DOCTOR WHO-THE KEYS OF MARINUS

 When the travelers, at least, after seven episodes get inside the TARDIS to finally depart, hearing that sound of the ship vanishing is a joy to viewers as it means so much then…unlike today where we usually hear it at least two times or more an episode. One can really feel for their dilemma and when it is over, we’re relieved and we look forward to their next adventure and landing and as Marco wonders, will it be the past or the future?

 

We don’t really know WHEN the KEYS OF MARINUS takes place as it is on an alien planet. And what a planet. As there is no cliffhanger in the end, the links to the next episode THE SEA OF DEATH and the entire next story, now collectively called THE KEYS OF MARINUS, are just that Ian is wearing his Marco Polo China silk jacket and in the first episode, no mention made of their previous adventure. This might be a first. Although many fans malign this story, there plenty of things that are firsts and hardly lasts.

 

If all of MARCO POLO is unique, all of THE KEYS OF MARINUS set up things that…will be mainstays of DOCTOR WHO in every form …well, forever. First, the story opens with no real link to the previous story other than Ian’s costume. There is no go over because there was no cliffhanger from MARCO POLO. The danger starts at once: the sea of made of acid and the beach full of sand that has turned to glass. There is the usual locked out of the TARDIS, which happened for three months in MARCO. There’s a giant impregnable fortress (THE FIVE DOCTORS, THE MIND OF EVIL and others). Strange beings arrive via the sea (THE SEA DEVILS and others) and one even grabs Susan as Tegana did in the last story.

 

There are wrist bracelets that…can whisk someone away from one place to another (think Time Bands/Rings like in GENESIS OF THE DALEKS and REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN).

 

There’s a quest starting for five keys (the entire KEY TO TIME season, from THE RIBOS OPERATION to THE ARMEGEDDON FACTOR). And a trial (the ill advised TRIAL OF A TIME LORD but others as well). Jungles. Ice areas of the planet. Someone puts a forcefield around the TARDIS so the travelers cannot get to it (DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN and more).

 

Alien killers from the ice (THE ICE WARRIORS, THE SEEDS OF DOOM and THE SEEDS OF DEATH and others). The travelers are separated again. Some of the companions are brainwashed for the first time. The Voord themselves seem like humans in scuba gear but there’s something very (VERY) CYBERMAN like about them, so much in fact that authors have been trying to link them together since the 1980s or so (in at least one comic story and one short story and/or novel). There are brains or things in jars (BRAIN OF MORBIUS and probably others) that control things. Trap walls, trap doors in the floor, explosions. The Doc is gone for an episode or so (something that would never happen today but he might be given a cameo, even in the NEW Doctor Who series that started in 2005 and goes on to this day).

 

All of this comes later. It’s amazing how much of the show’s short past is reiterated here but it’s even more amazing how much of its future is imagined here in this story, which might be the only one to give ONE planet different locales and settings. Some of the backdrop will later be echoed in LOST IN SPACE’s THE DERELICT spaceship interiors.

 

This is only part of why I really like THE KEYS OF MARINUS.

 

Of note: the TARDIS appears without ANY sound whatsoever and it seems to appear more solid faster tha most materializations. 

THE VELVET WEB, THE SCREAMING JUNGLE, THE SNOWS OF TERROR, SENTENCE OF DEATH, THE KEYS OF MARINUS

 

As noted before, lots of action, a faster pace, changing locales but on one planet (at least it’s implied it is one planet but other dialog…). This is not without flaws but something like this would never be tried today: a simple adventure with various settings in one story without a lot of complications for the Doctor’s timeline and past and all that nonsense that Moffat kept giving us.

 

KEYS OF MARINUS is, to me and against much fan lore and thought, charming and wonderful and exciting. There is a shaking ice cave wall (in the snow episodes) and what seems to be a mike or something moving in episode one and two (briefly). The ice soldiers aren’t completely explained (how’d they get there? WHAT or WHO are they?) nor why the gang leave their disks behind when they’ve already overpowered Vassir, who then strands them in the ice cave with almost no way across the gap between cliffs.

 

Another thing that goes against the grain is that the First Doctor, here, is utterly charming but he’s been so since EDGE OF DESTRUCTION and even in THE DALEKS, he had his moments of sheer charm, joy, and even warmth. Here he gives wonderful goodbyes and hellos to even those he’s only known a short time. He’s in court here for the first time, this time defending an innocent Ian and he’s charming and confident there, too. He laughs with Ian and jokes with the others. He stares into space when he has lost Ian’s case, worrying about his friend and contemplating how he can reopen the case. He touches Sabetha and he tells everyone how charming Altos is.

 

On Altos: he wears what can only be described as something utterly daring for the 1960s and would not even be worn today in most prime time action oriented family shows (maybe?!). He has on what amounts to a sort of speedo or loin cloth with only a long robe that covers his sides but his legs are almost completely bare and long. And Ian has to rub them in the bitter cold to bring back circulation!

 

On Barbara: she shows that females in the 60s could hold their own…at least for a bit and not as demonstrative or as balancing as the current climate but still…even a bit during this era of some female empowerment was welcome. Susan, is, of course, a screaming mess through most of this and sometimes even Barbara notes that Susan might bring her down. That said, Susan is in her element in the trial “detective” mode…that is until she’s kidnapped and threatened with death. Barbara on the other hand, inadvertently, through no power of her own, escapes the brainwashing of the …uhm, brains with eyes, and it is quite disturbing to see her friends staring over her, believing she is ill in some way when THEY ARE! It’s almost like a TWILIGHT ZONE. Other parts of the story seem almost like BORIS KARLOFF’S THRILLER. And DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS. Like most DW, there’s a lot of death (at least one per episode).

 

All in all, these five episodes, the rest of THE KEYS OF MARINUS story, are fast watch, entertaining and enjoyable if you use your imagination and see what it was Nation and the show was getting at…high adventure on a low budget and depicting various alien settings: jungle, ice, ice caves, snow storms, a city in revolt against TWILIGHT ZONE inspired brainwashing by evil slug things in jars, and even a mystery and a kidnapping. A female villain. A conspiracy and of course, a power mad villain, the head of an alien invasion force.

 

I’m afraid the Voord, at least here, are never fully explained or given any depth. Are they men in rubber scuba suits or is that supposed to be their attached skin? In the first episode it is clear there is some kind of scuba wet suit…but whey then do the ones in the last episode keep them on when it seems they’ve been there some time.

 

In DW, imagination and confidence goes a lot further than intricate and highly questionable Moffat/MattSmith/Capaldi hijinks of “I’ll explain later” and gimmickry and bait and switch or cheating “deaths” and illogical slapdashery. The Classic Series and 2005 to 2008 hold, what is to me, one series, the best of DW thus far. KEYS OF MARINUS may never be a fan favorite but I love it.

 

Oh, and THE TARDIS vanishes as quietly as it appeared, not one sound, just a fairly quick dematerialization.