The Keys of Marinus

Get it open!!

The Sea of Death

After seven lovely episode titles in Marco Polo, we begin here with the Sea of Death. Gosh, Terry Nation's not back, is he? It's no secret that the Keys of Marinus is not a favourite of mine. But here we go anyway. Hmm, apparently the TARDIS doesn't have colour television. That lack of imagination (or joke, maybe) is a worrying start. A sea of acid, a beach of glass. People suddenly pointing at things right in front of them and exclaiming: "Look! A gigantic building that's been right in front of us for the last ten minutes!" There already doesn't feel like any effort has gone into it following the perfectly crafted previous story.

This is a prime Hartnell fluff episode. In the TARDIS, Susan asks to go outside and he says, "yes, I don't think, I don't see why not. There's nothing, no danger about". Then you get the "not in this temperature, and besides, it's too warm," and then "you should have brought your shoes so you could have lent her her's". Three in one episode is a lot, even by his standards. Maybe he needs a holiday?

I like when Ian says to Arbitan, "I should have thought this place was impregnable!" What, this place that you casually strolled up to, where you just need to gently press the doors to go inside? Yes, it's a miracle that the Voord managed to get in! Actually, considering how incompetent the Voord are, maybe it is a miracle anyway. And since Arbitan can quickly and easily put up an impenetrable forcefield, why exactly doesn't he do that to defend himself, rather than nothing?

For all the criticism of this episode, though, it isn't actually that bad. It's a fairly intriguing opening episode, with a little bit of a mystery and a (tiny) bit of tension, and it does a reasonable job of setting up the story. 

I can't help but agree with Toby Hadoke's statement that after the complexity of morality on show in Marco Polo, this all seems very very basic good/evil stuff. What's even worse is the Doctor and his companions are searching for components in a machine that takes away free will! I know Arbitan didn't give them much choice, but still, he is played as a desperate good guy, which he most definitely isn't if he's so keen on enslaving the population.

It's okay, nothing better than that. After the joys of Marco Polo, it is quite depressing, but it's not the worst start to a story there has ever been, and the time passes quickly enough. For that I shall give it a 5/10.

What technology on offer!

 

The Velvet Web

The Velvet Web? Blimey, a good title from Terry! I'm surprised he didn't call it the Web of Death or something along those lines. I'm glad he didn't, though. Now, Arbitan clearly states that the devices he gives them allows them to travel in space, not time. Yet in the extremely brief time (10-15 seconds) that Barbara was there ahead of the others, she's been welcomed by Altos, had their entire way of life described to her, had a dress made, got changed, and started munching all the food given to her. Oh, and that's also all after scratching herself and seeing that mended too. She's clearly a very efficient woman to do all that in a matter of seconds!

One thing I don't quite get. As they enter the room they get the noise that hypnotises them and makes them see beautiful surroundings. So why do they then need a thing on their foreheads the next two times to keep them hypnotised? When Barbara's falls off (since for some reason it's not actually attached to them), the noise doesn't work for her this time. That doesn't quite seem to work. I do like Ian's sensible wariness about this society. "I don't know the price yet," he says when refusing to eat the food they've been given. Then Altos arrives and he says, "this is where we pay the bill!" He's the only one who seems to have realised that there might be a reason all of the previous people Arbitan sent failed!

There's a fun mug obsession in this episode. The beautiful glasses that they're drinking from are revealed to be dirty mugs, and then of course the Doctor gets really excited about the dirty mug that he thinks is a useful laboratory tool in what is actually a very funny scene. Seeing the Doctor and Ian getting so excited about a wooden table with a dirty mug on it is one of the most enjoyable scenes in Doctor Who so far.

I have to confess I found Hur in An Unearthly Child strangely alluring. Well here is the second of Doctor Who's "particularly attractive" brigade with Sabetha. I rather like Katherine Schofield, and she does hypnotised acting rather well, too. Sadly, she seems to keep doing it all through the story. Maybe it's because she was in a "deep form of deep hypnosis", which is harder to break out of than regular deep hypnosis. I wonder if that line was a fluff by Jacqueline Hill or just terrible writing from Terry? 

 

The brains talk utter nonsense. "Our brains outgrew out bodies, but we need humans with bodies to feed us and take care of us". So essentially you've devolved there, guys. They're admitting that being a brain in a jar is a pretty ridiculous state of being. It is quite nasty the bit where Ian tries to strangle Barbara, though. Or at least, it could have been if she hadn't overpowered him so absurdly easily.

