Doctor Who Retro Review
Serial 005: "The Keys of Marinus"
Starring: William Hartnell
By T. Scott Edwards
Sigh – Terry F*****g Nation again. After
the exceptional Marco Polo, the next
story was always going to have to try really hard to impress. The Keys of Marinus sadly fails to
deliver. It is entertaining, silly nonsense, and the concept is brilliant –
indeed, it's one that will be returned to, far more successfully, during Tom
Baker's tenure. Sadly, though, this doesn't work for precisely the reason that
the Key to Time season does. As a
series of linked stories, an overall arc with a final goal, the concept works,
but due to time constraints, and that great enemy of Doctor Who, budget restraints, this serial sadly flounders. Don't
get me wrong – there are a number of excellent ideas in there; the episode set
in Morphoton is based upon a brilliantly effective idea. Indeed, it features
the first hypnosis in Doctor Who,
something which will be relied upon as a plot device time and time again. But
without time for some of the stories to develop, it all seemed a little brief
and loosely handled.
There are things to get excited about by
this serial, or course – the first ever materialisation, some wonderful models,
and the beautiful Altos are all amongst them. Hartnell also has some corkers in
this script, which are laudable – his point about shoes in the first episode
never fails to make me chuckle. It is just that, after such a natural, strong
moral adventure as Marco Polo, Nation's
script all feels a little too flat and staid. Conversations of educational
import are thrown in, crowbarred into discussion where they simply do not sound
natural. Whilst Lucarotti uses education almost subliminally, Nation tacks
random points on here and there. Take, for example, the discussion of the
ancient pyramids of Egypt and South America whilst they inspect Arbitan's
monumental home. Despite the fact that Susan has disappeared, and they really
should be looking for her, they are, instead, admiring the architecture. It all
feels so... well, glib, for want of a better word. What is nice about this
particular exchange is that it foreshadows the next serial, another Lucarotti
gem The Aztecs, where Barbara's
fascination for the South American culture is the driving force behind the
entire narrative.
Arbitan's home is, in and of itself, a preposterous
joke. As Voord and crew alike are swallowed up by the walls, we are told that
Arbitan has tried devoutly to keep the Conscience safe. Perhaps if it weren't
so ridiculously easy to enter the building, it would have remained safer? For
one thing, he certainly wouldn't have been murdered in the closing minutes of
the story. And after all of the lengthy and detailed discussion in the previous
story, the suggestion that a machine could force every one on Marinus to have a
conscience against their own free will is rather disturbing. Whilst the Doctor
and crew at first refuse to help, it is simply because they feel like they're
being put out by the whole thing, not on the grounds that it is morally
reprehensible. In fact, it isn't until the closing monologue of the entire
story, 5 and a half episodes later, that the Doctor admits that he thinks that
such a machine should never have been allowed to exist, whereby making those
preceding episodes irrelevant anyway.
The Voord are quite an interesting idea
– as is typical with the 'monsters' of the first few series', costumes always
led to rather unbelievable creations. Here, though, they simply look like men
in wetsuits. Which is shit. But, and this is the interesting thing, it is as
though the production team realise that it is shit, and so instead make a point
of saying that they wear wetsuits. The
dreadful costume is actually intentional, and serves almost as a private joke
at the viewers' expense. The Voord are humanoid, at least, and don this
protective clothing because of the acid sea surrounding the island. Sadly, less
convincing is the poor Voord who plummets to his/her/its death – clearly a
one-dimensional cardboard cut-out.
Once the story gets off properly, we
reach the city of Morphoton, a land of luxury and grandeur, which is actually
disgusting and rundown, but everyone has been drugged into believing it. And
this is where the entire serial begins to fall apart. Last week, we were on a
glass beach, looking out over a sea of acid – "The Sea of Death", in
fact! – and inside an enormous temple dominated by a gigantic machine which
controls the will of all of the inhabitants of Marinus. This week, we're in a
dilapidated city ruled by brains in jars, where the citizens see splendour abound.
Next week we're in "The Screaming Jungle", the week after the cast
are buried in "The Snows of Terror", and the last two weeks are
within the city of Millenius, before hopping back to Arbitan's temple. The
issue, of course, is that for each of these various locations, unique sets need
building. Within the budget constraints of the time, they did their very best –
Raymond Cusick's design work is again very respectable considering what he had
to work with. In fact, an issue they had to overcome is that Cusick spent much
of his budget on the Conscience machine, leaving him to scrounge and salvage
much of the sets from other locations and TV shows.
The biggest victim of these financial
restraints, though, is "The Velvet Web", where through clever editing
we are able to see the two perspectives in tandem – through Barbara's eyes, the
filth and grime is disgusting, yet from the perspective of the others, the
place is paradise. I love the scene where Susan proffers her new dress, and
Barbara mutters "dirty!" like she were scolding a young boy for
looking at pornography. The difficulty faced by John Gorrie and the crew,
however, is insurmountable; neither is the grandeur manageable, or the filth
disgusting enough. There are only marginal differences between the two sets. Particularly
considering it was filmed 'as live', it is respectable, as the two camera
angles only allowed brief pauses to reset where editing was almost impossible. But
Nation's script, despite being so basic, is far too brave to manage it all
convincingly enough.
