Rate and Discuss: The Keys of Marinus

[SiHart]

The Doctor and co go on their first quest, one that takes in filthy rags, potential rapists, men trapped in ice, a screaming jungle and a holiday for the Doctor!

What do you think of Keys of Marinus?

[Rob McCow]

Not nearly as bad as Raymond Cussick would have you believe!

[Dino]

I love this story. I would of loved to have seen it turned into a feature film in the 60's. The cardboard Voord plunging to it's death in part one is a bit daft, but I can see beyond the limitations. It's a fantastic quest adventure. I don't want to come up with ten reasons why it's great but I remember watching it on the BSB Dr Who weekend. And I still find the brains screaming when the jars are smashed up quite blood curdling.
And there's also the unintentional comedy of "Now Barbara! Now!" when Ian and Barbara get their travel dials back. And for an early 60's show this story is quite dark in places. Could you imagine Vasor in a scene all alone with Amy Pond?

[Jason Thompson]

The trouble with this story is that it follows directly from the rich dialogue and sumptuous set and costume design of Marco Polo. We have rubbish sets and seriously insipid dialogue. I part 1 the cramped studio means that people have to be blind not to notice the building and the subs sooner than they do, and that poor Carole Anne Ford has to amble painfully slowly around so that she doesn't cover the distance of the set before the sinister music and the creepy Voord actually come in. People intrude on scenes too early on more than one occasion. Ian says he would have thought the pyramid was impregnable immediately after no less than five people, including himself, have gained access to it without even trying. Then there's the miming of the force field that Carole Anne Ford ruins completely by walking in front of William Russell's frantic hand movements, the cardboard Voord and the incredibly poor stabbing of Arbitan.

Unfortunately it doesn't get better. The premise is fine but the execution is frankly dreadful. There is a lot of confusion about how much time has elapsed, with the writing sometimes running as though the same time has passed for the characters on screen and the viewers, despite the narrative actually running straight on. Vasor's actions make no sense. If he wanted Ian dead and Barbara for 'companionship' why not kill him when he was uncoscious and take Barbara back to the hut alone? Why all the fuss about that gorge in the cave when Ian, Barbara and a bunch of Thals jumped a worse one on Skaro? The business in Millennius relies on some very inept criminals indeed (one of them gives himself away with the 'but you can't know that because I-' things twice and the prosecutor gives himself away by not simply waiting until Ian had been executed to collect the Key. For that matter, why did he have a bag over his head when he of all people would have had the authority to be there collecting the stuff anyway?!

And of course there is the absurdity of Yartek disguising himself as Arbitan despite having great big handlebars on his head.

That's not to say there isn't some good stuff here. Ian and Barbara's scenes alone are wonderfully acted, and Hartnell clearly a) benefited from his holiday and b) loved the material he was given when he got back. Unfortunately it remains an example of hack writing that was way beyond the scope of what could be achieved on the show at the time, and it does show.

[J.R. Southall]

Well... while I can't really argue with a word Jason's written, I do find The Keys of Marinus a very pleasant journey to take, so I've given it a 6. It's fun, and that's not a crime.

[Andrew Curnow]

I think I've mentioned this on another thread recently, but can't now think where - anyway, I got the Target version of this at Christmas 1980, when I was 9. At the time, it was just THE most exciting book - so many different stories, some great cliffhangers, just brilliant.

I've seen the story twice, maybe three times, since then (most recently this Summer when I got the DVD) and each time it's just such a crushing disappointment that the TV version is not only so inferior to the book, but so inferior to the whole of the rest of season 1. As well as the various faults Jason's mentioned above, I'd also like to add the 'guest regulars' of Altos and Sabetha, who are just awful (particularly him) and mark a real sense of 'am dram' to the whole thing. I guess we should admire the ambition - and yet, when that ambition has convincingly given us Skaro and 12th Century China, it's perhaps fair to say that something went wrong on Keys that thankfully didn't go wrong elsewhere in that first year. It's just... awful.

[SiHart]

I agree with Andrew and Jason- the premise is great, the book was wonderful, on TV it was disappointing. That said I do rather like the bits in the City of Morphoton- there's some great bits in that sequence.

[Jason Thompson]

The thing I love about the stuff in Morphoton is how Barbara manges to get herself locked up, and the people searching for her have no idea that they have sucessfully incarcerated her by accident!

[SiHart]

I always laugh at the Doctor and Ian examining an old cup thinking it's an electron microscope!

[Stuart Wallis]

Well isn't it?

I pretty much agree with the "The premis is good..." factor. The trial is good, the jungle is pretty weak, Morphoton not bad and the ice caves section promised more than it delivered.

Average fare. 5/10