And here Hartnell is going off for a two week holiday. It is reasonably well explained in the story, I guess, but he will be missed, in spite of the fluffs. Then at the end Susan completely forgets what happened with the last cliffhanger, and decides to jump ahead, before falling to her knees and screaming because she can hear some noises.

It's not too bad, to be fair, this episode. Well, it is, but it's relatively entertaining, which is the main thing. It's a nice-ish idea, it just isn't really explored all that well, the laboratory scene aside. It's rather average, not great, but certainly not bad, so I'll go for 5/10.

We may as well read until something actually happens

 

The Screaming Jungle

Even by Susan's standards she's awful here. Screaming and falling to pieces because she can hear a noise, and then screaming and crying because a branch very lightly touched her feet. It's hardly surprising Carole Ann Ford wasn't particularly impressed with what she was given to work with. 

 

I'm really struggling to say anything about this episode. It involves ten minutes of standing around in a jungle, and then fifteen of Ian and Barbara standing about in a room not doing anything, then searching another room. It's dire. You know you're in trouble when Ian and Barbara give up bothering to do anything at all and both of them sit down and start reading a book! I love Russell and Hill, and they play two of the best companions, but not even they can save this.

Why on earth did Darrius say "DE3O2" to them, rather than simply, "the key's in one of those jars"? It would have saved a lot of time and effort to do that. The notes in the DVD say that Nation wrote this story in four weeks. I think he must have knocked this particular episode out in a day.

By far Doctor Who's worst episode so far. The worst thing about it is that it isn't bad, it's just so boring. At least badness stirs up some sort of emotion and would allow me to actually say something. The best thing to do here is move on quickly. 1/10.

What, still 25 minutes until I can appear and do something?

 

The Snows of Terror

Yet another awful title, but the incidental music has suddenly perked up, and vaguely interesting things start to happen this week. Vasor is a rubbish character, but at least he is rubbish, rather than Darrius in the previous episode, who was just there because. I can't quite work him out, either. He is an utter coward, that much is made plain, but he manages to overpower Altos (after Altos had forced him to save Ian and Barbara, though). As Barbara wakes up he says, "are you scared of me? Most men fear me". He seems to have some obsession with being feared, even though the slightest opposition makes him flee in terror. Even his attempted rape of Barbara is pathetic and half-hearted, although it is interesting (a little bit, anyway) that he states he wants to fatten her up. We know his taste in women, at least...

We get an interesting bit of education here, too. If you're suffering from frostbite, rub your hands gently to get the circulation back, don't put them near a fire or something warm because that's, er, bad. That is the message. Well, it's quite good by Nation standards, and it is woven quite well into the story, at least. But I can't work out why Ian and Barbara were suddenly so tired at the start of this episode. Their wrist travelling device things haven't made them tired before, and there was no indication in the previous episode that they were tired, so what has made this happen, except plot necessity? It's bizarre.

Carole Ann Ford really goes for the "cold" acting, trying to make it clear just how cold this environment is, and how much Susan is struggling. So it's quite a shame that even though Sabetha is wearing far less than Susan, Katherine Schofield seems to have forgotten to show any sign whatsoever that she's meant to be cold. Sabetha just wanders about happily as if they were anywhere. Having said that, considering Altos is wearing a mini-skirt and doesn't appear all that bothered either, maybe I'm being harsh on Schofield and it's simply that people from Marinus don't feel the cold so much?

I did laugh when Ian said, "they're certainly the stuff that make legends" about the "demons". No they aren't, Ian, don't be so silly. You've just spent time with (some of the) people who ruled the largest land empire the world has ever seen and you're that impressed by four badly dressed guys?

This isn't a great episode by any means. It is rather dull too, just a bit less so. Very little happens and Vasor is pretty poor as a character, but it does feel better because it comes after such an awful episode. It ends with a fairly intriguing cliffhanger, too. 3/10.

The Doctor is a little enthusiastic in his recreation

 

Sentence of Death

Ah, now this is far better. It's not classic Doctor Who, by any means, but it's by far the strongest this story has been so far, even if the whole guilty until proven innocent thing is rather unsubtle, and Tarron's decision to interrogate Ian at the scene of the crime is a little bit eccentric (although I suppose since he's convinced Ian is the murderer, it just saves time).

