Saturday 16th May 1964 - Doctor Who - The Keys of Marinus

 

 

"I don't believe that man was made to be controlled by machines. Machines can make laws, but they cannot preserve justice. Only human beings can do that."

 

Huh?

 

Barbara is saved. Ian is saved. Altos is saved. Sabetha is saved. Unfortunately, Arbitan, the keeper of the Conscience of Marinus has been killed since we lat saw him in The Sea of Death and the Voord have taken occupied his island. The Yartek and the Voord are all destroyed.

 

The whole adventure has been a mess and straight after the prolonged Marco Polo, it's been a bit of a chore watching. I understand that this adventure was a last-minute replacement for scripts that could be made at this point. Terry Nation, the writer, appears to have turned in a pile of plot ideas and that the producers just went with them all and compressed them into five episodes. That's the feeling I've got from this anyhow. At any point over this adventure you could stop and consider how interesting and engaging what's happening could POTENTIALLY be (acid seas, bizarre alien creatures in rubber suits, mind-controlling super-computers, illusory cities, accelerated plant growth, frozen knights... and so on). And, for some reason, they don't even bother to re-hire the actor who played Arbitan at the beginning to make an appearance so there's no proper closure. Everything just blows up.

 

If I had watched this back in 1964, I would be starting to think that I could find better things to do with my time. Let's hope the next adventure, The Aztecs, is better.

 

Next episode: The Temple of Evil 

 

Saturday 9th May 1964 - Doctor Who - Sentence of Death

 

 

DOCTOR: Well, you, my child, and Barbara, can be my detectives. And you, my friend.  
IAN: Yes. What can I do, Doctor?  
DOCTOR: Trust me.

This episode suffers from having no sense of establishing the city (country?) in which events happen. It starts in the locked room where Ian is knocked unconscious and the key stolen. We are shown a few other locations: a courtroom, a reception area and the home of one of the villains, Ayden. If only the model of a futuristic city state was shown. Other than the first episode, The Sea of Death,  we've not had any exterior establishing shots and, for me, it affects my belief in Marinus being a coherent world. I suppose after the lengthy journey across China depicted in maps, the producers wanted something different so we get transmat wrist-devices and absolutely no sense that this is all one planet.

Ian is the victim here and, for the first time, we see the Doctor effectively taking charge and running to Ian's rescue. The script does a good job of portraying Ian's naivety in assuming that the legal system in this place is that of mid-twentieth century Britain. He's shocked when Tarron, one of the guardians (presumably military police) tells hime: "I mean that you are already guilty of this crime. The burden of defence is entirely yours. You must prove without any shadow of doubt that you are innocent, otherwise... you will die."

We also see Terry Nation presenting another story (after Daleks) involving a visibly authoritarian quasi-fascist regime. It's something that he'll develop most fully in Blake's 7. Here we have Nazi-like insignia and sinister military outfits (even worn by the "good" characters like Tarron). The judges of the tribunal are less militaristic and have more of a "futuristic" vibe.

I'm not sure about the slightly-futuristic nature of the world this episode takes place in. It's all a little 1960s bureaucratic office-world with some fancy pretend-scientific stylings. Phones look like microphones. There's an "authro-ray" scanner that checks identities, a weapon that kills with a flash and something called psychometry which Tarron helpfully explains as: "Experts are able to divine from an object the characteristics of the person who last had contact with that object." In this sort-of futuristic setting, we do have a lingering shot of a keyholes and handle of a very ordinary doorhandle.

My chief complaint with this episode is the awful performances of some of the actors. Altos, for instance, is told that his friend, Eprin, was the person murdered at the start of the episode. Althos has no emotional reaction and willingly follows the Doctor's instructions with a smile. The villian, Ayden, twice makes the same mistake of blurting out in a way that makes him look not only guilty but also incredibly stupid.

What IS delightful is the return of the Doctor. He commands every scene he's in. (From a narrative point of view, it shows how far he's developed his relationship with Ian and Barbara.) The Doctor revels in being not only legal defence for Ian but also guiding the investigation into the murder and theft of they key. The scene in which the Doctor reenacts the muder with Susan and Barbara is, in my opinion, the best we've seen. (Though, again narratively we have no idea what the Doctor's been up to while his companions have been having their adventures. Barbara and Susan are in the city(?) for two days during Ian's arrest before the Doctor appears. No one seems to wonder where he's been.)

In case the viewers have forgotten the purpose of this adventure (it was a month ago that this started), a random character (Kara, the wife of the villainous Ayden) reminds why the Keys of Marinus are important: "Because there are only five of them in the entire universe. It was brought to the city years ago by a man called Arbitan. It was the sworn duty of the Elders to protect it."

