are definitely the leads at this stage.

4. The Snows of Terror

This episode is MENTAL. It has the same quality as Nightmare in Silver, of a bunch of totally random ideas chucked at the screen so fast that, even though they don’t quite cohere, it’s weirdly compelling. 

For the first 10 minutes we’re in a psychological thriller about a creepy trapper trying to molest Barbara. [A note, from the present: This is going to become a theme of early Doctor Who.] Then we shift to inside the caves, where it goes all Indiana Jones. It’s weirdly like a computer game, where you have to do one slightly random thing to get onto the next, even though there’s no real logic to it.

Other thoughts: Susan is completely useless and screams at everything. Why exactly does she decide to cross the rope bridge? What’s the upside there? And isn’t it a bit lucky that the key happens to be in the same system of caves they’ve wandered into by chance? 

Also – Ian cuts the rope bridge to send one of the frozen knights to his death. Is this the first time a lead character kills someone? [Another note from the present: This might be another hangover from the war. Today, we’d get Ian agonising about how he’d never killed anyone before; in 1964, though, there was a reasonable chance a man in his late 30s was an old hand at it.]

5. A Sentence of Death

6. The Keys of Marinus

What I like about this one is the way they totally pull the rug. After three on the trot, we’ve grown used to these 25 minute plays that wrap up before the next cliffhanger, and the triumphalism of the Doctor’s silly courtroom trick at the end of A Sentence of Death makes us think that’s happening again…

…but it doesn’t work. Ian is still going to die. It’s quite nicely done even if the trial itself is bobbins.

Other thoughts... The way, at the end of Snows, Ian is just walking into a crime scene with no explanation is a bit odd.

Antos and wotsername are the start of a long tradition (1982, 2011, 2018) of characters who hang around the edge of already overly large TARDIS crews so that nobody has enough to do, although they are relevant in the final one at least.

Sentence of Death also features the first instance of the Doctor name-dropping, I think: Pyrrho, the founder of scepticism. I'm sure the kids were all very impressed.

The Doctor now likes his companions. When did that happen? Marco Polo?

Also, I loved the head dresses of the judges in the trial bit. Silly but in exactly the same way wigs in the real British court system are silly. Perfect. Anyway: enjoyed that. First story to exceed my expectations I think.