As they eventually escape from Morphoton
into "The Screaming Jungle", Susan heads off first, despite that not
having worked too well for Barbara earlier on. She arrives in the jungle, and
proceeds to flagellate herself, tearing at her hair and moaning and screaming
constantly. Once the others arrive, she comes across as a needy only child,
refusing to grow up – she is desperate to go with the Doctor, despite him
evidently needing a break from her whining. The management of Hartnell's
holiday – the first of many – is well controlled, as he makes the decision to
head off for the fourth key, leaving the rest of the crew in charge for the
next two episodes. Again, the sets are the biggest downfall for this serial –
not only did the script demand a jungle and a house which will be invaded by
the plant life, but it also needed a complex series of boobytraps which were
believable. And again, Cusick has done his best, but they are simply rubbish –
wobbly sets are excusable, but compared with how magical and wonderfully
realised Marco Polo was, this just
looks inexcusably bad.
Edmund Warwick's appearance as Darius is
wonderful, though. His suspicion of Barbara and Ian is great – even though
seconds after trapping them both he calls for help as a vine attaches itself to
his neck. Warwick would later appear twice as the Doctor himself, doubling for
Hartnell and appearing as a robot version of him in a later Nation story. Here,
moments before dying, he trusts the two companions, and whispers a scientific
formula to them. Again, my issue with this is twofold – first, Ian, as a
chemistry teacher, should surely have figured this out quicker? Secondly,
considering the danger they are in, why did he not simply say "In the jar"?
It is convoluted, but allowing a certain degree of 'education' to slip in, I
guess.
Once the second key is acquired, the
crew are off to "The Snows of Terror", buried in jabolite and
freezing to the bones. This episode works, to some extent, based purely on the
appearance of Vasor, the trapper. Francis de Woolff is brilliant, playing the
villain like a bad guy from a DW Griffiths film in the 1920s – all that he is
really missing is a lengthy enough moustache to twiddle as he raises his arms,
tiptoeing around the room after Barbara. And this is where it becomes mildly
disturbing. Doctor Who is principally
a children's' television show. Whilst adults do, of course watch it, it was
conceived as an educational adventure series. Here, though, the threat of
sexual violence and danger is unnerving. He wants to rape Barbara. We know
this. We can tell. It isn't subtle, and as such even children must have picked
up on it?
Education worms its way in here, again,
as we are told about frostbite and the correct way to prevents you from losing
a finger. Likewise, inside the scenes, a comment is shoehorned in about hot
springs and the release of hot water from deep within the Earth. The scenes in
the caves are relatively tense, but again are let down by the set clearly
simply being wrapped in cellophane. The sequences on the bridge are acceptably
scary – and yet this is the only time that Carole Ann Ford doesn't scream. Once the crew have returned to Vasor's cabin, ice
soldiers in tow, to retrieve their wristbands, they leave the rapist to be
skewered by a sword and head off to Millenius, where Ian is promptly knocked
out and framed for murder.
The episodes in Millenius are by far the
strongest, as the budget for the sets was twice that of the other locations. As
a show, Doctor Who was still finding
its feet, establishing exactly what sort of show it was. As such, the courtroom
drama model works well here, with Hartnell back from a break and on top form. I
can imagine few people better suited to represent you than Hartnell's Doctor,
who is all bluster and rage when arguing his case. Again, for a children's TV
show, it is surprisingly glib about wife beating, as we hear a full-force slap
across the face from the other side of a locked door. When the wifebeater is
murdered in the courtroom, shot by an unknown assailant, the cast give a
respectable gravitas to the situation, as silence descends, and they all look
around, shocked.
Of course, it is quickly unwound, Ian is
saved from execution, and the bad guys are caught from their own stupidity, and
our intrepid explorers, along with Sabetha and the irresistible Altos, return
to Arbitan's home, only to discover that Yartek is impersonating Arbitan – very
badly. What frustrates me here is that if the wetsuits are only protective
clothing, why are they still wearing them inside the temple? And if they aren't
just clothing, then the scene in the first episode with the empty wetsuit makes
no sense whatsoever, unless the acid can boil the insides of a Voord, but not
the flesh. But then there was a tear in the suit, which is how the acid got
in... Oh, never mind. But the point remains that if Yartek were so desperate to
appear like Arbitan, then surely a more appropriate vocal, as well as a cloak
which didn't make his face-mask look so blatant, would have done a better job. However,
Ian sees through the charade (if he hadn't, we would not have been impressed)
and gives him the wrong key, leading the temple, and the Conscience, to
explode.
Scott Edwards is a teacher of English and Theatre Studies at Barnard Castle School in the North East of England, with a BAHons in English Literature and Film Studies. He is also a self-professed ‘ming-mong,' and in addition to http://timelordapprentice.blogspot.co.uk/ he also runs http://www.facebook.com/Classic.Doctor.Who. You can also follow him on Twitter: @TimelordTSE.
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