I wasn't expecting the sudden left-turn in the story when Ian is still found guilty and sentenced to death. And I didn't notice that Susan had disappeared at the end which set up the cliff-hanger where Barbara receives a note warning her of another death followed by Susan's phone call. Susan's been kidnapped and tells Barbara: "They're going to kill me."

Next episode: The Keys of Marinus

 

Saturday 2nd May 1964 - Doctor Who - The Snows of Terror

 

 

"Are you afraid of me?"

 

A claustrophobic, threatening episode that has a fairy-tale, nightmarish quality. An episode full of snow, woods, wolves, frozen caves and ice soldiers. Events take place in darkness of the course of a few hours. 

 

It is the character of Vasos who seemingly rescues Barbara and Ian that dominates this episode. A large, bearded hunter clad in furs, Vasos uses the situation the in which the travellers find themselves for his own advantage - to aquire the valuable their valuable belongings and for sexual gratification. (Although the show has so far hinted at sexual threats towards Barbara in particular, here we have here explicitly having to defend herself with a knife from Vasos' assault.) He is monstrous and menaces throughout until he is eventually killed by the "demons" he fears.

The plot is quite limited: Ian goes in search of Althos, returns to save Barbara from Vasos, searches for Susan and Sabetha, finds the next key they are searching for, fights the frozen ice soldiers and escapes. I doubt I'm the first person to notice a similarity with the Crystal Maze. The production team make a good effort of using their limited budget into building sets that are effective. I'm not sure that a hot water pipe would resurrect the frozen ice soldiers. (And I'm not even going to question why an alien world has medieval knights and wolves.)

Once again, the Doctor is missing (gone ahead in the story) and the episode suffers from not having him present. Everything is a little rushed and frantic.

The cliff-hanger has Ian discovering a body and knocked unconscious while a mysterious figure steals what looks like the final key.

Much like the last episode, The Screaming Jungle, there's a sense here that the storytelling is too condensed. Rather than rush through some very interesting characters and situations, it's almost that a multiple-episode adventure would have been better.  

 

Next episode: Sentence of Death 

Saturday 25th April 1964 - Doctor Who - The Screaming Jungle

"It's coming again. The jungle is coming. When the whispering starts, it's death, I tell you. Death!"

A completely Doctor-less episode. 

We're after the third of five keys needed by Arbitan, the keeper of a mind-controlling device. This episode is has Ian and Barbara beset by accelerated-growth vegetation that whispers and screams psychically.  As an episode, its a little manic: full of screaming, revolving statues, moving vegetation and suddenly-dying monks. As Barbara observes, the whole place is a booby-trap.

We're also at the point where we can identify patterns in the storytelling: No one believes Susan when she encounters something; Ian tells Barbara to stay put and she goes exploring a tunnel and gets captured; Susan screams at the slightest things and requires comforting by Barbara; Ian ignores Barbara.

Somewhere in this episode is a story about how Darrius, the old man they encounter, has experimented with nature causing the aggressive, accelerated growth we witness. So much is happening that I didn't catch his name until the closing credits. There's an "escape-from-the-series of-locked-rooms" about this episode and - once again - budget doesn't allow any sense of establishing where we are: how extensive is the jungle? is the location behind the wall a city? a castle? a house?

Early in the episode Sabetha realises that the third key found by Barbara is fake. The dying Darrius tells Barbara and Ian that the fake key was used as "A system of mirrors. When the false key was taken I put my traps in motion. Only those warned by Arbitan could avoid them." It's a pity that Arbitan failed to tell anyone about this before he sent them on their quest.

I'm a little alarmed how easily Ian allowed Susan to use the transmat device and travel to the next location in the company of Altos and Sabetha, who they had only just met and had been mind-controlled for most of the episode. I could be kind and say that it's a result of Ian disraught over the loss of Barbara - and, indeed, Ian does some "Wlliam Hartnell darting-eyes" action to show his acute distress.

Next episode: The Snows of Terror.

Saturday 18th April 1964 - Doctor Who - The Velvet Web

 

Saturday 18th April 1964 - Doctor Who - The Velvet Web

 

 

"You are in the city of Morphoton. Our people are perhaps the most contented in the universe. Nothing they desire is denied them."

This was actually quite fun. There’s a dream-like quality to this episode that works really effectively (and manages to overcome the obvious deficiencies with the set) - with the caution that what we see on screen can't really be trusted.

After being concerned about Barbara’s blood on the (transmat) device, the Doctor, Susan and Ian find her in a luxurious palace being attended upon by servants. (It’s one of those Dionysian worlds that original Star Trek would later perfect.) Some sort of alarm goes off when the travellers enter the place that Barbara is which is later revealed to affect their perceptions.

In the very short few minutes that Barbara is separated from the others, she changes clothes and is pampered while reclining on a chase longue. The travellers are offered food such as pomegranates and truffles which are foods clearly hallucinated (who knows what they were really eating!).