I was wondering when another would come along, we get a Doctor Who? joke. Tarron asks Ian if there is anybody who could represent him and Ian replies that there is. "Who is he?" Tarron asks, and Ian replies, "Who? He's a Doctor". Normally I'd say that was pretty awful, but the Doctor is back, and it feels like a celebration of that fact. Hartnell injects so much into this, filling the huge gap he'd left over the last two weeks. He's on great form too, aside from one slip up, his famous, "I can't improve at this very moment, I can't prove at this very moment". Not just the Doctor though, but Donald Pickering as well! He always lights up the stories he's in, too (yes, even Time and the Rani). 

 

I like how excited the Doctor is to be playing the part of investigator, even though he works it all out in a matter of seconds. It's also quite funny that Susan eagerly offers to play the part of the dead body in the Doctor's reconstruction of the crime. 

 

This is all very basic, but it has a sense of fun, it has a spark that the previous four episodes didn't have. Ayden in particular seems to be auditioning to be a Monoid, he's so dim. When Susan and Barbara say they know where the key is, he says, "but you couldn't know where it is, I...", which is absurdly stupid of him, and then running off in fear in the trial just makes him seem silly, when you consider that everybody in Millenius had already decided that Ian was guilty and weren't likely to think he did it. There is also the famous wife-beating of Kala that he does. Considering we find out she was the evil one and he was just the stupid lackey, are we supposed to believe that something else really happened, or is it just that we're not supposed to know yet that she's a baddie, so Nation pretends for now that Ayden is the baddie and Kala is innocent, hoping we'll have forgotten next week.

This setting is the best so far, because something actually happens! Okay, it is not exactly top class courtroom drama, but at least it's exciting! It's great to have Hartnell back, he is really terrific here, absolutely bringing every scene he's in alive. It is a sad reflection on how poor it has been that this is an enormous improvement, and puts me in a good enough mood to give it a slightly generous 7/10.

The pretty one (Sabetha that is, not Yartek)

The Keys of Marinus

Ian will be executed when the pointer-thingy reaches the star. Of all the "alien" time-keeping methods that have ever been attempted, that is the simplest and most ridiculous I've seen, even taking into account this is a society where the first person accused of a crime is automatically guilty. 

Kala gives herself away like Ayden did, but at least her blunder was a vaguely realistic one, unlike her husband's ridiculous efforts. It's actually quite brutal the way Kala was calmly and happily just going to murder Susan. It's interesting that Altos and Barbara got into her apartment so easily. No locks in Millenius? The Doctor gets Ian's name right in this serious situation, which is a nice touch.

I think it's good that Tarron starts to believe Ian here, even though Kala confesses and says he was her accomplice. It shows that the citizens of this place aren't complete morons, unlike Yartek, who quite clearly is. Did he really think anybody would believe he was Arbitan? Not even Ian and Susan could be that daft. Terry Nation clearly has a "people giving themselves away" thing going on in these last two episodes, as Yartek for some unknown reason pretends to be the protective father and asks Ian if Altos is a good enough man for Sabetha. Everybody is so clumsy!

I don't want to pick on Katherine Schofield even more, but her acting when Yartek threatens to kill Altos is dire. I'd have let her off if that was all, but she's been quite poor throughout. Any time she's on screen and not talking she just looks distinctly bored. She's still likeable, so she beats Virginia Wetherall (Dyoni), but she's no better.

A pretty clumsy ending really. The scenes in Millenius are okay, but end a bit quickly, and the scenes on Arbitan's island are pretty poor. I don't mind comedy villains, but the Voord aren't even interesting. It's a very unsatisfying conclusion after six weeks of below average stuff. People complain about the Key to Time, but at least you get five top class stories along the way! Wasn't the building destroyed? Why does it look just the same as it did before in the last shot? Shoddy. 4/10.

Conclusion

This is a mess, and it doesn't surprise me it was written in a hurry. I appreciate the idea, and it is quite a good one, a different adventure in a different setting each week. It could have worked brilliantly, but I think this script more than any other highlights Terry Nation's weakness as a writer. Without the Daleks, or even monsters of any kind, to fall back on, he simply can't muster any sort of excitement. It's just all a bit bland. In a certain sense, Nation resembles Russell T. Davies. Some great ideas, but frustratingly undeveloped (with some awful dialogue and poor characterisation along the way). It's not a total disaster, and Hartnell seems fresh and lively after his holiday, and really brightens up the last hour, but for me this is Doctor Who's first poor story, and the poor thing is sandwiched between two classy Lucarotti scripts as if to highlight even more how bad it is.

Average Rating: 4.2/10

Old Rating: 6/10

New Rating: 4/10