What a relief! This one is good. Very good.

Even though the title heavily indicates “SNAKES” I didn’t expect Snakedance to be a sequel to Kinda. Setting the new story thousands of years after the original is a master stroke which allows the Mara to have fallen into legend and provides a blank slate on which a renaissance society has developed out of their less developed ancestors.

Tegan does a good job in her various forms of possession, repeating the right cues from Kinda but elevating the performance further in certain particularly crazed scenes. The snake POV vision they deploy helps drive this state home to the audience, it’s affecting. The idea that she’s been carrying remnants of the Mara with her since last season is creepy!

Martin Clunes is a rare, highly familiar face and he plays the young, overprivileged, spoilt leader well. His lack of respect for ordinary people and sneering disregard for pretty much anything is a bold and interesting trait that stands out against the (for example) the bland Prince the Third Doctor met in Peladon.

The psychedelic elements of Snakedance echo those of Kinda but are channelled into a more useful force for the plot. It's great to see that Twin Peaks energy put to such expert use. It not only surprises but moves the story forward. I love the lore and world building. A mythology oddly made convincing through the scientific rigour it is dismissed with. I like that when people are taken over by the Mara they still inhabit different personalities, again, this makes the ridiculous premise feel more realistic.

This is the first story in a long while that both starts well AND wraps up in a satisfying way. The ceremony at the end of part four is a clever and mad idea, reflecting the farce of tradition and the events of Kinda in a warped and funny way. Martin Clunes’ outfit is very, very funny. The snakes in this story look tonnes better than the ones in Kinda too…! All of this is outshone by the brilliant, emotional character moment we get with Tegan, someone who has been plagued by the Mara for a full season by this point and finally gets respite after a full story of being frenzied.