They've arrived in the city of Morphoton, where their every wish is seemingly fulfilled. At first Ian and the Doctor are skeptical but the promise of a cutting-edge laboratory win them over. Susan is easily seduced by a silk dress.

Behind the deception are brains with eyes on stalks in bell jars who use a power they call mesmeron. These brains have evolved beyond their bodies but need to ensnare visitors to serve as slaves ("We are the masters of this place. Our brains out-grew our bodies. It is our intelligence that has created this whole city, but we need the help of the human body to feed us and to carry out our orders."). Somno-discs are placed on the foreheads of sleeping travellers which cause them to be hypnotised into perceiving the city as beautiful when it's much the opposite.   

Not much is made of the quest that the travellers are on for Arbitan until the very end when the Doctor decides to split from the others and jump ahead (presumably, in real life, Hartnell was off on holiday and looks pretty happy about it, too). The Doctor must - after the months that they spent together travelling with Marco Polo - have finally developed enough trust in Ian and Barbara to let Susan stay with them. Up until now, the Doctor would have been protective of his grand-daughter and kept her close.

The travellers pick up Altos, Artiban's courier and Sabetha (Arbitan's daughter who had the second key in the form of a medallion... I think; you have to assume this as we're not told anything about the key explicitly) to accompany them. This time, Susan (transmats) goes ahead and the episode ends with her screaming her head off in the... Screaming Forest!

It would have been good to see establishing shots of Morphoton in order to get an idea of where they were. We rely on what the characters tell us and some diegetic sounds of disorder when the influence of the brains is removed. Even a model of the city from distance (both illusory and then as it actually looks). I like the attempts that are made to show things from Barbara's point of view when she is no longer under the influence of the brains - especially the creepy way that Altos comes to speak to her and the way she sees herself and the others. I'm also shocked by the violence she shows in attacking and, presumably, killing the brains. Perhaps the trauma of being captured in the Cave of Five Eyes finally shows itself.

Next episode: The Screaming Jungle

 

Saturday 11th April 1964 - Doctor Who - The Sea of Death

 "Yes, and all our knowledge culminated in the manufacture of this. At the time, it was called the Conscience of Marinus. Marinus, that is the name of our planet. At first, this machine was simply a judge and jury that was never wrong, and unfair. And then we added to it, improved on it, made it more and more sophisticated so that finally it became possible to radiate its power and influence the minds of men throughout the planet. They no longer had to decide what was wrong or right. The machine decided for them."

"Who stabbed the Voord?" rather than "What's happened to Barbara?" is what I was asking at the end of this episode. This is our second alien planet adventure after Skaro and Marinus, a planet with an acid sea, and beaches of glass with crystalline rocks makes an engaging setting, though eerily similar to the start of The Dead Planet. As does the immense, foreboding building at the centre of the island. (I'm going to say that the miniatures used in this episode look rubbish and then pass quickly on.)

The Voord are the series second alien race and very different from the robot-like daleks. arrive at the island in a sea of acid in torpedo-like vehicles. They are human-like, clad in acid-proof diving suits with large helmets sporting an antenna. In this episode we don't see they out of the diving suits so we have no idea whether they are human or - as I suspect - insect-like creatures. Though Arbitan does refer to Yartek, the leader of the Voords as a man. Although they travel together in a group to the island, the Voord split up and try to gain access to the building. We find out later it's because they want access to the "Conscience" a machine at the heart of the building that, when working, controls the minds of everyone on Marinus.

Was it the ostensibly peaceful Arbitan who killed the Voord? Doesn't he pretend NOT to see Susan when he's weirdly wandering the corridors.

There's the usual splitting up, getting lost/captured and being held captive. The travellers encounter the monk-like Arbitan who shows them the Conscience and implores them to begin a quest on his behalf to recover the missing parts of the Conscience so it can operate once more. (Sounds like a video game to me.) When the travellers refuse, Arbitan traps the TARDIS inside a force field and demands that they undertake the quest in order to be allowed to leave Marinus. It's interesting that regaining access to the TARDIS becomes dominant in this adventure. Very much like Marco Polo. (I wonder how many "future" early adventures will do the same?) I'm not sure I trust Arbtan and - yes, of course - his mention of a missing daughter presumably is to set up a meeting in a future episode,

Arbitan provides the travellers with a wrist-worn portable transmat (though just referred to an a "device" onscreen) and the cepisode's cliffhanger comes when Barbara travels using the device and, when the others appear, has disappeared.

I guess that by the time The Keys of Marinus was written and went into production, the BBC knew that they had a hit show on their hands and wanted to re-capture some of the excitement of the Doctor's encounter with the daleks. I enjoyed this (with the caveat that much of my enjoyment with the episode came from it not being a reconsctruction from telesnaps.)

So... who did stab that Voord?

Next episode: The Velvet Web.